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Preface to the updated edition
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- By Grantchester, Bergen
- John O'Beirne Ranelagh
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- Book:
- A Short History of Ireland
- Published online:
- 05 November 2012
- Print publication:
- 11 October 2012, pp xiv-xvi
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- Chapter
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Summary
Preface to the updated edition
This edition has been written as the prospects for more peace in Northern Ireland, and a consequent drop in terrorism, seem bright. The terrorism of the past thirty years, however, is not the culmination of Irish history. Nor has it been the inevitable outcome of government policies or socio-economic conditions. It is a result of generations of romanticising Irish nationalism which, with few exceptions, and in common with nationalism everywhere, has been the passion of idealistic but narrow-minded and limited men and women. The important Irish history of the last part of the twentieth century is how the people of the country have moved away from historical positions and assumptions, have been more interested in making money and enjoying life, have broadened their horizons, and have affirmed democratic principles. Ireland is certainly not ‘the most distressful country’.
People in Northern Ireland have sensed that the violence that has afflicted them has meant that the benefits of membership of the European Union, so clear in the Republic, have passed them by. They sense that a great opportunity of the past fifty years has been denied them.
Preface to the first edition
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- By Grantchester
- John O'Beirne Ranelagh
-
- Book:
- A Short History of Ireland
- Published online:
- 05 November 2012
- Print publication:
- 11 October 2012, pp ix-x
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Preface to the first edition
Ireland’s history is distinguished by two special characteristics. First, a recognisable Irish nation, of course over time itself a conglomerate of many ‘nations’, distinct from a British nation, with its own language, customs and lore dating back to the Iron Age, survived right into the nineteenth century. This gave Irish nationalism a particular force. Second, over the centuries of increasingly powerful and centralised British government, ruling social and political pressures combined first to make Irish people feel and then to believe that they were inferior. This is one of the worst things that any nation or race can do to another. It results in the most terrible of paradoxes where in practical matters there is a desire equally to welcome and to oppose, thus ensuring that failure accompanies success, and despair and a sense of futility underlie the whole of life. As many Irishmen were government spies, agents and informers as were national heroes; emigration became almost the only way of escaping depression. To the present day many Irish writers find it somehow necessary to practise their art away from home.
In modern times the complexities of economic development, international arrangements and the rejection of Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland have begun to change traditional attitudes. The very concept of a unitary Irish nation has been challenged, and the reality of Ireland’s connections with Britain has begun to be faced honestly for the first time by politicians. In the last quarter of the twentieth century we can, I think, say that Ireland’s people are at last considering themselves in relation to an Irish world for which they themselves accept responsibility.
Preface to the second edition
-
- By Grantchester, Bergen
- John O'Beirne Ranelagh
-
- Book:
- A Short History of Ireland
- Published online:
- 05 November 2012
- Print publication:
- 11 October 2012, pp xi-xiii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Preface to the second edition
Since I wrote this book twelve years ago, there has been a great change in mainstream Irish nationalism and in the awarenesses of the Republic. Roman Catholic moral and social teaching, militating against contraception, divorce, abortion, pushing Ireland apart from the liberal values at the heart of the European Union, have given way to a more secular sensibility. American Catholic attitudes have replaced traditional Irish ones: there is hostility to Church leadership and control. There is a general indifference to traditional Gaelic culture. Terror has become a way of life for malcontents in the North, of which terrorists are a part. They have confirmed their debasement of a struggle that was noble and have fundamentally conditioned Irish nationalism and unionism for most Irishmen. Very few of the men and women involved in the Irish fight for freedom in the 1916–21 period could identify with those who act in the name of the IRA and its splinter groups today. Unionists of the same period would undoubtedly reject those ‘loyalists’ who have also chosen terror as a weapon.
The balance of this book is weighted to the period after 1800 in which modern Ireland has been formed. Terrorism and its attendant horrors in Northern Ireland, spilling at times into England and the Republic – and even occasionally further afield – have forced the Republic effectively to moderate its claims to the whole island of Ireland. At the same time, the less organic, federal and provisional nature of the union between Northern Ireland and Britain (i.e., England, Scotland and Wales) has become steadily clear as United Kingdom (i.e., Britain and Northern Ireland) governments have committed themselves to observe only majority verdicts by voters within the North on the future of the province, and not to consider the views of British voters on the matter. Indeed, Westminster governments and the people of Britain by no means crave possession of Northern Ireland: unionists in the North are acutely conscious of this. Assertions to the contrary are a combination of misrepresentation and misappreciation that now suits terrorists and their supporters. Similarly, in the Republic, people are conscious that Irish unity will involve terrible costs that they are by no means certain they wish to pay.