HAILED by Macaulay as "the greatest man since Milton", Edmund Burke (1729- 97), political philosopher, prose stylist, friend of Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds, orator, Member of Parliament, campaigner, and central player in late 18th-century British politics - but whose career was spent almost entirely in opposition - died 200 years ago today.
Prophet or pragmatist? His legacy remains a contested one, not least in connection to Ireland, while liberals and conservatives alike battle for possession of his inheritance. His fame could be seen to rest solely on the impact of his classic, cautionary polemic Reflections On The Revolution In France (1790), but the full body of his writings runs to 10 large volumes, much of it equal, if not superior, to Reflections.
Initially destined to become a lawyer on leaving Ireland at 20, his youthful ambitions were directed towards journalism which provided him with his entree into politics. Because his career was spent in England, some have found it difficult to acknowledge him as Irish despite his commitment to Irish affairs. In truth because of the breadth of his international interests, commenting with passion and insight on the French and American revolutions as well as on Britain's controversial involvement in India he has come to be seen by many Irish people as marginal.
Poet, novelist and critic Seamus Deane rejects the claim that Burke is marginal and argues for Burke's central position in the development of an Irish literary tradition throughout the 19th century. "Equally powerful is his influence on British liberal politics which with the help of Matthew Arnold in particular, attempted to use Burke as the Irish political thinker who could provide a way towards a reconciliation of Ireland and England in the 1880s."
Gladstone and Morley recruited Burke as a sage. "Morley invoked him as a reforming Whig in order to legitimise Gladstone's embrace of Home Rule," says Dr Frank Callanan, author of The Parnell Spilt (1992) and T.M. Healy (1296).
Having previously written of Burke's position as "the father of Irish national sentiment", Deane believes Burke helped create "the idea of Ireland as a traditional hierarchical religious society that was threatened on the one hand by radical abstractions of the French kind and on the other hand by colonial contempt and misgovernment of the British kind".
In devoting a entire section of Field Day Anthology Of Irish Writing (1991) to Burke, Deane says: "I wanted to illuminate the central role Burke played in Irish political life, especially in the critical decade of the 1790s. Only Swift and, to a lesser extent, Goldsmith rival him in importance in the anthology's version of 18th-century Ireland."
Though Protestant, Burke's life in England and involvement in English politics was essentially shaped by the political realities of his time - hence his tactical discretion about his Catholic connections, which he down- played. For this same reason, through his Catholic mother and wife, he would have encountered still more difficulties in Ireland. According to Dr Louis Cullen, professor of modern Irish history at Trinity College: "If he were to take too public a stance on Ireland as an English politician his actions would have proved counter-productive.
Famous and influential enough to attract the most vicious attention of London's political caricaturists, Burke was frequently portrayed as a pious, long-nosed Jesuit. He became private secretary to the Whig leader Lord Rockingham in 1765, and was first elected to parliament in December of that year, representing the borough of Wendover. Burke became Rockingham's trusted political confidant.
As an untitled and unpropertied outsider he, in turn, was extremely dependent on Rockingham, his patron. In 1774, Burke won a seat for Bristol which he held until 1780 when he lost it over his Free Trade for Ireland stance. Rockingham then provided him with a seat for his own borough of Malton.
Burke's calls for the impeachment of Governor-General Warren Hastings did not enhance his popularity. Between March and July of 1782, Burke served as Paymaster General. His breach with the subsequent Whig leader, Charles Fox, was crucial and final. In June 1794, Burke resigned his seat, having arranged to pass it on to his adored son, Richard, who died suddenly that August.
AUTHOR of The Great Melody (1992), Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien, admits to admiring Burke with a regard "approaching idolatry. He is the historical figure I would most like to have met". Was he an Irish politician? "Yes, yes, yes. He served Ireland well. It was he who established Maynooth." Although he had studied Burke's writing while a student at Trinity College, he says: "It was not until well past middle age that I became fascinated by the man." In 1969, he was approached to write an introduction to a Penguin edition of Reflections On The Revolution In France. That essay remains one of the most penetrating ever written on Burke.
Prof Cullen believes a study on Burke the man is long overdue. "He was an obsessive human being and was seen as such by his contemporaries: that made him a figure of fun - I think he should be looked at as a phenomenon, as an outsider who came to another country, became involved in its politics and established a network of contacts."
