Ireland's Permanent Revolution

by Chris Bambery

Genres: Ireland, History, Nonfiction

88 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1986

About the author

Chris Bambery is a Scottish political activist, socialist, author, journalist, and TV presenter and producer.

Reviews

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - Every sentence is packed with information, it's impossible to speed through this book even if it's only 94 pages long. In this book, Bambery breaks down the Ireland problem from the conquest by the English to 1987 when the edition I read was published (second ed., there is now, at this point, a third that I don't own). I appreciated that he got right to the point and described what happened in succinct detail - there never seemed to be a word wasted. It is important to note that there is a clear bias in his writing, especially later on, where he continuously emphasizes that the only solution for Ireland is socialism. Now, I wouldn't say that this push is wrong, but I found that he was often dismissive of other strategies or priorities, insisting that socialism was the only way and any effort that did not place socialism as its number 1 priority was making a mistake. For instance, when it was decided that "Labour must wait" as Ireland was focusing all of its power towards gaining independence from England. Bambery insists that this ordering of priorities was wrong, and that independence will follow achieving more rights for the working class. In my mind, it's much easier to establish the system you want once you're free from the colonizing power that is determined to stop you from changing anything of import. When the law is written by the enemy to be against you at every turn to keep you under their thumb, topple the system and start again. That being said, I agree with him that in the quest for independence the working class should not be left behind - which it feels like it ultimately was, unfortunately. As it turns out, the way Ireland was able to gain the Republic in the south was through compromises with England, a betrayal of the interests of the people in order to appease the Crown and the middle/upper-class citizens, and in the end allowing for partition to happen, leaving the North under English control (which had horrible consequences on the Catholic population that found themselves on the wrong side of the border).

In the end, despite sometimes having some biased conclusions that at times had me going "... source?" this small book packs a huge punch and is a great book to start with if you want to start wrapping your head around Ireland, its economics, how it was colonized, sectarianism, the fight for independence, the laws put in place, the violence during the troubles, etc. It really gets into it all, and explains quite well why Ireland is in the state that it is. This was a very interesting book, even if I wasn't always in complete agreement with Bambery's approach.