A few years ago I paid quite a lot of money for a secondhand paperback book. When I lived in Ireland I remember fresh copies of it on sale in the railway stations for half a crown. I remember it had a photo of de Valera on the back and was a thick volume. De Valera was a fixture as solid and seemingly as old as the Mountains of Mourne. The title of the book was THE IRISH REPUBLIC. As both the Republic and Dev were taken for granted I did not bother to add it to my stock. My father voted Fianna Fail “as the best of a bad lot” and thought that the book’s author, Dorothy MacArdle was too indulgent towards Dev, and I have heard a scholarly Republican Communist say that she thought the sun shone out of Dev’s arse.
First published in 1937, my copy was printed in 1968. Apparently it has not been printed since. That’s a great pity because it is “a documentary chronicle of the Anglo-Irish conflict and the partition of Ireland, with a detailed account of the period 1916-1923.”
Many books written by participants in the events of those years and witnesses of them would be of use to ordinary citizens, to students, teachers and academics, but if the veteran participants were not guillotined by 1970, their testimony appears to have been. Thus “experts” on 20th Century Irish History with a special interest in the Intelligence War in 1920 , such as Professor Bew, can’t tell night from day, know nothing of the curfew when British assassins shot men in their beds or the morning light when early-rising Republicans hit back.Charlatans such as the late Professor Peter Hart, could (while himself still alive) interview an already dead veteran of the Kilmichael ambush, win the plaudits of Kevin Myers, and shelter under the umbrella of Professor Fitzpatrick of Dublin’s Trinity College.
The EVIDENCE ON CONDITIONS IN IRELAND, comprising the complete testimony, affidavits and exhibits presented before the American Commission On Conditions In Ireland (1920) has been digitised and can be downloaded on your computer or Kindle.
I don’t know whether any scholars or academics are aware of the evidence. But history is too important to be left to those who pontificate EX CATHEDRA ET PER ANUM.
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