Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T21:56:06.312Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Revisionist historians and the modern Irish state: the conflict between the Advisory Committee and the Bureau of Military History, 1947–66

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Evi Gkotzaridis
Evi Gkotzaridis*
Affiliation:
European University Institute, Florence
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The most resounding charge brought during the last two decades against ‘revisionism’ in Irish historiography has been that of a tacit collaboration between historians and the government. This accusation is too serious to be left unexamined. Traditionalists have denounced ‘revisionism’ as a dubious device designed to prop up the border and undo the work of the revolution. Desmond Fennell declared categorically that ‘Both in its ultimate thrust, and as a matter of objective fact, [it] is the historiography of the counter-revolution.’ Séamus Deane defined it as ‘a provincial phenomenon’ and dismissed its practitioners as ‘neo-unionists’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 137 , May 2006 , pp. 99 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Fennell, Desmond, ‘Against revisionism’ in Brady, Ciaran (ed.), Interpreting Irish history: the debate on historical revisionism (Dublin, 1994), p. 186Google Scholar.

2 Deane, Séamus, Celtic revivals: essays in modern Irish literature, 1880–1980 (London, 1985), p. 122Google Scholar.

3 Laffan, Michael, ‘Insular attitudes: the revisionists and their critics’ in Dorgan, Theo (ed.), Revising the rising (Derry, 1991), p. 113Google Scholar.

4 R. D. Edwards, ‘History, politics and partition’ in The Leader, 12 Mar. 1955, p. 3.

5 Laffan, ‘Insular attitudes’, p. 113.

6 Butterfield, Herbert, The Whig interpretation of history (London, 1965), p. vGoogle Scholar.

7 O’Brien, C.C., ‘The embers of Easter’ in Edwards, O.D. and Pyle, Fergus (eds), The Easter Rising (London, 1968), pp 227–8Google Scholar.

8 Martin, F.X., ‘1916 — myth, fact, and mystery’ in Studia Hih., vii (1967), pp 7–125Google Scholar.

9 Shaw, Francis, ‘The canon of Irish history: a challenge’ in Studies, lxi (1972), pp 117–49Google Scholar.

10 Murphy, J.A., ‘Further reflections on Irish nationalism’ in The Crane Bag, ii (1978), p. 157Google Scholar.

11 R. D. Edwards, ‘The future of Fianna Fáil’ in The Leader, 29 Jan. 1955, pp 6–7.

12 Edwards, R.D., review of O’Hegarty, P.S., Ireland under the union in I.H.S., viii, no. 31 (Mar. 1953), pp 280–84Google Scholar.

13 Edwards diary, 2 Mar. 1957 (U.C.D.A., Edwards papers, LA 22/Diary).

14 R. D. Edwards, ‘Padraic MacPiarais — the leader’ (ibid., LA 22/1022).

15 Edwards, memorandum, 18 Apr. 1966 (ibid., LA 22/1084 (247)).

16 Ronan Fanning, ‘ “The great enchantment”: uses and abuses of modern Irish history’ in Brady (ed.), Interpreting Irish history, p. 154.

17 Edwards, memorandum, 5 Jan. 1943 (N.A.I, DT S13081).

18 O’Kelly to Moynihan, Jan. 1943, quoted in Diarmaid Ferriter, ‘In such deadly earnest’ in Dublin Review, no. 12 (2003), p. 37.

19 Edwards, memorandum, 3 Apr. 1946 (U.C.D.A., LA 22/465 (3)).

20 McDunphy, report, n.d. (Cambridge University Library, Butterfield papers, 131).

21 O’Donoghue to Edwards, n.d. (U.C.D.A., LA 22/333 (41)).

22 Edwards to McDunphy, n.d. (ibid., LA 22/464 (198)).

23 O’Donoghue to McDunphy, 14 Mar. 1951 (ibid., LA 22/335 (167)).

24 McDunphy to O’Donoghue, 31 Mar. 1952 (T.C.D., Moody papers, 10048/BMH/90/2).

25 O’Donoghue diary, 9 Apr. 1948 (N.L.I., MS 31355 (1–2)).

26 Ibid., 6 May 1948.

27 Ibid. (conversation with Michael Costello).

28 Edwards to Hayes, n.d. (U.C.D.A., LA 22/333 (196)).

29 O’Donoghue to Edwards, 14 Feb. 1958 (ibid., LA 22/333 (147)).

30 Edwards and Hayes-McCoy to Boland, 5 Sept. 1959 – 14 Mar. 1960 (ibid., LA 22/339 (4)).

31 Boland to Edwards and Hayes-McCoy, 31 Aug. 1959 (ibid., LA 22/333 (168–9)).

32 Hogan to Edwards, 18 Jan. 1960 (ibid., LA 22/339 (8)).

33 Edwards to McDunphy, n.d. (ibid., LA 22/464 (127)).

34 Edwards to Boland, 23 Jan. 1958 (ibid., LA 22/333 (129)).

35 Boland to Edwards, 31 Jan. 1958 (ibid.).

36 Hayes to Edwards, 10 Feb. 1958 (ibid., LA 22/333 (144)).

37 Hayes to Edwards, 14 Feb. 1958 (ibid., LA 22/333 (145)).

38 See Corráin, Donnchadh Ó (ed.), James Hogan: revolutionary, historian and political scientist (Dublin, 2001)Google Scholar.

39 Hogan to Edwards, 14 Dec. 1951 (U.C.D.A., LA 22/793 (3)).

40 Hogan to Edwards, 28 Apr. 1958 (ibid., LA 22/793 (71)).

41 Sunday Independent, 28 Apr. 1946.

42 Ibid., 23 Nov. 1947.

43 R. D. Edwards, ‘The historian, the civil servants and the records of 1913–21’ in The Leader, 25 Oct. 1952, p. 19.

44 Ibid.

45 R. D. Edwards, ‘Ireland’s historical trial’ in The Leader, 23 Oct. 1954, pp 7–8.

46 Edwards, R.D., ‘Rescue the records’ in Irish Archives Bulletin, i (1971), pp 7–10Google Scholar.

47 Lee, J.J., Ireland 1912–1985: politics and society (Cambridge, 1989), p. 593Google Scholar.

48 Laffan, ‘Insular attitudes’, pp 108–9.

49 Hogan to Edwards, Apr.–June 1946 (U.C.D.A., LA 22/465 (30)).

50 Maley, Willy, ‘Nationalism and revisionism: ambiviolences and dissensus’ in Brewster, Scottet al. (eds), Ireland in proximity: history, gender, space (London, 1999), p. 21Google Scholar.

51 T. D. Williams, ‘The origins of the Civil War’ (unpublished lecture), n.d. (U.C.D.A., LA 22/1276).

52 Murray, Patrick, ‘Obsessive historian: Eamon de Valera and the policing of his reputation’ in R.I.A. Proc., ci (2001), sect. C, pp 48–9Google Scholar.

53 O’Halpin, Eunan, ‘Historical revisit: Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic (1937)’ in I.H.S., xxxi, no. 123 (May 1999), pp 391–2Google Scholar.

54 Regan, John M., The Irish counter-revolution, 1921–1936 (Dublin, 1999), p. xvGoogle Scholar.