ABSTRACT
The national tales of Lady Morgan and Maria Edgeworth go to the heart of the early nineteenth century British 'culture wars', and in addition offer important examples of the many ways in which 'Irishness' played an important role in the construction of British national cultural identity. Some critics have noted that Edgeworth and Lady Morgan represented the nation in their Irish novels in response to perceived inadequacies of the masculinized discourse of historiography. Ormond is a Bildungsroman that traces the social and political education of an Anglo-Irish orphan. Ormond's social education takes the form of a disciplinary domesticity, which is presented much more thoroughly throughout the novel than his economic regime, a consideration which signals Edgeworth's chief concern. Ormond conforms to a disciplined male sexuality in the wake of Moriarity Carroll's shooting as a result of his social and political education under the guidance of the Annalys.
