ABSTRACT
At the outset of the newly-created Union of Great Britain and Ireland, hopes were high in some quarters that the joining of these two nations, despite their troubled past, would lead to an eventual recognition of the Irish people's rights, and allow them to more fully participate in not only their own government, but the larger British culture as well. In The Wild Irish Girl, the language, religion, and traditions of the Gaelic Irish, embodied in the heroine Glorvina, wholly seduce the English adventurer Horatio. Owenson's treatment of Roman Catholicism highlights the way in which The Wild Irish Girl seeks to recuperate native culture in the eyes of the colonists. Parallels between Owenson's hero and Shakespeare's Mortimer are evident in the manner by which Horatio meets Glorvina. As many commentators have noted, the relationship between Horatio and Glorvina, which develops into love and a true union of equal partners, allegorizes the relationship between Great Britain and Ireland.
