Marianne Elliott, revisionism and historiography

MarchDub

brianthebard wrote: »

Calm it down people, there's no need for name calling or questioning others credentials. Mod.

Yeah, I Know. We all need to do that. Went outside and raked leaves....:)

Data_Quest

convert wrote: »

Cullen was one of the first historians to argue that the Penal Laws were 'piecemeal' and introduced to specific threats and you can see this when you look at the years in which the statutes were enacted - late 1690s and early 1700s (1695-1708/09); then there were more statutes passed in the 1710s and then things eased off, with acts being randomly passed in the 1720s, 30s and 40s to prevent Catholics entering into law enforcement, etc. If the statues had indeed being well thought out and part of a bigger plan, then is it not fair to suggest that these statutes would have been passed initially rather than being passed or re-passed in a bid to ensure their enforcement?



There's been a lot of recent work by Connolly, Dickson, Harvey, McGrath, Bartlett, Power, Whelan, Osborough and Kelly, to name just a few, who are beginnig to challenge the figures laid down by Simms regarding the statistic of 5%. It's worthwhile having a read as they bring to light some of the inaccuracies which arose during Simms' statistical analyses.



Yes, the Penal Laws were quite rigorously adhered to when it came to the political aspects of the statues; however, if you look at family case studies, such as the Bellews from Mount Bellew, you'll get a great insight into the lives of Catholics on a local level and see that they actually managed to continue in their every day lives quite normally and succeeded in retaining their land and their position in society despite the Penal Laws.

I'm not denying that life for Catholics in eighteenth-century Ireland was difficult, it was, and in some cases extremely so, but I feel that it's time to put aside this belief that Catholics were extremely downtrodden in every aspect of life during the century in question and look at those who succeeded in surving despite the Penal Laws. There have been recent studies which have shown that many Catholics disregarded the statutes and sent their children abroad for a foreign education, that some actually succeeded in increasing the quantity of land which they held during the eighteenth-century and that they served in foreign armies abroad. Despite being unable to sit in Parliament, many Catholic families retained their position in society and were in a position, once the statutes were repealed, to assume prominent position in both local and national law enforcement and politics once again.

Thanks for that: lots to study there. One example of a family who openly conformed to the Protestant faith out of expediency was that of Edmund Burke (quotes from Conor Cruise O'Brien's book "The Great Melody"):

Richard Burke (Edmund's father) conformed to the established church in 1722 and according to O'Brien "he must have been a fully fledged attorney in 1720" but he does concede that there is some debate about all this.

O'Brien goes on to say:

"As Louis M. Cullen puts it: 'Overall the impact of the Penal Laws has been exaggerated'. I am sure with the qualifying adverb 'overall' this is correct. The Laws to the extent that they were actually applied around the time of Burke's birth, made little difference to the poor, who were the great majority of the Irish people. But the case of people like the Burkes and Nagles, depressed gentry, trying to make their way back up again, was very different. The Penal Laws and the Protestant domination which these laws enacted, stood in their way , not always directly or decisively, but always potentially."

Edmund's parent were married in an Anglican church. "There is no record of a Catholic marriage but there much have been one. Mary Burke (nee Nagle) was known to be a believing Catholic and could not have been content with the Anglican ceremony alone".

"Although the 18th century Nagels had come down in the world, and were threatened by the Penal Laws, and by their Protestant neighbours, it would be quite wrong to think of them as hopelessly downtrodden".

So it definitely seems that there were ways around the Penal Laws if you were willing to play the system a little bit if this example is correct.

MarchDub

The issue of inter denominational marriage is also separate from the Penal Law issue. The tradition in Ireland amongst families was that sons followed the father's religion and daughters followed the mother's religion. I can remember when O'Brien's book was first published this seemed to be news to many reviewers that Protestant children would come from the union of a Catholic man or woman marrying a Protestant. But this was exactly the experience in my own family.

In our mixed religious family [Church of Ireland/Catholic] this was the common procedure and did not change until the Catholic Church altered its rules in the early twentieth century requiring all children of the union to be raised Catholic. I can't off hand recall the official name of the Papal ruling. Many Protestants and Catholics were outraged at this. In my family, at least, this “rule” was always viewed as gross interference in what had always been considered a family’s private decision and not that of any church.

