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The Irish Declaration Of Independence

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The cartoon above is called “The Irish Declaration of Independence that We Are Familiar With” published in 1883 by Frederick Burr Opper. Opper is regarded as one of the pioneers of American newspaper comic strips, best known for his comic strip Happy Hooligan. His comic characters were featured in magazine gag cartoons, covers, political cartoons and comic strips for six decades. The magazine this cartoon is featured in was called Puck Magazine. Puck Magazine was America’s first successful humor magazine, which is to say it was long-lived (1876-1918), influential, and quite prosperous. It published three large color cartoons in each issue, which for the first ten years or so were all political in nature. Later they were increasingly purely comic or illustrative. At Puck’s height, the cartoons were among the country’s most important political pronouncements of the week. In addition to that, Puck played a critical role in the evolution of American humor, moving the art from its tall-tales and dialect-laden roots toward the more urbane and literary humor associated with magazines like the New Yorker.
While this cartoon is based in America the prejudice against Irish natives and immigrants had long been in issue. Over the centuries Ireland has dealt with conquerors, loss of culture, poverty, hunger and political strife. The emerald isle was entirely conquered and colonized by the British in the second part of the sixteenth century. After the colonization Ireland’s inhabitants

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