Clegg’s Caricatures took aim at Nationalist politicians’ ‘incompetence and corruption’
Several Cartoon festivals have been held in this country over the years. In 2013, Tim Leatherbarrow and a band of his fellow pen wielders, some hailing from Ireland and others from the UK, joined forces to host the Cootehill Cartoon Festival. It was a first for the county and proved a great draw. But the trip to Cootehill for Tim was a much more personal journey to re-engage with the county from where his family the Gallaghers originated. Over the past thirty years or so, Tim and his fellow cartoonists have assembled to host cartoon extravaganzas in Dublin, Wicklow, Galway and Cavan. Amongst his troupe were people who had worked on the likes of the Beano, New Statesman and Viz. Perhaps, Tim will return sometime to the Cavan-Monaghan region with another Cartoon Festival. This week’s column considers the cartoonist, illustrator and journalist Joseph Robert Clegg who was born in the Lakeland county during the mid-19th century. His cartoons were often political and initialled JRC. Courting controversy was no trouble to Joseph R. Clegg, reporter and cartoonist whose work lampooned 19th century Irish nationalist politicians if they stepped out of line. Certainly, cartoons are very useful if we want to highlight a gripping or shocking news report. The American Cartoonist Joe Baron sees them as a visual aid that adds an edge to a story. A picture tells a thousand tales and widens the readership. Kids comics are another fantastic form of entertainment for the children and the young at heart. In recent times Marvel, Beano and Batman have all leapt from the page to the silver screen and continue to enthral. Graphic novels and television cartoons drawn in a Japanese artform known as manga, or anime, are all the rage among Gen Z (generation zoomer). According to the online website Irish Comics Wiki, Joseph R. Clegg as an illustrator too and drew illustrations for the novel ‘Not Divided’ by Ethel Greene. Her book was serialised in the ‘Weekly Freeman’ in 1885.
Born in 1852, Clegg’s father and mother were Joe and Eliza Clegg (née Clarke). His parents were married in the Church of Ireland parish church at Kilmore (Kilmore Cathedral was built towards the end of the decade) on August 8, 1850. Eliza's place of abode was Crossdoney and the register lists her as the daughter of Patrick Clarke, a soldier in the Scottish regiment. A later Irish census reveals that Eliza was born in Stirling, Scotland. Her husband Joe was by profession commonly known as a ‘peeler’ meaning a constable in the Royal Irish Constabulary. An account in the Anglo-Celt from 1847 mentioning sub-constable Clegg suggests he may have served in either the Belturbet or Templeport district.
The Clegg’s son having finished school found himself gravitate towards writing and drawing. He found work in the newspaper business. Joseph's earliest known cartoons for Irish newspapers were drawn while he plied his trade as a journalist in Omagh. His series of politically inspired cartoons perhaps added an unfiltered flavour to his interpretation of events in Co Tyrone during the by-election of 1881. Clegg himself had Unionist sympathies and in outlook his drawings usually emanated from his personal views as a supporter of the Act of Union that created the United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland) and Ireland in 1800.
Sentiments
Irish Comics Wiki also highlights important aspects of his career and provides further sources, which when consulted shone a broader light on this otherwise unknown midland cartoonist. His artwork we are informed graced the pages of a variety of loyalist publications, including his own ‘illustrated column’, titled ‘Dan’s Dublin Letter’ for the St Stephen’s Review, a ‘conservative and traditional English magazine'.
In the early 1890s he penned numerous caricatures for papers like the ‘Unionist Journal’, and ‘The Warder and Dublin Weekly Mail.’ In the 1890s Clegg served as editor of the ‘Tyrone Constitution'.
By the first decade of the 20th century, Clegg was churning out anti-Home Rule caricatures for pamphlets produced by the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union whose aim it appears was to chastise ‘nationalist politicians’ who stepped out of line. His cartoons aimed to stir up negative sentiment over matters like ‘incompetence and corruption'.
By the 1900s, he worked for Dublin newspapers and later served as a war correspondent for a ‘London daily’ during the Great War. He died in July 1922.
Indeed, in the general run of things, most of us enjoy a fun pen and ink drawing. In our present world, Joseph R. Clegg could easily expand those ink skills further to cover current affairs, of which there is plenty to see on the global stage. The following is a great quote from another cartoonist Frank Miller which may inspire all those budding artists out there: ‘As a cartoonist, I'm a caricaturist. First you find out what somebody really looks like, and then you find out what they "really" look like.’ Clegg’s artwork followed that dictum.
If you want to know more about caricaturist Clegg’s work, then the following sources should whet your appetite. See: Joel A. Hollander’s book, ‘Coloured Political Lithographs as Irish Propaganda’, and also, Lawrence W. McBride’s, ‘Historical Imagery in Irish Political Illustrations.’
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