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J.C. Beckett: politics, faith, scholarship*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Alvin Jackson
Alvin Jackson*
Affiliation:
School of History, Queen’s University of Belfast
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Extract

On 16 February 1966 James Camlin Beckett, who by that time had taught in Queen’s University Belfast for twenty-one years, confided to his diary that he found it ‘hard to stay awake for an hour long lecture’ and wondered whether ‘we also go to sleep without knowing it, when we are giving a lecture instead of receiving it’. In this, the first of the lectures commemorating Beckett’s achievement, I propose — one hopes in a passably alert state — to examine three central aspects of his life and convictions: his politics and sense of national identity, his religious life, and finally his philosophy of history. The lecture draws upon Beckett’s writings, and on his papers and diaries (which are at present housed in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland); other Beckett letters, some in private hands, have also been used.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 130 , November 2002 , pp. 129 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2002

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Footnotes

*

This paper was delivered in February 1999 as the first annual J.C. Beckett Lecture of the Ulster Society for Irish Historical Studies.

References

1 J.C. Beckett diary, 16 Feb. 1966 (P.R.O.N.I., James Camlin Beckett papers, D/4126/A/1/25).

2 Beckett corresponded regularly with Michael Roberts, professor of modern history at Queen’s University Belfast, after Roberts’s retirement in 1973. These letters span the years from 1973 to 1993 and are now in private possession. There are some Beckett letters and other relevant material in the Robin Dudley Edwards papers in the Archives Department of University College Dublin, and the T.W. Moody papers at Trinity College Dublin.

3 A number of obituaries were published at the time of Beckett’s death: see Stewart, A.T.Q., ‘James Camlin Beckett, 1912-1996’ in History Ireland, iv, no. 2 (summer 1996), pp 5–6Google Scholar; see also the notices in the Irish Times, 15 Feb. 1996, the Sunday Tribune, 18 Feb. 1996, and The Times, 11 Mar. 1996. I have written a biographical essay on Beckett for McGuire, J. I. (ed.), The dictionary of Irish biography (Cambridge, forthcoming)Google Scholar. Mr J. L. Lord, who was one of Beckett’s closest friends, has written a personal memoir which will be forthcoming in Search.

4 Stewart, A. T. Q. has recorded that Beckett ‘liked the old gentlemanly courtesies once observed in universities, and did not relish informality. He objected strongly if people he did not know addressed him as “Jim”’ (‘James Camlin Beckett’, p. 5).Google Scholar

5 The area produced at least two writers of international distinction: C.S. Lewis and the novelist Forrest Reid. For Lewis’s suburban origins see Bleakley, David, C.S. Lewis: at home in Ireland (Bangor, 1998)Google Scholar and Bresland, R. W., The backward glance: C.S. Lewis and Ireland (Belfast, 1999)Google Scholar; for Reid see Burlingham, Russell, Forrest Reid: a portrait and study (London, 1953).Google Scholar

6 Beckett, J. C., Protestant dissent in Ireland, 1687-1780 (London, 1948)Google Scholar. This volume was Beckett’s first published book. He emphasises that his concern is with ‘the whole question of protestant dissent as a problem presented to the Irish government’, and that, because of the publication of Reid, J. S.’s History of the Presbyterian church in Ireland (1828), ‘there is no need’ to retrace the history of that church in the eighteenth century (p. 7)Google Scholar. He is also at pains to emphasise that the Presbyterians’ argument for the removal of the religious test was designed to benefit only themselves, and that they ‘had no inclination to tolerate quakers, nor did they consider that the privileges which they asked for themselves should be extended to the Roman catholics’ (pp 15-16).

7 J. C. Beckett to T. W. Moody, 9 May 1946 (T.C.D., T. W. Moody papers, MS 10048/14).

8 St Mark’s was designed by William Butterfield, who was associated with the Tractarian movement. Beckett, later wrote a centenary history, St Mark’s church, Dundela, 1878-1978 (Newtownards, 1978)Google Scholar. For the church and the wider community at Strandtown in the early twentieth century see Bleakley, C.S. Lewis, pp 119-34. I am grateful to Canon Sidney Smart for his recollections of the Beckett family.

