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Student name: Denis Savage

Student number: 112309081

Module: Historical debate

Module code: H13001

Lecturer: Dr Donal Drisceoil

Essay title: State of the art or ideological project?

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Since the turn of the twentieth century, the debate on the means in which Irish Historiography is to

be written has been an area which has been reawakened but is shrouded in controversy by the

conception of revisionism. The origins of revisionism in Ireland can be traced back to T.W Moody and

Robert Dudley Edwards whom are accredited for being the founding fathers of revisionism in

Ireland, founding Irish Historical Studiesin 1938. This acted as technical journal for historians

dedicated to archivally based research and self-consciously opposed to nationalist myth in the name

of scientific objectivity1. Moody and Edwards set about revolutionising the archaicway in which

history had been told in Ireland, which Moody called the mental war of liberation from the

servitude of myth of Irish nationalist history, by applying scientific methods to the evidence2

.In

summary, revisionism set about implementing a professional approach to the writing of history in

which Irish past would be revised in lieu of new evidence. However, in practice this was far from the

case, instead it became a means of attacking Irish nationalism. To quote Desmond Fennell,

Revisionism, both in its ultimate thrust, and as a matter of objective fact, is the historiography of

the Irish counter-revolution3.In the forthcoming paragraphs, this essay will outline the reasons

behind why Irish historical revisionism was ultimately an ideological project. The forthcoming

paragraphs will discuss two phases of revisionism along with its political intentions

Revisionism sets about quite explicitly to challenge nationalist and republican history which it finds

methodologically suspect4however this cause is rife with contractions, due to the fact that what it

is revising is being claimed as bad, whilst what is being reconstructed is objectively and

scientifically true. In doing so, as stated by countless anti-revisionists such as Bradshaw and

Whelan, revisionism is becoming negatively biased contrary to the opinion free nature that it

markets itself as , with Whelan going as far as saying that revisionism is seeking to remove Irish

1Kevin, Whelan, The Revisionist Debate in Ireland, Duke University Press, Spring 2004,p.184

2

Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.1973Desmond, Fennell, Against Revisionism rep in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting Irish History, (IAP 1994), P.1864Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.198

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nationalist consciousness from historical record.5An even more damming charge levelled at

revisionism is in its failings to deal sufficiently with the trauma and pain of Irish history. This sense

that Irish trauma is merely overlooked, is further compounded by the way in which the famine is

portrayed Robert Dudley Edwards and T.D Williams The Great Irish Famine(which is often touted

as the model revisionist text)to deal with the pain felt by the Irish. The famine is merely treated as

an episode in Irish history in which the cause is never specified, with the British being cast only as

benign administrators. Whilst revisionism reigned, famine was not a fashionable topic and it set

about marginalising the idea that the famine was the major event in Irish history and to assign its

elevation there as an effect of the insidious nationalist bias in Irish historiography

6

As an ideal,

revisionism promises to revolutionise Irish History, however in reality it is little more than a means of

enforcing the political agenda of that current time.

This paragraph will look at the first phase of revisionism and how it was used as a political tool.

According to Ronan Fanning, those who are in power control to a very large extent the presentation

of the past and seek to make sure that it is presented in such a way to legitimize their own

authority7. A republican nationalist history served well for Irish political figures in a pre-

independence world, but with the British now removed from the equation and a great deal of angst

within the fledgling state, many felt a new style of history was required. As A history that is defined

as nationalist struggle excludes those who did not partake in or benefit from that struggle. 8The

new state was left with the woes of over 800 years of British occupation coupled with a brutal civil

war. For many of the political and social elite, it was felt that unless Ireland rid itself of its obsession

in the past and its lamenting of nationalist icons, it would never be able to advance. The anti-

nationalist agenda of revisionism provided the perfect platform to revolutionise the Irish states

perspective, both on itself and the future. F.S.L Lyons captures the mind-set of that time, with the

5Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.200

6Kevin, Whelan, The Revisionist Debate in Ireland, Duke University Press, Spring 2004,p.204

7

M.A.G., Tuathaigh, Irish Historical Revisionism: State of the Art or Ideological Project rep in Ciaran Brady, InterpretingIrish History, (IAP 1994), P.3138Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp.212

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dire past still overhanging the dire present. The theories of nationality, the theories of history, which

have brought Ireland to its present pass, cry out for re-examination9The previous scapegoat of

Great Britain as the cause of all Irish woes, was replaced with nationalism. Revisionists such as Sean

OFaolain claimed that the Irish obsession with nationalism created a mummified society, haplessly

marooned between an unattainable golden age from which they were irrevocably severed and a

future they were incapable of embracing10Aided by a new political agenda, revisionism set about

indoctrinating the Irish nation in a history free of nationalism.