But none of this, IMO, negates the injustice of the Penal Code. Being able to get around an unjust law does not render the law just.

Data_Quest

MarchDub wrote: »

The issue of inter denominational marriage is also separate from the Penal Law issue. The tradition in Ireland amongst families was that sons followed the father's religion and daughters followed the mother's religion. I can remember when O'Brien's book was first published this seemed to be news to many reviewers that Protestant children would come from the union of a Catholic man or woman marrying a Protestant. But this was exactly the experience in my own family.

In our mixed religious family [Church of Ireland/Catholic] this was the common procedure and did not change until the Catholic Church altered its rules in the early twentieth century requiring all children of the union to be raised Catholic. I can't off hand recall the official name of the Papal ruling. Many Protestants and Catholics were outraged at this. In my family, at least, this “rule” was always viewed as gross interference in what had always been considered a family’s private decision and not that of any church.

But none of this, IMO, negates the injustice of the Penal Code. Being able to get around an unjust law does not render the law just.

I am glad we agree on some things at least. I think "Ne Temere" is the name of the papal decree that you are talking about issued by Pope Pious X in 1907. I agree it should be down to the family to decide.

I also agree that the Penal Laws were unjust. I never argued otherwise. All I was trying to argue (probably badly) is that they were understandable in the context of the time they were passed.

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

I am glad we agree on some things at least. I think "Ne Temere" is the name of the papal decree that you are talking about issued by Pope Pious X in 1907. I agree it should be down to the family to decide.

I also agree that the Penal Laws were unjust. I never argued otherwise. All I was trying to argue (probably badly) is that they were understandable in the context of the time they were passed.

Agreement on some issues but let me answer the latter part - I can’t agree that the Penal Laws were understandable or acceptable at all. Because this is an argument that can be, and is, made about any injustice. I can tell you that I have had people in the southern US tell me that the slavery laws were justified at the time; and even a French colonial settler once told me that the forced labour camps in Africa [Congo] were "good for the Africans" and their harshness "greatly exaggerated"! To me these are all examples of the powerful abusing the weak – and of the old imperialist claim to be a civilizing force to a lesser group. If these laws - and their accompanying imperial attitudes - are not called out as being universally unjust then we are in danger of repeating and accepting the injustice again. In the twentieth century Germany made similar claims to the laws against the Jews.

In the case of Ireland, we had the pervasive experience of being a colonised country – more similar to Africa and Asia than a European experience, in spite of the recent attempts of some historians to place us there. The Penal Laws fall within the context of older laws passed against the Irish language, Brehon law code etc. The colonial experience can not be compared, for example, to the experience of the Huguenots in France. Both are unjust but are not within context of each other IMO.

Data_Quest

MarchDub wrote: »

Agreement on some issues but let me answer the latter part - I can’t agree that the Penal Laws were understandable or acceptable at all. Because this is an argument that can be, and is, made about any injustice. I can tell you that I have had people in the southern US tell me that the slavery laws were justified at the time; and even a French colonial settler once told me that the forced labour camps in Africa [Congo] were "good for the Africans" and their harshness "greatly exaggerated"! To me these are all examples of the powerful abusing the weak – and of the old imperialist claim to be a civilizing force to a lesser group. If these laws - and their accompanying imperial attitudes - are not called out as being universally unjust then we are in danger of repeating and accepting the injustice again. In the twentieth century Germany made similar claims to the laws against the Jews.

In the case of Ireland, we had the pervasive experience of being a colonised country – more similar to Africa and Asia than a European experience, in spite of the recent attempts of some historians to place us there. The Penal Laws fall within the context of older laws passed against the Irish language, Brehon law code etc. The colonial experience can not be compared, for example, to the experience of the Huguenots in France. Both are unjust but are not within context of each other IMO.

Unfortunately that is one lesson of history that can always rely on: the powerful will abuse the weak.

Look we are obviously not going to agree on everything so we will have to agree to disagree on some points. One of them being slaves in the southern US did not have an option to get free of the slavery laws by making an oath of allegiance to the state or by changing their religion. The Jews in Germany also did not have this option of escaping imprisonment, enforced labour and death by changing their religion - I wonder how many would have done that given the choice? I do not know anything about the Congo so I will not comment.

