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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
This paper is concerned with the teaching of Irish history in Great Britain, with the students, the teachers and their subject. Each merits a brief mention before any detailed discussion, in order to draw attention to the problems that exist, and to clear up any misunderstanding or ignorance about the task that is to be performed.
In the great controversy between Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine occasioned by the French Revolution, Paine made at least one telling remark in his refutation of Burke’s defence of tradition and usage: he declared that an hereditary monarch was about as sensible as an hereditary mathematician. An hereditary Irish studies student in Great Britain makes about as much sense as both. Much nonsense is talked about the inherited genes of the Irish in Britain, on the assumption that (somehow) an interest in, and ability to comprehend, Irish studies can be transmitted from one generation of Irish immigrants to another. This may be the case; but if it is, it probably takes its rise from social rather than hereditary factors; and it is no more likely to produce an intelligent, perceptive student of Ireland than of France.
1 An earlier version was read at a conference held at St Peter’s College, Oxford, 20-22 Sept. 1985, under the auspices of Anglo-Irish Encounter. It was at this conference that the British Association for Irish Studies was formed.
2 Paine, Tom, The rights of man (1791-2; Penguin ed., London, 1983), pt II, p. 198.Google Scholar
3 Referred to above, n. 1.
4 Paulin, Tom, Ireland and the English crisis (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1984), p. 155.Google Scholar
5 Whyte, John, Is research on the Northern Ireland problem worth while? (Belfast, 1983), p. 4.Google Scholar
6 This controversy dates from Victorian times, when E.A. Freeman, representing the ‘Germanists’, clashed with J.H. Round, representing the ’Romanists’; more recently F.M. Stenton sought to put the problem into perspective ( Briggs, Asa, Saxons, Normans and Victorians (London, 1966))Google Scholar. However, the dispute continues: Douglas, D.C., William the Conqueror (London, 1964)Google Scholar, and, more strongly, Brown, R.A., The Normans and the Norman conquest (London, 1965)Google Scholar, stress the Norman contribution; Loyn, H.R., The governance of Anglo-Saxon England, 500-1087 (London, 1984)Google Scholar, emphasises the Saxon legacy
7 Cf. Cullen, L.M., The emergence of modern Ireland, 1600–1900 (London, 1981), pp 255–6.Google Scholar It has been pointed out to me that the Irish government was preoccupied in the year 1969, as the Northern Ireland crisis deepened; but Professor Ronan Fanning tells me that a stone marking the spot where the Normans first landed is from time to time flung into the sea in protest.
8 Bradshaw, Brendan in Times Literary Supplement, 5 July 1985, p. 742.Google Scholar
9 Griffiths, Ralph A., The English realm and nation in the later middle ages (Swansea, 1983)Google Scholar, considers these and other related themes.
10 Beckett, J.C. discusses these dilemmas in The study of Irish history (Belfast, 1963).Google Scholar
11 Jones, Ieuan Gwynedd, ‘The language of politics in nineteenth–century Wales’ (University of Wales O’Donnell lecture, University College of Swansea, 3 Mar 1987).Google Scholar
12 Pocock, J.A., The limits and divisions of British history (University of Strathclyde, Centre for the Study of Public Policy, Paper No. 31, Glasgow, 1979)Google Scholar, considers these issues. See also his ’British history: a plea for a new subject’ in Journal of Modern History, xlvii (1975), pp 601–21. I have been greatly influenced by Pocock’s work.
13 Jones, David, The last rising (Oxford, 1985).Google Scholar
14 Tuathaigh, Gearóid Ó, ‘Nineteenth–century Irish politics: the case for “normalcy”’ in Anglo–Irish Studies, 1 (1975), pp 71–81Google Scholar, Hoppen, K. Theodore, Elections, politics and society in Ireland, 1832–1885 (Oxford, 1984).Google Scholar
15 Ó Tuathaigh, loc. cit. For a special study of one aspect of ‘normalcy’, see O’Day, Alan, The English face of Irish nationalism (Dublin, 1977).Google Scholar