9 The probate record indicates that the estate of Alfred Beckett (who died in May 1957) was valued at £499 9s. 4d. Beckett’s mother died in November 1958, leaving an estate valued at £999 10s. 0d.

10 T. W. Moody to Robin Dudley Edwards, 28 May 1935 (U.C.D.A., Robin Dudley Edwards papers, LA22/848/14): ‘One of our last years graduates wants to do an M.A. thesis and proposes “the Church of Ireland in the 17th and 18th Centuries”. It occurred to me that a more suitable alternative would be “the operation of the penal laws against the Protestant non-conformists in the 18th century”.’ See also Moody to Edwards, 31 July 1939 (ibid., LA22/850/15): ‘I read today an excellent review by J.C. Beckett … it’s so clear and straightforward and so closely in accordance with our rules …’. See also, for example, Beckett’s different requests for support from Moody in seeking academic employment or promotion (Beckett to Moody, 6 Sept. 1943, 29 May 1945, 28 Nov. 1950, 28 May 1953 (T.C.D., MSS 10048/4, 7, 24, 46)).

11 J. C. Beckett and his brother, A. F. Beckett, both feature in the earliest extant members’ listings of the U.S.I.H.S. (U.C.D.A., Dudley Edwards papers, LA22/390). J.C. Beckett read his first paper to the society, ‘Church and state in Ireland in the 18th century’, on 15 Dec. 1938 (ibid., LA22/390/26).

12 Beckett to Moody, 19 Mar. 1957 (T.C.D., MS 10048/86). Moody at this time was attempting to create a third co-editorship of Irish Historical Studies and seems to have hoped that Beckett would take the job (Robin Dudley Edwards and Moody himself were the two existing editors). Beckett, however, demurred, arguing that ‘I should do no real good unless I made it clear that I wasn’t coming in simply to provide two votes to one against Edwards.’

13 Beckett diary, 1-6 Jan. 1949 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/12).

14 Ibid., 24 Nov. 1934 (D/4126/A/1/1).

15 Shearman’s novels are discussed by McIntosh, Gillian, The force of culture: unionist identities in contemporary Ireland (Cork, 1999), pp 190-94.Google Scholar

16 See Beckett papers, P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/E/1, for a range of his poetry and other literary endeavours.

17 Beckett to Michael Roberts, 22 Dec. 1975 (Beckett-Roberts correspondence, in private possession). Robin Dudley Edwards believed that Beckett had embarked upon a life of Archbishop King and that it would have proved to be his greatest scholarly achievement; Norman Sykes believed (wrongly) that Beckett had undertaken an edition of King’s correspondence. I am grateful to Mr Owen Dudley Edwards and Dr David Hayton for this information. A study of King would also have brought Beckett back to some of his first scholarly preoccupations, as reflected in his ‘The government and the Church of Ireland under William III and Anne’ in I.H.S., ii, no. 7 (Mar. 1941), pp 280-302, and his Protestant dissent in Ireland. Beckett delivered a paper, ‘William King as bishop of Derry, 1691-1703’ to the U.S.I.H.S. on 24 Apr. 1942 which later appeared as ‘William King’s administration of the diocese of Derry, 1691-1703’ in I.H.S., iv, no. 14 (Sept. 1944), pp 164-80: see U.S.I.H.S. Hon. Secretary’s report for 1942 (U.C.D.A., Dudley Edwards papers, LA22/390/37).

18 Beckett diary, 29 Oct. 1944 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/8).

19 Ibid., 21 Oct. 1961 (D/4126/A/1/22).

20 Ibid., 8 May 1971 (D/4126/A/1/28).

21 Ibid., 27 Aug. 1969 (D/4126/A/1/27).

22 Ibid., 12 Nov. 1958 (D/4127/A/1/21).

23 See English, Richard, Ernie O’Malley: I.R.A. intellectual (Oxford, 1998), pp 118-21.Google Scholar

24 Beckett diary, 26 June 1958 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/20).

25 Ibid., 12 July 1971 (D/4126/A/1/28).

26 Ibid., 29 June 1932 (D/4126/A/1/1).

27 Ibid., 10 Nov. 1940 (D/4126/A/1/4).

28 Beckett to Dudley Edwards, 17 Feb. 1945 (U.C.D.A., Dudley Edwards papers, LA22/391/70). Emphasis added.

29 Moody, T. W. and Beckett, J. C. (eds), Ulster since 1800: a political and economic sur ey: twel e talks broadcast in the Northern Ireland Home Ser ice of the B.B.C. (London, 1955), p. 6.Google Scholar