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

Unfortunately that is one lesson of history that can always rely on: the powerful will abuse the weak.

Look we are obviously not going to agree on everything so we will have to agree to disagree on some points. One of them being slaves in the southern US did not have an option to get free of the slavery laws by making an oath of allegiance to the state or by changing their religion. The Jews in Germany also did not have this option of escaping imprisonment, enforced labour and death by changing their religion - I wonder how many would have done that given the choice? I do not know anything about the Congo so I will not comment.

This is not making much rational sense to me - there are ways around every unjust law. Slaves were allowed to buy their freedom - sometimes they did. What does that change?

The Penal Laws were [among other things] laws against conscience - no matter how lightly you might take it some people take it seriously and are entitled to take it so. A law that forbids an individual to answer to his or her own conscience is grossly unjust. And within the context of the time - the Enlightenment - were just incredible. Remember the last Penal law - no Catholics could sit in Parliament - was still on the books fifty years after the Enlightenment had moved revolutions in France and the US to insist on individual rights to religious freedom and conscience.

Nodin

Data_Quest wrote: »

There can be no doubt that Catholics were treated very badly in the Northern Ireland sectarian state created after the signing of the Treaty that split Ireland in two. But part of the problem was that the 6 county Catholics were abandoned by the rest of Ireland. This can be confirmed by reading Marianne Elliot's book "The Catholics of Ulster" in which she states in Chapter 11.1:

"The state of Northern Ireland came into being in 1921 amid confusion and violence. The continuing IRA campaign provoked similar paramilitarism on the loyalist side.......But most of the confusion was on the nationalist side. They remained as split after 1920 as before and had no contingency plans to deal with the new situation, short of recurrent appeals for help to Dublin. 'Surely this cannot be happening' just about sums up their reaction to partition and all hopes were centred on the Boundary Commission to rescue them.....It was only in that year (1925) that the delayed Boundary Commission reported, by which stage even the Dublin government, battling with its own post civil war difficulties, had lost interest. The leaked report of October 1925 left most of the existing territory of NI intact...........and since the leak itself caused such a furore, Cosgrove's government in Dublin acquiesced in the ultimate suppression of the report. The border would remain as it was in 1920. The Catholics in Northern Ireland had been abandoned."

The Boundary report, if followed,. would still have left large swathes of catholics under Stormont rule. To call not implementing it, 'abandoning' Northern Catholics is sensationalist nonsense.

Data_Quest

Nodin wrote: »

The Boundary report, if followed,. would still have left large swathes of catholics under Stormont rule. To call not implementing it, 'abandoning' Northern Catholics is sensationalist nonsense.

Elliot is not the only commentator to use the word 'abandoned' in this context:

John D. Brewer, Professor of Sociology, Aberdeen University formerly of Queen's University Belfast has this to say:

"The Catholics who remained in the North felt as abandoned as Protestants in the South. It is forgotten by Unionists in Northern Ireland, who bemoaned the position of Protestants in the South at having to confront, as they portrayed it, a social structure which excluded them and a cultural value system to which they felt outsiders,[1] that this was precisely how Catholics felt in the North at the time of partition. They lacked a separate cultural identity as Northern Catholics, they had no secure national identity, no long local roots in Ulster, nor any political coherence, and they were defined as outsiders by the state's core values of Protestantism and Britishness. They were offered citizenship in the new state but on terms which made their Catholicism and Irishness problematic, and their position in the social structure made them second-class citizens. Accordingly, they mostly withheld legitimacy from the state, adding yet more tensions to Protestant-Catholic relations in Northern Ireland. This made the stakes even higher in the long-standing zero-sum conflict, for the losses and gains for either side now included the very existence of the state. The history of Catholic progress in Northern Ireland, however, shows their transition from a fragmented and subjugated community to a position of growing self-confidence, cultural self-awareness and cohesiveness, and political assertiveness. This may or may not have occurred more rapidly without terrorism, but the sustained period of civil unrest since 1968, known colloquially as 'the troubles', has polarised Protestant-Catholic relations and reinforced the zero-sum framework within which group interests are constructed by both communities in Northern Ireland. The violence has made traditional hatreds worse."

brianthebard

Data_Quest wrote: »

I am glad we agree on some things at least. I think "Ne Temere" is the name of the papal decree that you are talking about issued by Pope Pious X in 1907. I agree it should be down to the family to decide.