16 At a seminar in the History Department, University College of Swansea, May 1985.
17 Cooke, A.B. and Vincent, John, The governing passion: cabinet government and party politics in Britain, 1885–6 (Brighton, 1974)Google Scholar. See also Vincent, John, ‘Gladstone and Ireland’ in Brit. Acad. Proc, 63 (1977), pp 193–238.Google Scholar
18 Shannon, Richard, The crisis of imperialism, 1865–1915 (Paladin ed., London, 1984), p. 71.Google Scholar
19 Hammond, J.L., Gladstone and the Irish nation (London, 1938).Google Scholar
20 Whyte, , Is research worth while?, p. 4.Google Scholar
21 This paragraph is based on Allan Massie, broadcast on B.B.C. Radio 3, 9 Nov 1984.
22 E.g. Hechter, Michael, Internal colonialism: the Celtic fringe in British national development, 1536–1966 (London, 1975).Google Scholar
23 For a full discussion on these points see Ó Tuathaigh, ‘Nineteenth–century Irish politics’
24 Morgan, K.O., ‘Welsh nationalism: the historical background’ in Journal of Contemporary History, 6 (1971), p. 156 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Robbins, Keith, ‘Religion and identity in modern British history’ in Stuart Mews (ed.), Religion and national identity (Studies in Church History, 18, Oxford, 1982), pp 465–87Google Scholar, and Coupland, Reginald, Welsh and Scottish nationalism (London, 1957), ch. VI, ‘Religion and politics’Google Scholar
25 Murphy, John A., ‘Identity change in the Republic of Ireland’ in Études Irlandaises, new ser., 1 (1976), p. 149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26 Hoppen, Elections in Ireland; O Tuathaigh, ‘Nineteenth–century Irish politics’
27 Howell, David, Land and people in nineteenth–century Wales (London, 1977)Google Scholar, passim; Coupland, , Welsh & Scottish nationalism, pp 215–16.Google Scholar
28 Howell, , Land & people, p. 11 Google Scholar See also ibid., pp 9–12, 25–6, 86–90, 149. In the 1880s Welsh farmers were subjected ‘to brilliant and emotional propaganda dwelling on the evils of Welsh landlordism which was sectarian and political in its aims’ (ibid., p. 87). For Scottish criticisms of absentee landlords, see H.J. Hanham, ‘Mid nineteenth–century Scottish nationalism: romantic and radical’ in Robson, Robert (ed.), Ideas and institutions of Victorian Britain, essays in honour of George Kitson Clark (London, 1967), pp 158–9.Google Scholar
29 Howell, , Land & people, p. 45 Google Scholar. See also Colyer, Richard J., ‘The land agent in nineteenth–century Wales’ in Welsh History Review, 8 (1976–7), pp 401–25.Google Scholar
30 Howell, , Land & people, pp 83–5.Google Scholar
31 Morgan, Prys, ‘From long knives to blue books’ in Davies, R.R. et al. (eds), Welsh society and nationhood: historical essays presented to Glanmor Williams (Cardiff, 1984), pp 199–215.Google Scholar
32 For which see Deane, Seamus, ‘Arnold, Burke and the Celts’ in Celtic revivals (London, 1985), pp 17-27 Google Scholar
33 For which see O’Neill, Shane, ‘The politics of culture in Ireland, 1890-1910’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1982), pp 114-17Google Scholar
34 For the background to such themes, see Houghton, Walter E., The Victorian frame of mind (New Haven and London, 1957)Google Scholar. Another fruitful comparison is the history of the Boys’ Brigade which, like Fianna Éireann, sought to infuse patriotism, military drill and religious observation into the country’s youth.
35 For a rare but illuminating example of this approach, see Dewey, Clive, ’Celtic agrarian legislation and the Celtic revival: historicist implications of Gladstone’s Irish and Scottish land acts, 1870-1886’ in Past and Present, no. 64 (1974), pp 30-70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36 For an example of this approach, see McCormack, W.J., Sheridan Le Fanu and Victorian Ireland (Oxford, 1980), esp. pp 1-8.Google Scholar
37 ‘Little Gidding’ in The complete poems and plays of T.S. Eliot (London, 1969), p. 197