30 Beckett to Moody, 1 Oct. 1953 (T.C.D., MS 10048/63): ‘Surely this implies a connotation of Ulster quite different from that which we profess to be using?’

31 Beckett diary, 1 May 1940 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/4).

32 Ibid., 30 Sept. 1961 (D/4126/A/1/22).

33 Ibid., 20 Feb. 1976 (D/4126/A/1/32): Tone, Beckett felt, ‘would find Pearse’s turgid oratory intolerably boring, his Gaelicism incomprehensible, his Catholicism a ground for caution and perhaps half-antagonistic suspicion, his love of bloodshed utterly disgusting’.

34 Ibid., 13 Apr. 1964 (D/4126/A/1/24).

35 Ibid., 26 Feb. 1969 (D/4126/A/1/27).

36 Ibid., 17 Nov. 1932 (D/4126/A/1/1). Edward was certainly regarded as cool towards the unionist establishment, though this does not seem to have had any role in skewing Beckett’s anti-royalist sentiments.

37 Ibid., 5 Nov. 1939 (D/4126/A/1/3).

38 The Queen’s University of Belfast: war record, 1939-47, p. 13.

39 Beckett diary, 29 Oct. 1944 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/8).

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., 6 Feb. 1952 (D/4126/A/1/15).

42 Ibid., 7 July 1964 (D/4126/A/1/24).

43 Ibid., 14 Dec. 1956, 4 Jan. 1957 (D/4126/A/1/19). He conceded, though, that the ‘propaganda’ dimension was ‘kept decently veiled, and something worth while may emerge out of it’.

44 Beckett to Michael Roberts, 14 Dec. 1985 (Beckett-Roberts correspondence): ‘You will probably remember… that my appointment was due to the obstinacy of the late Lord McDermott [sic], who had been asked by the then Master of the Rolls to suggest a successor to Dr Chart.’ John Clarke, Lord MacDermott, was Minister of Public Security in Northern Ireland (1940-41), Attorney General of Northern Ireland (1941-14), and later a Lord of Appeal and Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland.

45 Beckett diary, 2 Dec. 1969 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/28). See Hayes, Maurice, Minority erdict: experiences of a Catholic public ser ant (Belfast, 1995), pp 76-9Google Scholar, for a friendly assessment of Simpson and other evidence of his apparently brusque approach to his ministerial challenge: ‘You are a good Catholic, aren’t you?’, he asked Hayes, in confirming his appointment to the chair of the Community Relations Commission (p. 79).

46 See, for example, Beckett diary, 28 Mar. 1958, 23 Mar. 1971 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/20, 28).

47 There are one or two evidently sectarian allusions within the diary at this time: see ibid., 18 Nov. 1963 (D/4126/A/1/23); see also below, n. 48. On the other hand, Beckett was also sufficiently respectful to ask a young priest to offer prayers during his first mass (ibid., 18 Feb. 1985 (D/4126/A/1/39)).

48 Ibid., 17 Jan. 1950 (D/4126/A/1/13). There was an ambiguity in Beckett’s response: ‘Without offering any comment on the rights or wrongs of the business, it is easy to imagine what sort of report of conditions in Northern Ireland [the English-born headmistress of the school] would carry back to England.’

49 Ibid., 9 Dec. 1968 (D/4126/A/1/27).

50 Ibid., 30 Jan. 1967 (D/4126/A/1/25).

51 Ibid., 28 Aug. 1969 (D/4126/A/1/27).

52 See Paulin, Tom, ‘Paisley’s progress’ in his Ireland and the English crisis (Newcastle, 1984), pp 155-73Google Scholar; Beckett diary, 28 Mar. 1982 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/36). The occasion was the Conference of Irish Historians in Britain.