I also agree that the Penal Laws were unjust. I never argued otherwise. All I was trying to argue (probably badly) is that they were understandable in the context of the time they were passed.

If there is still misunderstanding between yourself and MarchDub then I imagine this phrase is the main reason why. Can I ask do you feel that these penal laws were acceptable because they were a product of their times? From reading MD's posts that is the impression I get of his interpretation (apologies if I'm wrong) and so I just wanted to ask because I think this discussion is very interesting and going somewhere.

Data_Quest

brianthebard wrote: »

If there is still misunderstanding between yourself and MarchDub then I imagine this phrase is the main reason why. Can I ask do you feel that these penal laws were acceptable because they were a product of their times? From reading MD's posts that is the impression I get of his interpretation (apologies if I'm wrong) and so I just wanted to ask because I think this discussion is very interesting and going somewhere.

Hopefully I did not say they were acceptable. Understandable yes - a product of the times. The Catholics had lost the war and one fear that Protestants rightly had was that James would return with a French army (either to England or Ireland) and one of the intentions of the Penal Laws was to prevent Catholics from been able to participate in another war of succession.

Data_Quest

Following on from Brewer's point about the Protestants in the South of Ireland feeling as abandoned as the Catholics in the North after Partition:

Anything from between 39,000 and 60,000 Protestants left Southern Ireland involuntarily between 1911 and 1926 (see fascinating Letters Page debate in the Irish Times in the last few weeks principally between John A. Murphy and Eoghan Harris)

IMO it was a great shame that so many Protestants left (or were forced out of) Ireland in this period for at least the following reasons:

1. the overall Protestant minority in the Free State was reduced significantly which meant they had less influence in the creation of the Free State (and hence a state was created that was overly influenced by the Catholic Church)

2. these Irish Protestants could have been the ideal candidates (if they had been treated well) to act as mediators to find a compromise with the Unionists in the North in an All Irish Conference situation (which was an option that was offered by the British if Partition was not acceptable)

Another missed opportunity in Irish history?

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

Elliot is not the only commentator to use the word 'abandoned' in this context:

John D. Brewer, Professor of Sociology, Aberdeen University formerly of Queen's University Belfast has this to say:

"The Catholics who remained in the North felt as abandoned as Protestants in the South. It is forgotten by Unionists in Northern Ireland, who bemoaned the position of Protestants in the South at having to confront, as they portrayed it, a social structure which excluded them and a cultural value system to which they felt outsiders,[1] that this was precisely how Catholics felt in the North at the time of partition. They lacked a separate cultural identity as Northern Catholics, they had no secure national identity, no long local roots in Ulster, nor any political coherence, and they were defined as outsiders by the state's core values of Protestantism and Britishness. They were offered citizenship in the new state but on terms which made their Catholicism and Irishness problematic, and their position in the social structure made them second-class citizens.

Brewer is frankly crazy if he imagines that what the Protestants in the south faced was anywhere close to the Northern experience for Catholics.

As for abandonment of the northern Catholics - that was done by the Ireland Act 1920.

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

Following on from Brewer's point about the Protestants in the South of Ireland feeling as abandoned as the Catholics in the North after Partition:

Anything from between 39,000 and 60,000 Protestants left Southern Ireland involuntarily between 1911 and 1926 (see fascinating Letters Page debate in the Irish Times in the last few weeks principally between John A. Murphy and Eoghan Harris)

IMO it was a great shame that so many Protestants left (or were forced out of) Ireland in this period for at least the following reasons:

1. the overall Protestant minority in the Free State was reduced significantly which meant they had less influence in the creation of the Free State (and hence a state was created that was overly influenced by the Catholic Church)

2. these Irish Protestants could have been the ideal candidates (if they had been treated well) to act as mediators to find a compromise with the Unionists in the North in an All Irish Conference situation (which was an option that was offered by the British if Partition was not acceptable)

Another missed opportunity in Irish history?