In this paragraph, the second phase of revisionism will be look at and its motives.The 1960s in

Southern Ireland represented a time of affluence and economic transformation from the squalor

that had been experienced in the 1950s. This was in stark contrast to the events north of the

border, in which the eruption of the troubles once again sparked critical engagement with the Irish

past11as means of preventing the conflict from spilling over the border. There was a view that

nationalism should not and must not contribute to the situation in Northern Ireland.12The anti-

nationalist thrust of revisionism was once again chosen by the political elite of Southern Ireland to

stem the nationalist influence. This second phase of revisionism openly attacked the national

narrative, which according to Bradshaw saw the increasing dominance of more overtly iconoclastic

approach to a new generation which in place of positive bias towards the nationalist view in earlier

accounts simply substituted a negative bias as its value base13Aided by a political agenda wary of

nationalistic beliefs, the revisionists set about making anything remotely nationalist as a taboo,

claiming that the traditional Irish historical narrative (pro-nationalist, anti-British) was the principal

root of Irish problems, both sides of the border. For the revisionists, Irish nationalism exemplified by

9Desmond, Fennell, Against Revisionism rep in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting Irish History, (IAP 1994), P.184

10Kevin, Whelan, The Revisionist Debate in Ireland, Duke University Press, Spring 2004,pp. 1186

11Brian, Girvan, Beyond Revisionism? Some Recent Contributions to the Study of Modern Ireland, Oxford UniversityPress, 2009, p.9612Robert, Perry, Revising Irish History: The Northern Ireland conflict and the war of ideas, Journal of European Studies,Dec.2010, Vol.40, Issue 4, p.330

13M.A.G., Tuathaigh, Irish Historical Revisionism: State of the Art or Ideological Project rep in Ciaran Brady, InterpretingIrish History, (IAP 1994), pp.313

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militant republicanism suffered from an addiction to violence, derived not from accurate analysis of

Irish-British relations, but from a flawed atavistic populism. In the new reconstructed telling of the

Irish past, all negative implications of British involvement in Ireland was merely glossed over. British

occupation was not the issue; Irish desire to rid itself of colonization was the problem. The

revisionist school of thought set about not only altering direction of Irish historiography but also

instilling guilt amongst the Irish people, under the free reign it was offered with the emergence of

the troubles.

In conclusion as an ideal, revisionism is something which could be commended in its desire to

modernise Irish historiography, unfortunately in practice it became little more than a political tool to

damage the credibility of Irish historical nationalism. Its claims of objective free and scientific based

history was something left to be desired, and if resulted in the neglecting of the central aspect of the

Irish historical experience, the march of the Irish people toward national self-expression14along

with the more catastrophic dimensions of Irish history such as the famine. Revisionism is more than

historians playing devil advocate, with the movement of history away from just academic purposes

and into public life, it has begun an immensely powerful tool offering a strategy of containment,

stressing the urgency of reformatting popular attitudes in the past in order to undermine the appeal

of republicanism15. One needs look no further than the controversy that is being caused in the run

up to the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising or works such as Peter Harts, The IRA and Its Enemies.

The history of Ireland in which revisionism sets out to reconstruct is one in which ignores pivotal

moments that define us, ranging from the various nationalists causes to the downplaying of the pain

caused by the Great Famine In short, revisionism desires to make us aliens of our own land. When

the ugly truth of the revisionist cause is brought to the surface, the words of Fanning resonate in

14Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp.19715

Kevin, Whelan, The Revisionist Debate in Ireland, Duke University Press, Spring 2004,pp. p.189

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which he declared History is much, much too important to be abandoned to those who would

prostitute it for political purposes16

Bibliography

1.

Kevin, Whelan, The Revisionist Debate in Ireland, Duke University Press, Spring 2004,pp. 179-

2052. Brian, Girvan, Beyond Revisionism? Some Recent Contributions to the Study of Modern

Ireland, Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.94-107

3.

Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge

University Press, 1996, pp.195-212

4. Desmond, Fennell, Against Revisionism rep in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting Irish History, (IAP

1994), PP.184-189

5. M. A. G., Tuathaigh, Irish Historical Revisionism: State of the Art or Ideological Project rep

in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting Irish History, (IAP 1994), pp.308-322

6.

Robert, Perry, Revising Irish History: The Northern Ireland conflict and the war of ideas,

Journal of European Studies, Dec.2010, Vol.40, Issue 4, p.330

16M.A.G., Tuathaigh, Irish Historical Revisionism: State of the Art or Ideological Project rep in Ciaran Brady, InterpretingIrish History, (IAP 1994), P.322