By Joe Culley
@TheRealCulls
In the middle of the Civil War, an IRA intelligence report from November 1922 assessed the 52 pro-Treaty members of Dublin Corporation thus: ten Treaty, including (Lord Mayor) Laurence O’Neill and Alfie Byrne; 32 pro-Treaty, ‘but not so bad’; and ten hard pro-Treatyites, ‘real bad eggs’.
One of those ‘bad eggs’ would certainly have been William T. Cosgrave, who, notably, had just resigned from the council following his election to the position of president of the Dáil. Cosgrave quickly proved to be a perfect example of the often-remarkable change of attitude that afflicts revolutionaries as soon as they get their hands on the reins of power—that democracy is all well and good until you want to get something done.
Throughout the revolutionary decade Dublin Corporation had been a hotbed of politics and sometimes outright insurgency, and now the new Provisional Government found itself in the crosshairs. In particular, the councillors were making noises about the treatment of anti-Treaty prisoners and had in fact attempted to initiate peace talks but had been rebuffed by the authorities. The government quickly tired of such ‘interference’ and in 1923 passed the Local Government (Temporary Provisions) Act, which gave it the power to dissolve local authorities. Accordingly, in February 1924 it initiated a public inquiry into Dublin Corporation.
Vindicating Dublin: the story behind the controversial dissolution of Dublin Corporation in 1924 is Aodh Quinlivan’s quite superb examination of that fourteen-day inquiry and its aftermath. (The ‘vindicating’ comes from the title of a document written soon after by now ex-councillor Seán T. O’Kelly.) As it happens, the evidence suggests that the general public were happy to see the back of the Corpo. The press had welcomed the inquiry, and the Evening Herald had gone so far as to allege that some of the councillors were ‘corrupt and unscrupulous brutes’.
But did they deserve to be sacked en masse? UCC’s Quinlivan points out that there were no specific charges laid against the council, there was no proof of corruption, and no evidence that the report of the inquiry itself recommended dissolution. You’ll have to read this fine account—published by Dublin City Council—to learn the truth.
In Adomnán, Adhamhnán, Eunan: life and afterlife of a Donegal saint, archaeologist and prolific author Brian Lacey distils a lifetime of study into an examination of the man’s life and legend. This is the first full study of Adomnán, who was, ‘in modern parlance, an “all-rounder”: monk, priest, manager, writer, historian, lawmaker and diplomat’. Significantly, he was the author of one of the first laws for the protection of non-combatants in conflict.
As with any work dealing with events from this period, there’s a certain amount of informed speculation involved. Lacey explains that ‘only four or five separate bits of contemporary information about Adomnán were preserved in the annals’, but much can be gleaned indirectly from other sources, not least from Adomnán’s own work on his distant relation St Columba, Vita Columbae. As Lacey puts it, ‘To some extent Adomnán has always played second fiddle to his predecessor and relative Columba or Colum Cille. This was as much his own “fault” as that of others because of the marvellous public relations exercise on behalf of the earlier man that he engineered in the Vita Columbae. … [T]here is a lot of evidence to suggest that Adomnán may have been at least as important—and maybe a bit more so—than Columba.’
It’s all quite interesting and will appeal to its main target audience—and no doubt prompt some academic debate. Lacey has a light touch with his prose and presents the scholarship in an accessible manner.
Are you a deltiologist? By which I mean, do you collect postcards? Indeed, do you remember postcards? They were kinda like Instagram, only slower. I’m being only slightly facetious, as Dr Ann Wilson explains in the intriguing The picture postcard: a window into Edwardian Ireland.
It’s not a huge stretch to argue that postcards were the social media of their day, in this case the turn of the last century. They ‘offered Edwardian people a simplified, stereotypical and often idealised view of the world, a fantasy media version of reality of the kind … we, like they did, navigate and selectively believe in when it suits us’. Literally billions of cards were sent around the world at the time. Collecting them was considered ‘a suitable hobby for young ladies’, and studying those collections allows an insight into the day-to-day lives of these largely middle-class women. Wilson also looks at how the cards reflected/created an Irish identity, and how they brought the world into Irish sitting-rooms.
Although this, volume 103 in the Reimagining Ireland series, is essentially an academic work, Wilson’s presentation and argument are quite accessible. The book is enhanced with lovely colour reproductions of the cards.
Conor Lenihan’s Albert Reynolds: risktaker for peace is a curious animal. Although described as the first ‘full-length’ biography, it’s a slim volume that admits to focusing solely on Reynolds’s public life. It has no academic pretensions. Lenihan didn’t spend hours sifting through official documents in the National Archives but, crucially, the former journalist and politician was close to his subject. In particular, while still a Dáil reporter, Lenihan was brought into Reynolds’s private loop in the build-up to the Downing Street Declaration in 1993, and he does add some nice colour and background here. Overall, this is a sympathetic but not fawning portrait of Reynolds, with particular reference to the Peace Process.
After a long career as a civil servant, since retirement Felix Larkin has built an impressive career as a historian. In the past decade in particular he has published widely, most notably on political cartooning, and, among other roles, has served as a director of the Parnell Summer School. Living with history: occasional writings is an extensive collection of pieces ranging from contributions to the Dictionary of Irish Biography to An Irishman’s Diary and, needless to say, History Ireland.
For the last three years Sligoman Padraic Coffey has run the popular @ThisDayIrish account on Twitter from his home in Vancouver. Now a hardback miscellany, This day in Irish history, will allow those unfamiliar with the joys of that platform to delve into the 366 bite-sized entries on momentous events. It includes a handy chronology to add some order to proceedings and to aid searches.
Another sort of miscellany from O’Brien Press is O’Connell Street: the history and life of Dublin’s iconic street by novelist Nicola Pierce. Unfortunately, it gets off to a shaky start. We are told in the opening pages that Henry Moore was obliged ‘to mortgage his estate to fellow developer Luke Gardiner’ in 1681. Remarkably, that would have been—as indeed we read in the next paragraph—nine years before Luke was born. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of history to be delved into here, and Pierce tackles it in themes such as landmark buildings, the cinemas, murder and mayhem, and public gatherings.
In Who owns Ireland: the hidden truth of land ownership in Ireland, veteran reporter Kevin Cahill breaks down who exactly were the largest landowners in each county in 1876, and then tries to follow the trail to who owns the land now. The facts are interesting, but it is all overladen with a heavy tone of polemic.
Aodh Quinlivan, Vindicating Dublin: the story behind the controversial dissolution of Dublin Corporation in 1924 (Dublin City Council, €22.50 hb, 288pp, ISBN 9780950548838).
Brian Lacey, Adomnán, Adhamhnán, Eunan: life and afterlife of a Donegal saint (Four Courts Press, €17.95 pb, 256pp, ISBN 9781846829635).
Ann Wilson, The picture postcard: a window into Edwardian Ireland (Peter Lang, €30 pb, 241pp, ISBN 9781788740791).
Conor Lenihan, Albert Reynolds: risktaker for peace (Merrion Press, €22.95 hb, 256pp, ISBN 9781785374050).
Felix M. Larkin, Living with history: occasional writings (Kingdom Books, €24 hb, 377pp, ISBN 9781916476462).
Padraic Coffey, This day in Irish history (O’Brian Press, €19.99 hb, 368pp, ISBN 9781788492577).
Nicola Pierce, O’Connell Street: the history and life of Dublin’s iconic street (O’Brien Press, €19.99 hb, 272pp, ISBN 9781788491488).
Kevin Cahill, Who owns Ireland: the hidden truth of land ownership in Ireland (The History Press, €20 pb, 448pp, ISBN 9780750984454).