This is small potatoes compared to the experience of the Northern Catholics who were driven out of jobs under the gun [for just one instance, check out July 21, 1920 Harland and Wolff shipyard] , burned out of their homes by thugs, denied full voting rights, denied decent housing - what a great difference to the NI State their full participation would have meant!

We have already dealt with the all Ireland conference - this was the Boundary Commission. It never happened and the most important people at that conference would have been the northern Catholics but there was not a snowball's chance in hell that the Unionists were going to allow that.

But you are once again changing the direction of the topic - this is getting dizzy.

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

Hopefully I did not say they were acceptable. Understandable yes - a product of the times. The Catholics had lost the war and one fear that Protestants rightly had was that James would return with a French army (either to England or Ireland) and one of the intentions of the Penal Laws was to prevent Catholics from been able to participate in another war of succession.

The weakness in this argument is that the most politically egregious of the Penal Laws - voting rights for Catholics and the right to sit in Parliament - were still active and on the books years and years after the threat of a Jacobite rebellion was long gone.

As I said in a recent post it took until 1829/30 for Catholics to get the right to sit in Parliament and even then it was very reluctantly granted. Many Irish Catholics lost the right to vote in 1830 as a result of the compromise struck to allow them to sit in Parliament.

Data_Quest

MarchDub wrote: »

This is small potatoes compared to the experience of the Northern Catholics who were driven out of jobs under the gun [for just one instance, check out July 21, 1920 Harland and Wolff shipyard] , burned out of their homes by thugs, denied full voting rights, denied decent housing - what a great difference to the NI State their full participation would have meant!

We have already dealt with the all Ireland conference - this was the Boundary Commission. It never happened and the most important people at that conference would have been the northern Catholics but there was not a snowball's chance in hell that the Unionists were going to allow that.

But you are once again changing the direction of the topic - this is getting dizzy.

I'm back from the pub so I will be careful what I say. The reason I was trying to change to subject was that I thought we had probably said enough about the Penal Laws. Hopefully some others can contribute as I have probably said enough.

I agree that the Sothern Protestants on the whole seem to have been treated reasonably OK in the Free State compared to the Northern Catholics (with some regretable exceptions) but 60,000 being forced to leave (if Eoghan Harris is correct) is shocking and this figure excludes RIC and World War I casualities.

I reproduce what one of the contributors in the recent debate on the subject in the Irish Times said:

"David Adams (Opinion, October 8th) on the CSÍ: Cork’s Bloody Secret programme, broadcast by RTÉ on October 5th, correctly challenges us all to face up to bigotry and sectarianism of all descriptions. RTÉ has done a great service to us all and to the historical record by its screening of the programme, which dealt with the massacre of innocent Protestants in the Bandon valley in 1922 at a time when hostilities were supposed to have ceased between Ireland and Britain, and before the Civil War began.

The deliberate seeking out and slaughter of sometimes elderly and infirm as well as two young boys have for far too long gone off the radar, and how wonderful to see a light being shone into such a dark corner of our history. At times, the great injustice done to those people was compounded by various spurious claims of justification – that they were informers and the like. But hardly mentioned until now was the question of land, religion and settling of old scores in that Protestantism was at times equated to Britain and the invader.

And while the programme showed that perhaps it was a maverick and isolated attack condemned by all sides at the time, I am not so sure about that, as other examples exist in east Galway, Mayo, Leitrim, Midlands and Border regions and elsewhere. And how wonderful to see a relative of one of those Protestants killed speak such wonderful Irish, a language which in the public mind is seen all too often as being hijacked by the adherents of violence.

Finally, even now, can the location of the bodies of those innocent killed be identified if possible, and the remains be returned to their families? For all their perniciousness and evil, the modern IRA blood brothers of the recent 30-year campaign in Northern Ireland have made efforts to do just that with the disappeared. Decency, humanity not to mention Christianity demands no less. "

To describe all this as "small potatoes" is a tad disingenuous?

