Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006

Oxford History of Modern Europe

by Paul Bew

The French revolution had an electrifying impact on Irish society. The 1970s saw the birth of modern Irish republicanism and Orangeism, whose antagonism remains a defining feature of Irish political life. The 1970s also saw the birth of a new approach to Ireland within important elements of the British political elite, men like Pitt and Castlereagh. Strongly influenced by Edmund Burke, they argued that Britain's strategic interests were best served by a policy of catholic emancipation and political integration in Ireland. Britain's failure to achieve this objective, dramatised by the horrifying tragedy of the Irish famine of 1846-50, in which a million Irish died, set the context for the emergence of a popular mass nationalism, expressed in the Fenian, Parnell, and Sinn Fein movements, which eventually expelled Britain from the greater part of the island.

This book reassesses all the key leaders of Irish nationalism - Tone, O'Connell, Butt, Parnell, Collins, and de Valera - alongside key British political leaders such as Peel and Gladstone in the nineteenth century, or Winston Churchill and Tony Blair in the twentieth century. A study of the changing ideological passions of the modern Irish question, this analysis is, however, firmly placed in the context of changing social and economic realities.

Using a vast range of original sources, Paul Bew holds together the worlds of political class in London, Dublin, and Belfast in one coherent analysis which takes the reader all the way from the society of the United Irishman to the crisis of the Good Friday Agreement.

Genres: History, Ireland, Politics, European History

632 pages, Hardcover

First published August 16, 2007

About the author

A graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Paul Bew has been Professor of Irish Politics at Queen's University, Belfast since 1991. A leading commentator on Northern Irish politics, he is the author of many publications on Irish history and the politics of contemporary Ireland.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Bew's book covers a broad sweep of two centuries of Irish history, from the loss of autonomy under the Act of Union and the subsequent campaign to achieve the unfulfilled promise of Catholic Emancipation, through the growth of nationalism and the partition into the Ireland of today. While his focus is on the perspectives underpinning the conflict between the Protestant British and Irish Catholics, what stands out in his narrative is the prevalence of missed opportunities, moments when the political actors could have made different choices that might have tempered enmity and led to a more positive outcome for the Irish people.

Though thoughtfully argued and backed by an impressive command of the literature, the book suffers from two flaws. The first is the poor editing, which is rather surprising considering that the book comes from an publisher of Oxford's distinction. This is more than just a matter of a few typos, as the inaccuracies can distort the import of some of the events Bew describes. The other problem is its narrow focus; whereas most volumes in the Oxford History of Modern Europe series provide a broad coverage of the history of their subjects, Bew's focus is mainly on high politics, with the economic, social, and -- most glaringly, given its political importance -- cultural history of Ireland during this period addressed only in passing or not at all. These limitations diminish the overall value of the book, which in the end is best read as a specialized survey of Irish politics rather than an overall history of Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.