thriving industrial town, with ironworks, tan-yards, potteries and paper mills. Its principal buildings are the fine Renaissance parish church and the fortress-like 17th-century town hall. It derives its prosperity from the fact that it is the most important custom-house in Spain for the overland trade with the rest of Europe. Irun is also on the chief highway for travellers and mails. It is the terminus of some important narrow-gauge mining railways and steam tramways, which place it in communication with the mining districts of Guipúzcoa and Navarre, and with the valuable oak, pine and beech forests of both provinces. There are hot mineral springs in the town.
IRVINE, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and seaport
of Ayrshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 9607. It is situated on the
north bank of the estuary of the Irvine, 2912 m. S.W. of Glasgow
by the Caledonian railway, with a station also on the Glasgow
& South Western railway. It is connected with the suburb
of Fullarton on the south side of the river by a stone bridge,
which was built in 1746 and widened in 1827. Alexander II.
granted it a charter, which was confirmed by Robert Bruce.
Towards the end of the 17th century it was reckoned the third
shipping port in Scotland (Port Glasgow and Leith being the
leaders), and though its importance in this respect declined
owing to the partial silting-up of the harbour, its water-borne
trade revived after 1875, the sandy bar having been removed
and the wharfage extended and improved. The public buildings
include the town hall, academy (1814) and fever hospital. The
principal historical remains are the square tower of Stanecastle
and the ancient Seagate Castle, which contains some good specimens
of Norman architecture. The industries include engine-making,
shipbuilding, iron- and brass-founding, the manufacture
of chemicals, brewing and soap-making. Irvine unites with
Ayr, Campbeltown, Inveraray and Oban in sending one member
to parliament. The exports consist principally of coal, iron
and chemical products, and the imports of grain, timber, limestone,
ores and general produce. At Dreghorn, 2 m. to the S.E.
(pop. 1155) coal and iron are worked.
IRVING, EDWARD (1792–1834), Scottish church divine,
generally regarded as the founder of the “Catholic Apostolic Church”
(q.v.), was born at Annan, Dumfriesshire, on the 4th
of August 1792. By his father’s side, who followed the occupation
of a tanner, he was descended from a family long known
in the district, and the purity of whose Scottish lineage had been
tinged by alliance with French Protestant refugees; but it
was from his mother’s race, the Lowthers, farmers or small proprietors
in Annandale, that he seems to have derived the most
distinctive features of his personality. The first stage of his
education was passed at a school kept by “Peggy Paine,” a
relation of the well-known author of the Age of Reason, after
which he entered the Annan academy, taught by Mr Adam
Hope, of whom there is a graphic sketch in the Reminiscences
of Thomas Carlyle. At the age of thirteen he entered the
university of Edinburgh. In 1809 he graduated M.A.; and in
1810, on the recommendation of Sir John Leslie, he was chosen
master of an academy newly established at Haddington, where
he became the tutor of Jane Welsh, afterwards famous as Mrs
Carlyle. He became engaged in 1812 to Isabella Martin, whom
in 1823 he married; but it may be at once stated here that
meanwhile he gradually fell in love with Jane Welsh, and she
with him. He tried to get out of his engagement with Miss
Martin, but was prevented by her family. If he had married
Miss Welsh, his life, as well as hers, would have been very different.
It was Irving who in 1821 introduced Carlyle to her.
His appointment at Haddington he exchanged for a similar one at Kirkcaldy in 1812. Completing his divinity studies by a series of partial sessions, he was “licensed” to preach in June 1815, but continued to discharge his scholastic duties for three years. He devoted his leisure, not only to mathematical and physical science, but to a course of reading in English literature, his bias towards the antique in sentiment and style being strengthened by a perusal of the older classics, among whom Richard Hooker was his favourite author. At the same time his love of the marvellous found gratification in the wonders of the Arabian Nights, and it is further characteristically related of him that he used to carry continually in his waistcoat pocket a miniature copy of Ossian, passages from which he frequently recited with “sonorous elocution and vehement gesticulation.”
In the summer of 1818 he resigned his mastership, and, in order to increase the probability of obtaining a permanent appointment in the church, took up his residence in Edinburgh. Although his exceptional method of address seems to have gained him the qualified approval of certain dignitaries of the church, the prospect of his obtaining a settled charge seemed as remote as ever, and he was meditating a missionary tour in Persia when his departure was arrested by steps taken by Dr Chalmers, which, after considerable delay, resulted, in October 1819, in Irving being appointed his assistant and missionary in St John’s parish, Glasgow. Except in the case of a select few, Irving’s preaching awakened little interest among the congregation of Chalmers, Chalmers himself, with no partiality for its bravuras and flourishes, comparing it to “Italian music, appreciated only by connoisseurs”; but as a missionary among the poorer classes he wielded an influence that was altogether unique. The benediction “Peace be to this house,” with which, in accordance with apostolic usage, he greeted every dwelling he entered, was not inappropriate to his figure and aspect, and it is said “took the people’s attention wonderfully,” the more especially after the magic of his personality found opportunity to reveal itself in close and homely intercourse. This half-success in a subordinate sphere was, however, so far from coinciding with his aspirations that he had again, in the winter of 1821, begun to turn his attention towards missionary labour in the East, when the possibility of fulfilling the dream of his life was suddenly revealed to him by an invitation from the Caledonian church, Hatton Garden, London, to “make trial and proof” of his gifts before the “remnant of the congregation which held together.” Over that charge he was ordained in July 1822. Some years previously he had expressed his conviction that “one of the chief needs of the age was to make inroad after the alien, to bring in the votaries of fashion, of literature, of sentiment, of policy and of rank, who are content in their several idolatries to do without piety to God and love to Him whom He hath sent”; and, with an abruptness which must have produced on him at first an effect almost astounding, he now had the satisfaction of beholding these various votaries thronging to hear from his lips the words of wisdom which would deliver them from their several idolatries and remodel their lives according to the fashion of apostolic times.
This sudden leap into popularity seems to have been occasioned in connexion with a veiled allusion to Irving’s striking eloquence made in the House of Commons by Canning, who had been induced to attend his church from admiration of an expression in one of his prayers, quoted to him by Sir James Mackintosh. His commanding stature, the symmetry of his form, the dark and melancholy beauty of his countenance, rather rendered piquant than impaired by an obliquity of vision, produced an imposing impression even before his deep and powerful voice had given utterance to its melodious thunders; and harsh and superficial half-truths enunciated with surpassing ease and grace of gesture, and not only with an air of absolute conviction but with the authority of a prophetic messenger, in tones whose magical fascination was inspired by an earnestness beyond all imitation of art, acquired a plausibility and importance which, at least while the orator spoke, made his audience entirely forgetful of their preconceived objections against them. The subject-matter of his orations, and his peculiar treatment of his themes, no doubt also, at least at first, constituted a considerable part of his attractive influence. He had specially prepared himself, as he thought, for “teaching imaginative men, and political men, and legal men, and scientific men who bear the world in hand”; and he did not attempt to win their attention to abstract and worn-out theological arguments, but discussed the opinions, the poetry, the politics, the manners and customs of the time, and this not with philosophical comprehensiveness, not in terms of warm eulogy or measured blame,