Data_Quest

MarchDub wrote: »

The weakness in this argument is that the most politically egregious of the Penal Laws - voting rights for Catholics and the right to sit in Parliament - were still active and on the books years and years after the threat of a Jacobite rebellion was long gone.

As I said in a recent post it took until 1829/30 for Catholics to get the right to sit in Parliament and even then it was very reluctantly granted. Many Irish Catholics lost the right to vote in 1830 as a result of the compromise struck to allow them to sit in Parliament.

I agree this was very bad but if you look at Maslovs hierarchy of needs model the vast majority of Ireland's Catholics at the time would not have cared about voting rights as they were existing in dire poverty and only concerned with basic level 1 needs ie where is the next meal coming from. It was only the fairly well off that would have been worried about whether they had voting rights (levels 4 to 7).

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.
4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
5. Cognitive needs - knowledge, meaning, etc.
6. Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.
7. Self-Actualization needs - realising personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experience

On voting rights is this the act you refer to (reproduced below)? If so we are back to the previous argument about conscience and if a Catholic really wanted to be a member of Parliament badly enough then there should have been no real problem swearing allegiance to William and Mary and declaring against transubstantiation (similar to Edmund Burke and his family).

English Statute 3 Will & Mary c.2 (1691):
An Act for the Abrogating the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland and Appointing other Oaths
Sec. 5-6. And for as much as great disquiet and many dangerous attempts have been made to deprive their Majesties of the said Realme of Ireland by the liberty which the Popish Recusants there have had to sit and vote in Parliament, no peer of that realm shall vote in the house of peers, nor shall any member of the house of commons vote or sit during any debate until he take said oaths and make the following declaration against transubstantiation.

MarchDub

Data_Quest wrote: »

I agree this was very bad but if you look at Maslovs hierarchy of needs model the vast majority of Ireland's Catholics at the time would not have cared about voting rights as they were existing in dire poverty and only concerned with basic level 1 needs ie where is the next meal coming from. It was only the fairly well off that would have been worried about whether they had voting rights (levels 4 to 7).

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.
4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
5. Cognitive needs - knowledge, meaning, etc.
6. Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.
7. Self-Actualization needs - realising personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experience

On voting rights is this the act you refer to (reproduced below)? If so we are back to the previous argument about conscience and if a Catholic really wanted to be a member of Parliament badly enough then there should have been no real problem swearing allegiance to William and Mary and declaring against transubstantiation (similar to Edmund Burke and his family).

English Statute 3 Will & Mary c.2 (1691):
An Act for the Abrogating the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland and Appointing other Oaths
Sec. 5-6. And for as much as great disquiet and many dangerous attempts have been made to deprive their Majesties of the said Realme of Ireland by the liberty which the Popish Recusants there have had to sit and vote in Parliament, no peer of that realm shall vote in the house of peers, nor shall any member of the house of commons vote or sit during any debate until he take said oaths and make the following declaration against transubstantiation.

No this is not at all what I am referring to. William and Mary were about 140 years before the Catholic Emancipation Act that I was referring to.

And the 40 shilling freeholders were not on the margins of society.

TBH with you - I am a bit bored with all this. I think I am out of here. Best of luck...

brianthebard

Data_Quest wrote: »

I'm back from the pub so I will be careful what I say. The reason I was trying to change to subject was that I thought we had probably said enough about the Penal Laws. Hopefully some others can contribute as I have probably said enough.

I agree that the Sothern Protestants on the whole seem to have been treated reasonably OK in the Free State compared to the Northern Catholics (with some regretable exceptions) but 60,000 being forced to leave (if Eoghan Harris is correct) is shocking and this figure excludes RIC and World War I casualities.

I would have a lot of questions about this 'forced to leave' phrase-what does it encompass? Are we talking about a number of protestant British army officers and civil servants for instance who would have been 'forced to leave' after independence? Are we talking about people who moved to the North to continue to live in a society more to their liking? Are there others who emigrated by choice? I'm sure there were many occasions when protestants were actually forced to leave in the most literal sense, but 60,000 seems way out of proportion. Would like to know what his evidence for all this is.

