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Post by kj on Jul 17, 2017 16:04:48 GMT
Sorry if this topic has been raised before, but it's an important one so....
Irish Revisionist History is a challenge to the standard Nationalist History which typically portrays Ireland as a country harshly and often brutally oppressed by Britain for 800 years or so.
It seeks to challenge this by focusing on other elements in Irish history such as the Protestant population, the Ascendancy, the attempts at Parliamentary reform to better Irish life, the idea that the Famine was an unavoidable catastrophe and that the British government did all they could, peaceful movements for Home Rule, the claim that most people were loyal or at least passively acquiescent to Crown rule and so on.
In essence, it revolves around a moral question: was armed resistance to British rule, and in particular the 1916 Rising, justified?
Now clearly all history involves a certain re-writing and reassessment, but many, myself included, would see the valid elements of Revisionism having been overtaken by an ideological purpose: namely to totally trash and denounce Irish nationalism in all of its forms, peaceful or otherwise. The unsaid theme beneath much of it appears to be that Ireland would have been better off staying in the Union, or at least that Ireland should have gained independence through Parliamentary means alone, as this would have shown greater "maturity".
All reflections welcome.
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Post by MourningIreland on Jul 17, 2017 16:23:11 GMT
Sorry if this topic has been raised before, but it's an important one so.... Irish Revisionist History is a challenge to the standard Nationalist History which typically portrays Ireland as a country harshly and often brutally oppressed by Britain for 800 years or so. It seeks to challenge this by focusing on other elements in Irish history such as the Protestant population, the Ascendancy, the attempts at Parliamentary reform to better Irish life, the idea that the Famine was an unavoidable catastrophe and that the British government did all they could, peaceful movements for Home Rule, the claim that most people were loyal or at least passively acquiescent to Crown rule and so on. In essence, it revolves around a moral question: was armed resistance to British rule, and in particular the 1916 Rising, justified? Now clearly all history involves a certain re-writing and reassessment, but many, myself included, would see the valid elements of Revisionism having been overtaken by an ideological purpose: namely to totally trash and denounce Irish nationalism in all of its forms, peaceful or otherwise. The unsaid theme beneath much of it appears to be that Ireland would have been better off staying in the Union, or at least that Ireland should have gained independence through Parliamentary means alone, as this would have shown greater "maturity". All reflections welcome. A bit of a tangential point here, but I don't think the revisionists have come up with anything new (even though they, in their self-congratulatory fashion, like to pretend they have). Yeats begins the critique of the Rising in the poem "Easter 1916," where he asks "Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith after all is done and said....all changed, changed utterly. A terrible beauty is born." If you follow the narrative through to "Meditations in a time of Civil War," you will see how visceral was his reaction to the violence that ensued. |
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Post by kj on Jul 17, 2017 16:28:58 GMT
Yes, as I said, the essential issue is not really a historical one, it's a moral value judgement. The facts are in. What matters is their interpretation. Although I should correct myself. I found this book review fascinating. A new study of popular literature in the 17th and 18th centuries that would certainly appear to give the lie to the Revisionist idea of general loyalty to the Crown. "He discovers that there is not one piece of literature, verse or prose, in the entire eighteenth century which praises or defends an English monarch – not one, zilch, nada, nothing; and similarly not one poem or verse which celebrates an English military victory during the same period. This reminds us that during the Napoleonic wars, about a quarter of the British troops were Irish (some say it could have been as many as one third), but that the songs and the poems of the people in Irish and in English support Napoleon. " I would encourage everyone to read the review. www.drb.ie/essays/what-the-people-thought |
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 17, 2017 16:39:06 GMT
The term revisionism is unfortunate because all history should be revisionism, in a way. Trying to get a better grasp of what happened. As you say, the problem is the ideology.
It extends into the ancient past, too...the argument that there were no such people as the Celts, that the Irish had no collective identity, and that we never had a High Kingship. I am not competent to assess these claims, but the fact that they all have the same thrust is telling.
