May
I thank The Blanket for giving my book
two reviews which
I hope will make known what I have tried to do
among some of the younger generation of republican
and left-wing activists. I have reproduced them
in the introduction to my web-site overview of
the book, which can be seen at http://www.iol.ie/~rjtechne/reviews.htm
with,
in the case of the second
review, a substantive added comment, relating
to the accessability to the hypertext support
system. What I said I repeat in this context,
because it may lead to some misunderstanding:
(quoting
OR) ....But
when checking the online material "available
in full in the hypertext", the reader will
be frustrated to find out that the hyperlinks
do not work....
They
do [work], provided the reader contacts the author
and gets the exact URL for the current location
of the hypertext. This requirement is made clear
on p1 of the Introduction, and the e-mail address
is given. What is more, I (probably) made arrangements
with the Editor of The Blanket to transmit
the URL to the reviewers. It is a pity that this
arrangement, if it existed, seems to have broken
down.
I
feel I should add some more comments on the O
Ruairc review. Firstly, in the lead-in to
the above, "..sources only available on
the internet..": this is a misunderstanding;
the reference to the hypertext is a bridge to
other sources; what is in the hypertext is usually
my abstraction, for the purpose of the book, of
other named available sources, to which I indicate
channels of access. The hypertext, incidentally,
is still under development; the internet version
should be seen as as 'work in progress'; in its
final form it may end up as a CD-ROM.
I
will have more to say about O Ruairc, but may
I first thank Seaghan
O Murchu whose extended review in the January
2 issue is a creditable analysis, in some
detail, worthy perhaps of publication as a 'review
paper' in some outlet where the academic Irish
Studies people might see it (is The Blanket
perhaps on the way to becoming this?). I have
added three minor corrections of detail in the
version which I have published in support of my
web-site overview, at the URL given above. Also
there are several conferences on the Irish Studies
network during the coming year, where this would
constitute a significant contribution, and if
anything gets set up along these lines, I would
be pleased to 'speak to the paper' and contribute
to the discussion.
May
I now return to the O
Ruairc review; he is right in thinking that
Ch 7 and some of Ch 8 are the primary sources
for understanding the background of the 1960s
attempt to politicise the republican movement.
I can perhaps add that for people interested in
the evolution of the thinking of the Left in the
context of the Stalin to post-Stalin transition,
from Ch 5 onward to the end is relevant.
Also,
the earlier part of the book, dealing with my
father, is relevant to anyone seeking to promote
an inclusive philosophy for the Irish Republic,
such as to present a positive opportunity to the
Protestant community in the current transitional
context. After all, after defining his political
position in favour of all-Ireland Home Rule with
his 1913 'Civil War in Ulster' polemic
(re-published by UCD Press in 1999), he made his
career in the Free State, and it could be said
that he had substantially more impact and relevance
than, say, Bulmer Hobson.
He
takes me to task for being uncritical of Greaves'
life of Connolly, suggesting the latter as being
a 'Leninist Trojan horse'. Well, if this is in
fact the Greaves position, I think on the whole
I am critical by implication, and at several points
in my interaction with Greaves this emerges, but
I did not regard the object of the book as being
primarily a critique of Greaves. One can chase
too many hares; perhaps I already have.
He
picks up positively on my 'science and society'
angle, and interest in Bernal, linking however
the name of the latter with Farrington. Where
did he pick this up? Which Farrington? Tony, the
geologist and Royal Irish Academy Secretary, or
his classical scholar brother Ben whose 'Greek
Science' is a minor Marxist classic? Both may
have had mentions in passing, but were hardly
central to the narrative.
He
makes an issue of the infamous 'rosary' episode:
I had written a letter to the United Irishman
suggesting that graveside orations on political
occasions should be political rather than religious
events, a view which I still hold, and which is
rooted in the culture of the European Left. I
did not have ready access to a copy; if I had
I would have published it, with some background
explanation. If the reviewer is supportive of
the practice of treating political graveside orations
as religious sectarian events, with decades of
the rosary etc, then I suggest he needs to think
through the implications for his vision of the
Republic, which after all is a secular Enlightenment
concept, supported at its origins by many Protestants.
Finally,
while I welcome his recognition of my distance
from the Stalinist tradition, I would take issue
of his use of the ambiguous 'liberal' label, for
both my father and myself. Both he and I believed
in attempting to establish, one way or another,
some democratic control over the capital investment
process, in some structure perhaps to be developed
via the co-operative movement. During the civil
war my father was giving evening classes in economics
to Dublin trade unionists, in meetings chaired
by Labour leader Tom Johnson. He was promoting
the writings of Connolly via his French contacts
in the Albert Kahn Foundation. He attempted to
promote the co-operative movement during the 20s
and 30s, despite its being partioned, and despite
the erosion of its original principles, ceasing
only after the failure of his 1950 'Irish Agriculture
in Transition' to have any real impact, despite
some critical acclaim.
Both
he and I share(d) the conviction that the democratic
control of the capital investment process is not
done by the current predatory capitalist rules
of the game, nor has it been done in situations
where it was taken over by a centralist State
bureaucracy. The resolution of this problem remains
the central task of the politics of the Left.
I hint at possible approaches to the solution
in my final chapter (eg p413), and I look forward
to opportunities for supporting these, should
they be taken up politically. I think they can
claim to be in a tradition which includes Robert
Owen, William Thompson, Karl Marx and James Connolly.
If this is 'liberal' then, at least in my own
case, the word needs to be as an adjective qualifying
'socialist'.
