Favorite Book on Modern Ireland?

cml387 wrote: »

John Bowman's book is a Christmas present so I can't open it till the 25.

If you have time on your hands read Tim Pat Coogan's biog of DeValera and find out how our "Founding father" had feet not of clay but of mud.

Is that not a tendentious comment? Like most epic heroes, Mr de Valera's ancestry was shrouded in complexity and mystery. He was indeed a complex figure, with an exacting ethical sense, a descendant of a Cuban nobleman who died in New York shortly after his wedding to a girl from strong farmer stock in the County Limerick, who was an American citizen as well as a British subject, who stayed behind in Dublin to ensure national calm during the Treaty negotiations, who dealt firmly with insurgent forces in the 1940's, whose family all became members of the professions through hard work and diligence, who framed the Constitution, who kept Ireland out of the war and stood up to Churchill, who treated Germany with respect 'even in its darkest hour', as he said, who provided an example of fine family life at a time when such models were sorely needed, who devoted himself to learning the Irish language from his wife, who spoke Irish at every opportunity, who encouraged the Legion of Mary to work with the Irish diaspora who were being forced to go to England, who considered draining the Shannon until he realised the environmental impact it would have, who ran for election to the Stormont parliament, who was a deeply complex and fascinating figure, who was one of only four people in the world who understood Einstein's Theory of Relativity when it was first published, who established the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, who saved Schrödinger from the Germans, who read the classics in the original languages yet who could talk to Peig Sayers as if she was the wife of a cabinet minister, who propounded an ideal Ireland of frugal living by the mass of the people that would behove us now to adopt today in the current circumstances.

For further perspective, read the great book De Valera and the Ulster Question by Dr John Bowman, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, for further insight into the mind of Mr de Valera by his greatest living scholarly admirer.

Hugo Brady Brown

pragmatic1 wrote: »

Well said. I actually think hes one of the biggest villains in Irish history.

With the greatest possible respect, are people changing the conventional wisdom about Mr de Valera simply on the basis of a film, in general one of the most defective and partial of all forms of historical documents? He was a complex character who lived and was politically active over a very long period, in a variety of situations where ineluctable events frequently forced his hand. Except in the 1066 and all that school of historiography, there is no coming to a definitive conclusion of any utility that a historical person was a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. Certainly Mr de Valera was personally a deeply devout Catholic, yet he declined to make his church the established church, despite considerable lobbying, and even though other political leaders such as General Franco ensured that the church was established in their own countries. This is to take but one single example, lest I drift off-thread - one of the greatest offenses against the readership of any thread!

I recall that when he finally left this world, serious consideration was given in highly-placed circles to introducing a petition for opening the cause for the canonisation of Mr de Valera. It was later judged that this was premature, but such thinking has not gone away, by any means. He was viewed by a large plurality of the population as being the possessor of those heroic virtues meriting such advancement to the altars of the church.

Hugo Brady Brown

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eureka-Street-Robert-McLiam-Wilson/dp/0749396725