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Post by MourningIreland on Jul 17, 2017 16:47:25 GMT
In essence, it revolves around a moral question: was armed resistance to British rule, and in particular the 1916 Rising, justified? .....The unsaid theme beneath much of it appears to be that Ireland would have been better off staying in the Union, or at least that Ireland should have gained independence through Parliamentary means alone, as this would have shown greater "maturity". All reflections welcome. OK - I will give my opinion. Yes, it was at the time, but in retrospect it might not have been the best idea. I respect and honour those who gave their lives for the cause of freedom, regardless of what Roy Foster, Kevin Meyers, or half of South County Dublin happens to think. NB: From what I recall on a previous thread, I think I am probably in a minority on this forum in holding this view. |
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 17, 2017 16:59:33 GMT
My own views on 1916 are complex. I can't justify it or condemn it. The arguments on both sides seem strong to me.
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Post by cato on Jul 17, 2017 18:13:38 GMT
In the 1970s the legacy of 1916 was more or less hijacked by militant republicanism and the official state abandoned it or at least held it at arms length . A prominent example of this was the abandonment of the Easter Sunday military parade in Dublin lest it give encouragement to the northern insurgents.In hindsight this may have been was mistaken but it shows what politicians thought at the time. The revolution of 1916 had unfinished business and was dangerous in the contemporary 1970s Irish state.
There was an ideological battle fought to preserve Irish democracy against a violent marxist inspired terror group according to people like Conor Cruise o Brien. Like him or loath him there was an international issue with marxist and fascist terrorism in Europe in the 1970s which is often forgotten about. It wasn't clear who would win the cold war and the IRA were seen as anti colonial freedom lovers fighting Imperialism. Their marxist sympathies were downplayed naturally when fund raising in the USA . Irish historical revisionism wasnt an attempt to upset traditional nationalists (although it did that)but was specifically directed against a direct ideological threat against the state.
Attempts to argue about the good versus the bad IRA were well intentioned but many of the volunteers of 1916 -1922 had scant regard for democracy when you read their memoirs or look at their behaviour particularly around the civil war.
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Post by kj on Jul 17, 2017 18:36:22 GMT
The problem with the "they had no democratic mandate" argument is that neither did the British Crown have one for the Act of Union, Ulster Plantations etc etc. Democracy is a sword that cuts both ways.
For what it's worth I do think the 1916 Rising was justified on the balance of evidence and British misrule over the centuries, but nor am I am a fanatical Republican.
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Post by MourningIreland on Jul 17, 2017 18:51:39 GMT
The problem with the "they had no democratic mandate" argument is that neither did the British Crown have one for the Act of Union, Ulster Plantations etc etc. Democracy is a sword that cuts both ways. For what it's worth I do think the 1916 Rising was justified on the balance of evidence and British misrule over the centuries, but nor am I am a fanatical Republican. One of the most interesting aspects of the Rising to me is how a motley crew of people from different backgrounds and idealogical bents eventually came together to execute a single plan. This convinces me that if I had been there seeing first hand what they saw, I too would have felt compelled to act. |
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Post by kj on Jul 17, 2017 18:53:04 GMT
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Post by cato on Jul 17, 2017 18:55:33 GMT
The act of union was pushed through "democratically " The parliament in college green voted itself out of existence - helped by bribes and false promises of catholic emancipation. Mind you the orange order opposed it for the fear of catholic emancipation! Early 19th century British democracy was a bit like 21st century euro democracy.
The Ulster plantation was a stuart Royalist land grab after the Ulster nobles had fled abroad to seek Spanish or papal assistance. Not a whiff of a democrat in sight.
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Post by Stephen on Jul 18, 2017 9:36:30 GMT
I think critical analysis of the foundations of the republic is good.
As the state clearly created a creation myth around the foundations of its new state, which is alright but is not necessarily true.
That being said most of the work being done by the state is for ideological reasons rather than critical analysis.
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