53 Beckett diary, 16 Oct. 1942 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/6A). For Beckett’s faith in the potential of the Anglo-Irish to provide a ia media in Irish life see his The Anglo-Irish tradition (London, 1976), pp 152-3.

54 Beckett diary, 16 Oct. 1942 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/6A). See also ibid., 11 Mar. 1942 (D/4126/A/1/8), where he writes that ‘Today I had a new scheme for a post-war political party in Ireland. Not now a simple Fascist party, but the Irish Commonwealth Party — a united Ireland inside the U.K. with some local self-government.’

55 Ibid., 11 Mar. 1945 (D/4126/A/1/8).

56 Walker, Graham, The politics of frustration: Harry Midgley and the failure of Labour in Northern Ireland (Manchester, 1985), p. 157.Google Scholar

57 Beckett diary, 4 Dec. 1941 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/5); Walker, Politics of frustration, pp 125-9.

58 Beckett diary, 14 June 1945 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4116/ A/1/9); Walker, Politics of frustration, pp 167-8. Black finished bottom of the poll.

59 Beckett, Anglo-Irish tradition, p. 11.

60 Ibid., pp 104-8.

61 Ibid., pp 108-9.

62 Beckett diary, 25 Mar. 1956 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/18).

63 Ibid., 10 Jan. 1950, 13 Aug. 1963 (D/4126/A/1/13, 23).

64 Ibid, 23 May 1953 (D/4126/A/1/15).

65 Ibid, 2 Apr. 1969 (D/4126/A/1/27).

66 Ibid., 2 Sept. 1939 (D/4126/A/1/3). See also Beckett to A. G. van Wichen, 24 Mar. 1940 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/B/1/60): ‘We must regard it [the war] as the result of all the sins of the world.’

67 Beckett diary, 28 May 1940 (ibid, D/4126/A/1/4).

68 Ibid, 18 Apr. 1944 (D/4126/A/1/7).

69 Ibid., 12 Jan. 1947 (D/4126/A/1/10).

70 Ibid. See also above, nn 47, 48.

71 Ibid., 4 Dec. 1933 (D/4126/A/1/1).

72 Ibid., 6 Nov. 1948 (D/4126/A/l/12).

73 Beckett, J. C., The ca alier duke: a life of James Butler, first duke of Ormond (Belfast, 1990), p. 144.Google Scholar

74 Ibid., pp 144-5.

75 Ibid., p. 145.

76 Ibid., publisher’s note on back cover.

77 Ciaran Brady, ‘“Constructive and instrumental”: the dilemma of Ireland’s first “new historians”’ in idem (ed.), Interpreting Irish history: the debate on historical re isionism, 1938-1994 (Dublin, 1994), p. 7. The classic critique of the ‘new historians’ — or ‘value-free’ school — is provided by Bradshaw, Brendan, ‘Nationalism and historical scholarship in modern Ireland’ in I.H.S., xxvi, no. 104 (Nov. 1989), pp 329-51Google Scholar, reprinted in Brady (ed.), Interpreting Irish history, pp 191-216.

78 The phrase is used in Beckett to Michael Roberts, 1 Apr. 1980 (Beckett-Roberts correspondence). Brady, it should be noted, has warned against any incautious linking of Irish historians with Butterfield: see his Interpreting Irish history, p. 17. On the other hand, Butterfield shared some common ground with Beckett, not least in terms of evangelical Christianity.

79 For the ‘new historians’ and scientific history see the manifesto for the U.S.I.H.S. (c. 1939) (U.C.D.A., Dudley Edwards papers, LA22/390/70); the constitution of the Irish Historical Society, 14 July 1937 (ibid., LA22/3/92/2); and the prospectus for Irish Historical Studies (c. 1938) (ibid., LA22/849/30).

80 Beckett, J. C., ‘The eighteenth-century background’ in Moody, and Beckett, (eds), Ulster since 1800, p. 10.Google Scholar

81 Idem, ‘Ulster before 1800’ in T. W. Moody and J. C. Beckett (eds), Ulster since 1800, second series: a social sur ey: twenty-two talks broadcast in the Northern Ireland Home Ser ice of the B.B.C. (London, 1957), p. 18.