For Callanan, Burke "is a conservative, even a counter-revolutionary but of an uniquely generous temper . . . but he is neither a reactionary nor an ideologue". Burke remains his own greatest source. Cullen feels the much smaller body of letters and personal papers "could well yield the missing and needed study of Burke the man if looked at afresh in terms of his own career rather than as a figure in the British political establishment". While praising his consistency, Cullen stresses that the strength of Burke's argument often lies "more in the logic than the facts themselves".
Deane disputes this: "When Burke speaks of revolution, the distinctions he makes between the American and French are distinctions which arise from the circumstances of each event. In his analysis of those revolutions, he is almost without compare. We have to look beyond that generation to de Tocqueville writing on American democracy and on France - but he had the advantage of having read Burke." Of Burke, Cullen adds: "He was always emotional in his approach to issues, but was capable of making a powerful intellectual argument in favour of any stand he took."
Cruise O'Brien praises Burke's "matchless style". For Cullen, Burke's command of English is formidable, "even more striking in his letters written in haste". Dr James Kelly, author of Prelude To Union (1992) and lecturer in 18th-century Irish history at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, says he enjoys Burke's literary style - "but even if I had historical heroes, which I try to avoid, he wouldn't be one of them. While one can admire the sheer energy and emotional vigour of his writing, one is equally repelled by the reverence he displayed for a loathsome regime
According to Kelly: "He seems blind to the fact that Ancien Regime France was a society as well as a polity in crisis."
Deane adds: "But his lament was that instead of being improved, the system was destroyed." And Cullen believes "the complexity of France was lost on Burke".
How important is Burke in the late 20th century? "He is important in the sense that any major historical figure is important to the present," says Kelly. "As a historian I don't find the need to approach the past from a present-centred perspective, so I'm ill-at-ease with much of the present- day enthusiasm for Burke which seems to derive primarily from the anxiety of conservative politicians hoping to trace their ideological roots and endow them with respectability."
Latterly, Burke had been studied by Cold War conservatives in the United States. "It is certainly the case that Burke is used and abused," says Deane, "particularly by right-wing politicians who readily subvert his writing to their own reactionary purposes. Yet any understanding of the emergence of modern Ireland from the period of the French revolution must take Burke's writings into serious account."
CALLANAN refers to Burke as "an absent figure in the history of modern Irish nationalism. It is Yeats who recruits him, albeit in a misplaced context." Addressing Burke's specific relevance to the 1990s, Deane suggests: "We are rehearsing, particularly in the North of Ireland, many of the political issues that Burke identified 200 years ago: the union or the possibility of union with Britain; sectarian rule by a Protestant ascendancy group; the relation of the British government to that group; the need to win the affection of Irish Catholics for the British system by the exercise of justice rather than coercion."
Cruise O'Brien sees Burke as a "great political predictor", Deane refers to his "prophetic presence". Rejecting the idea of Burke as an icon, Cullen says: "He was good at predicting disasters, his comments on the relationships between members of political society are perceptive, and in that sense his writing is full of insights, but they are the insights of an intelligent observer who was ultimately a minor politician."
Cruise O'Brien feels Burke has never been completely forgotten, he has always been read and has influenced. For Callanan, "part of the problem is generational. Having been respectful as a student, I was surprised on re- reading Reflections by its warmth. I was moved."
According to Kelly, the publication of The Great Melody has led to a greater awareness of Burke's Irishness. "While the book has attracted deserved criticism, for the discovery of the importance of Burke's Irishness alone, O'Brien merits applause," he says.
What can Burke offer us now? "His persistence" says Cullen, "and his belief that with effort, change is possible. That is what is good about him. Politically he had to be calculating and he took risks on the Irish questions". Deane believes prudence to be the greatest quality of his political intelligence. "That is a sense of what is possible combined with what is just and humane - and that has both an Irish and a wider application." Callanan points out that Burke appeared less heroic to his contemporaries. "The miniature of the older Burke in the National Portrait Gallery in London, not to mention the Gillray caricatures, is a far cry from the Mozartian effigy scuplted by Foley which stands outside Trinity. He's not a hero to me, but I very much admire him."
Finally, Cullen cautions: "If you wish, you can take off in regards to the artistic, literary and intellectual significance of Burke, but for a workaday historian he is a somewhat more mundane, though interesting figure."