Data_Quest

brianthebard wrote: »

I would have a lot of questions about this 'forced to leave' phrase-what does it encompass? Are we talking about a number of protestant British army officers and civil servants for instance who would have been 'forced to leave' after independence? Are we talking about people who moved to the North to continue to live in a society more to their liking? Are there others who emigrated by choice? I'm sure there were many occasions when protestants were actually forced to leave in the most literal sense, but 60,000 seems way out of proportion. Would like to know what his evidence for all this is.

Details are hard to come by but I reproduce one of the letters from a recent Irish Times:

Madam, – Senator Eoghan Harris (October 10th) is right to indicate that precise figures are difficult, if not impossible, to find for the number of Protestant “involuntary emigrants” between the inter-censal periods of 1911 and 1926. I have researched this subject in some detail over many months with the help of Prof David Fitzpatrick of University College, Dublin. He pointed out to me that “These speculations show, above all, how treacherous and insufficient are the available figures”. I agree, having looked at all the available sources I can lay my hands on.

At the end of this research, the best estimate I can come up with is about 45,000 Protestants were “involuntary emigrants” between 1911 and 1926, a figure somewhat higher than that of Dr Andy Bielenberg. A comprehensive breakdown of this figure will, I hope, become available when the book I am writing on Protestants in this State since 1920 is published.

Mr Harris is right to say there was a major exodus of Protestants during this period who were intimidated, or made to feel unwanted, and my book covers many such examples, details of which can be found in the Irish Grants Committee archives at the National Archives, Kew, London and in periodicals of that time like the Church of Ireland Gazette and the Presbyterian Witness. – Yours, etc,

ROBIN BURY,

Nodin

Data_Quest wrote: »

Elliot is not the only commentator to use the word 'abandoned' in this context:."

Actually he's using it in an entirely different context - in reference to partition, not the border commission, and not actually as an objective fact

The Catholics who remained in the North felt as abandoned as Protestants in the South.

The fact is that the demographic layout meant that no matter what "cut" was put into place, either side would have numbers across the border amongst 'the other'. That was part and parcel of partition from the get go. Thus to label the boundary commission as some moment of "abandoning" is sensationalist nonsense, and thrown in for publicity's sake.

Data_Quest wrote: »

Details are hard to come by

To put it mildly. While theres no doubt a large number of protestants left the south, it seems that there was no "ethnic cleansing" or concerted move against them. Concerns over a "catholic" state (real or imagined), refusal to accept a free state, combined with the same factors that pushed catholic emigration can well account for most of it.

McArmalite

Data_Quest wrote: »

Interesting review thanks. Father Raymond Murray raises some valid criticisms of the book: one of them being that the subject in question is too great for one person. He rightly points out to some serious omissions in her book but he does not condemn he work outright.

" he does not condemn he work outright. " Well practically each paragraph is openly criticising the book, though you obviously ignore it and instead focus on the last one where the man is obviously trying to show he tried to see some positive out ot it.

However, learning from what people has said on this thread, Father Raymond Murray will bring his bias to the table as well: ie I assume because he is a priest he is going to have a strong bias in favour of the Catholic Church (in fact he even gives Cardinal Ó Fiaich a positive mention in his short review) and judging by the titles of his books a strong bias against the British Government: "State Violence in Northen Ireland" and "The SAS in Ireland".

Father Raymond Murray has worked in conjunction with bodies like Amnesty International into investigations of murders and human rights abuses. Amnesty in oreder to be accepted as an international human rights organisation tries to remain as impartial and clinical as possible in its reports. If you were to read "The SAS in Ireland" you would see that Raymond Murray has tried to write the book in this fashion, and please don't go quoting John A Murphy, Conor Cruise O'Brien and other attention seekers and discredited cranks.

Nodin

Data quest wrote:

and judging by the titles of his books a strong bias against the British Government: "State Violence in Northen Ireland" and "The SAS in Ireland".

There's bias in those titles how, exactly....

McArmalite

Data_Quest wrote: »

Details are hard to come by but I reproduce one of the letters from a recent Irish Times:

Madam, – Senator Eoghan Harris (October 10th) is right to indicate that precise figures are difficult, if not impossible, to find for the number of Protestant “involuntary emigrants” between the inter-censal periods of 1911 and 1926. I have researched this subject in some detail over many months with the help of Prof David Fitzpatrick of University College, Dublin. He pointed out to me that “These speculations show, above all, how treacherous and insufficient are the available figures”. I agree, having looked at all the available sources I can lay my hands on.

