Irish History: A talented young historian's view of the extraordinary metamorphosis Ireland underwent in the 20th century, writes Richard English.
In 1898, William Butler Yeats suggested that Ireland was "leading the way" in a war on materialism, decadence and triviality. What on earth would he have made of the country 100 years later? Corruption, sexual scandal and boy bands had, in differing ways, appeared to betray the great poet's confidence in his country, a reflection of the enormity of change experienced by Ireland during its turbulent 20th century.
To chronicle such extraordinary metamorphosis was the challenge faced by Diarmaid Ferriter in writing his fine new book, The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000. It is a challenge that the talented young historian has met with erudition, fluency and a striking maturity of judgment. The scope of the book (almost 900 pages, including a vast bibliography), appropriately matches the size of the subject to be addressed, and readers will find here page after page of fascinating data and cool commentary.
Ferriter acknowledges that the work "does not purport to be a definitive history of 20th-century Ireland based on decades of archival research but something of a stocktaking exercise". There is certainly much of which to take stock. Early 20th-century Irish nationalism now seems an astonishing distance away in its complex but largely spurned philosophy. Protectionist economics, pervasive Catholic orthodoxy and devotion, the assumption of a somehow imminent Irish reunification and the belief in the restoration of the Irish language to dominance - all are now effectively dead, and yet (or therefore?) Irish nationalism has retained its confidence, buoyancy and momentum.
Ferriter is admirably limpid in his recording of all this. On the Catholic Church, he notes that "Between 1967 and 2000, the number of priests, brothers and nuns declined from 34,000 to fewer than 20,000, or a 41 per cent reduction." And on the economic energy eventually unleashed in the post-protectionist era: "The creation of new jobs [in the Republic] averaged more than 1,000 a week between 1994 and 2000.'
But economic and cultural confidence at the start of the 21st century should not blind us to the darker side of even comparatively recent experience, and one of the many merits of this book is its author's preparedness, calmly, to document such features of the past.
"In 1949", Ferriter notes, "Ireland still had the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality in Europe." Moreover, he rightly stresses that after independence in 1922 "blaming outside forces was no longer credible" as a way of explaining away problems or deficiencies in Irish life.
Indeed it is its judicious assessments (almost casually articulated) that make so much of this book impressive. Writing Ireland's 20th century involves delicacy in terms of fairness to fiercely squabbling political rivals. But Ferriter is a fair- minded scholar, and he avoids either an over-critical assessment of Irish nationalism or a dismissive treatment of those who have opposed nationalist Ireland. He acknowledges that most people in fact welcomed Queen Victoria to Ireland in 1900, that early-20th-century Irish nationalists displayed "an arrogance and naïvety" in their approach to Ulster Protestants and that unionists had "understandable and legitimate fears" concerning Home Rule. But he also stresses "the resourcefulness and commitment" of the Irish nationalist revolutionaries of 1918-21, suggests that "there had been little coherence on the part of the British government about partition" - and that the latter "was implemented with scant regard for the long-term consequences" - and details some of the darker aspects of Northern Irish history.
In all this, Ferriter exemplifies what is best about the emergent balance evident in current Irish historiography, his own book an example of the process he quite rightly identifies as having developed by the end of the last century: "Historians demonstrated themselves more than capable of depicting both the noble and uglier sides of the course of 20th-century Irish history". Yes, Irish cultural accomplishments were often impressive, and the achievement of democratic stability in independent Ireland was a great achievement. But yes, we should also recognize the suffering of the poor, the ignoring of the politically marginalised, the frequent hypocrisy which so marred (and so mars) modern Ireland, and the responsibility so widely shared for the tragedy of the Northern Ireland troubles.
In terms of sources, much of the book involves an impressive distillation of a vast scholarly literature - a literature through which, clearly, the author has read widely and thoughtfully. And Ferriter also makes good use of the recently available Bureau of Military History files, frequently quoting from them to telling effect. (These files comprise statements from people involved in the 1913-21 phase of the Irish revolution, and Ferriter's quotations from them form one of the most valuable parts of his book.)
The author offers numerous telling depictions of actors in the modern Irish drama. (D.P. Moran was "shrewd and clever but narrow-minded and hypocritical", Noel Browne was "in many ways admirable but difficult" and so on.) Beyond the individuals, the book also recognises the importance of social (in particular, labour) history, and of the research of those studying Irish women. And Ferriter rightly suggests that "the help of other disciplines" is important if historians are to help a society deal with its own identity; he himself draws extensively on the work of, for example, sociologists and political scientists.
No book, of course, is flawless. Footnote addicts will note that Ferriter's references are not always impeccable: page numbers are frequently missing from the notes, and occasionally there is some unfortunate misquotation (and even the attribution of material to the wrong source).
I would have liked a more lengthy, reflective conclusion to the book, rather than the comparatively abrupt end it currently possesses. And while it is understandable in terms of available archives that the work is so weighted towards the earlier part of the century (on page 400, more than half way through the 759 pages of text, we are still reading about the 1930s), many readers will surely be most interested in the later part of the century: on why the changes taking place during Ferriter's own lifetime have occurred as they have. And, in the end, the book is perhaps more of a detailed chronicle than an explanation of the transformation identified in the book's title: we are told, ultimately, much more of the "what" than of the grander "why" of modern Ireland.
But these are really quibbles, and the kind of debating points always raised by such highly intelligent and well- researched works of history. The Transformation of Ireland is a deeply absorbing account, written in an assured style. It is a very fine achievement indeed and a book which deserves to be widely read.
The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 By Diarmaid Ferriter. Profile Books, 884pp. £30.
Richard English is Professor of Politics at Queen's University, Belfast. His latest book, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA, is published in paperback by Pan Books