82 Idem, The study of Irish history: an inaugural lecture (Belfast, 1963), p. 8; repr. in idem, Confrontations: studies in Irish history (London, 1972), pp 15-16.

83 Idem, A short history of Ireland (6th ed., 1979), p. 7.

84 Idem, The making of modern Ireland, 1603-1923 (London, 1966), p. 461.This passage is discussed by Ronan Fanning, who also observes that it was modified for the second edition, published in 1981 (Fanning, Ronan, ‘“The great enchantment”: uses and abuses of modern Irish history’ in Dooge, James (ed.), Ireland and the contemporary worlds: essays in honour of Garret FitzGerald (Dublin, 1988), pp 131-47Google Scholar, reprinted in Brady (ed.), Interpreting Irish history, pp 146-60, esp. pp 148-9). The passage is also discussed by Boyce, D. G. in ‘Past and present: revisionism and the Northern Ireland troubles’ in Boyce, D. G. and O’Day, Alan (eds), The making of modern Irish history: re isionism and the re isionist contro ersy (London, 1996), p. 234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

85 Beckett, Confrontations, pp 12, 23.

86 Idem, Protestant dissent, p. 13; idem, Confrontations, p. 22.

87 Idem, Confrontations, pp 13-14.

88 Ibid., p. l4.

89 Ibid., pp 19-20, 22.

90 Beckett, Short history (6th ed.), p. 7.

91 Idem, Confrontations, p. 23: ‘To the Gaelic nationalist, the settlers may remain foreign invaders, an English garrison; but to the historian they are as much part of the Irish scene as the lands they conquered, the castles they built, the institutions they imported or devised.’

92 Beckett diary, 6 Apr. 1979 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/34). See also Beckett to Michael Roberts, 10 Aug. 1982 (Beckett-Roberts correspondence): ‘You may remember a thing I published some years ago — The Anglo-Irish Tradition. I thought… that it was the best thing I had ever written. But it didn’t sell; and Fabers let it go out of print.’

93 Beckett, Anglo-Irish tradition, p. 11.

94 Ibid.

95 Ibid., pp 152-3.

96 Ibid., p. 152.

97 Ibid., p. 153.

98 See Bradshaw, , ‘Nationalism and historical scholarship’, for a sceptical reading of the strategies and networks of the ‘new historians’. Brady, (ed.), Interpreting Irish history, pp 16–22Google Scholar, provides a corrective.

99 See also Beckett diary, 29 Apr. 1956 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/18)

100 Beckett, Ca alier duke, p. 145.

101 Beckett diary, 29 July 1981 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/36).

102 Ibid., 8 Feb. 1969 (D/4126/A/1/27, 28).

103 The Times, 11 Mar. 1996.

104 Beckett to Michael Roberts, 16 Dec. 1988 (Beckett-Roberts correspondence): ‘Good people are scarce. No doubt this has always been so; but I find that the scarcity is more marked now than it was fifty years ago.’

105 Beckett diary, 21 Oct. 1958 (P.R.O.N.I., D/4126/A/1/20). Lewis Warren was professor of modern history at Queen’s, 1973-92, and at this time tutorial director in the department.

106 It is arguable, for example, that Beckett’s vision of an inclusivist Ireland was an influence on Foster, R. F.’s espousal of the ‘varieties of Irishness’ in his Modern Ireland, 1600-1972 (London, 1988), p. 596Google Scholar. There is a Beckett-like quality to the important concluding paragraph of Foster’s work.

107 This paper was delivered in a revised form to the Conference of Irish Historians, University of Sussex, in April 2000.I am grateful to the conference organisers, the officers of the U.S.I.H.S., particularly Dr David Hayton, and also to Dr Séamus Helferty of the Archives Department of University College Dublin. Dr Bernard Meehan of the Manuscripts Reading Room in the Library of Trinity College Dublin generously made available material from the Moody papers (which are in the process of being catalogued). Dr A.T.Q. Stewart and Mr J.L. Lord kindly granted me permission to quote from Beckett’s writings. I am also beholden to the British Academy for their continuing support of my research work.