At the end of this research, the best estimate I can come up with is about 45,000 Protestants were “involuntary emigrants” between 1911 and 1926, a figure somewhat higher than that of Dr Andy Bielenberg. A comprehensive breakdown of this figure will, I hope, become available when the book I am writing on Protestants in this State since 1920 is published.

Mr Harris is right to say there was a major exodus of Protestants during this period who were intimidated, or made to feel unwanted, and my book covers many such examples, details of which can be found in the Irish Grants Committee archives at the National Archives, Kew, London and in periodicals of that time like the Church of Ireland Gazette and the Presbyterian Witness. – Yours, etc,

ROBIN BURY,

Robin Bury Chairman of the Killiney-based Reform Movement for rethinking Ireland’s relationship with the UK

http://www.reform.org/

Data_Quest

McArmalite wrote: »

Robin Bury Chairman of the Killiney-based Reform Movement for rethinking Ireland’s relationship with the UK

http://www.reform.org/

Sorry I am going away for a few days (Cheltenham you will be glad to hear) so I will try to answer some of your very interesting comments after the weekend.

Please don't get me wrong I don't have all the answers and I am learning lots by entering into this debate. For example not being a qualified historian I don't know who is discredited or not and I am very surprised to hear that people like Elliot, John A. Murphy and Conor Cruise O'Brien are all discredited? Who decides this?

I am guessing that you don't think the Reform organisation is a good idea I have no affiliation to it but looking at its aims it seems reasonable for me ie I assume they are a peaceful organisation and are definitely entitled to try and change Ireland and improve the relationship between peoples on these islands:

Reform’s aims include:
i) Re-thinking the national symbols like the anthem to reflect Ireland’s changing face and new diversity;
ii) Rethinking Ireland’s relationship with the United Kingdom. This should reflect the deepening social, cultural, and political bond between the two nations;
iii) Promoting membership of international bodies such as the Commonwealth;
iv) Supporting initiatives like the Council of the Isles as a genuine way of healing ancient divisions;
v) Review of the Constitution with particular reference to the preamble and its narrow view of Irishness;
vi) Fostering pluralism, democracy, and tolerance among all people of the island;
vii) Questioning the compulsory role of Irish in our schools and making Irish and English equal official languages.

brianthebard

(I had a longer reply but lost it)

Elliott and O'Brien aren't discredited (don't know who the third guy is) McArmalite just disagrees with them vehemently and went over the top. Its a very bad idea to refer to respected historians as discredited and would severely damage one's own reputation in the historial field and also in online debates.

Data_Quest

brianthebard wrote: »

(I had a longer reply but lost it)

Elliott and O'Brien aren't discredited (don't know who the third guy is) McArmalite just disagrees with them vehemently and went over the top. Its a very bad idea to refer to respected historians as discredited and would severely damage one's own reputation in the historial field and also in online debates.

The third person is fairly famous in the Irish historical context: UCC's Emeritus Professor of Irish History and former senator, John A. Murphy, was named Cork Person of the Year for 2005.

brianthebard

What's his field of interest?

Data_Quest

brianthebard wrote: »

What's his field of interest?

Citation from UCC website

Murphy, John A. (1975). Ireland in the twentieth century. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.

J. P. O'Carroll and John A. Murphy, De Valera and his times, Cork University Press, 1983
Murphy, John A. (1995). The College : a history of Queen's/University College Cork, 1845-1995. Cork: Cork University Press.

Murphy, John A. (1995). Cuimhne dhá laoch : MacCurtain and MacSwiney. Cork: Cork Public Museum, 1995.

Data_Quest

Nodin wrote: »

There's bias in those titles how, exactly....

I did say "judging from the titles" of the books there would seem to be bias but only from the point of view that the author is concentrating on the violence of one side of the troubles and in the same sense if someone wrote a book entitled "Provisional IRA Violence" it would be "biased" towards the other side. However I do take your point I have not read any book by Father Murray so I do not know.