THE BOOKS THAT
DEFINE IRELAND
THE BOOKS THAT
DEFINE IRELAND
BRYAN FANNING AND TOM GARVIN
First published in 2014 by Merrion
an imprint of Irish Academic Press
8 Chapel Lane
Sallins
Co. Kildare
© 2014 Bryan Fanning and Tom Garvin
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
978-1-908928-44-3 (cloth)
978-1-908928-52-8 (paper)
978-1-908928-45-0 (e-book)
978-1-908928-67-2 (ePub)
978-1-908928-68-9 (mobi)
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data.
An entry can be found on request
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Contents
2Geoffrey Keating, Foras Feasa ar Éirinn/The History of Ireland (1634)
3William Molyneux, The Case of Ireland’s being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated (1698)
4Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal (1729)
5Andrew Dunleavy, The Catechism of Christian Doctrine (1742)
6William Theobald Wolfe Tone (ed.), The Autobiography of Wolfe Tone (1826)
7John Mitchel, The Jail Journal (1861)
9James Connolly, Labour in Irish History (1910)
10Patrick A. Sheehan, The Graves at Kilmorna (1913)
11Desmond Ryan (ed.), Collected Works of Padraic H. Pearse (1917)
12Daniel Corkery, The Hidden Ireland (1924)
13P.S. O’Hegarty, The Victory of Sinn Fein: How it Won It and How it Used It (1924)
14Tomás O Criomhthain, An tOileánach/ The Islandman (1929)
15Frank O’Connor, Guests of the Nation (1931)
16Sean O’Faoláin, King of the Beggars (1938)
17Flann O’Brien, At Swim-two-Birds (1939)
18James Kavanagh, Manual of Social Ethics (1954)
19Paul Blanshard, The Irish and Catholic Power: An American Interpretation (1954)
20Michael Sheehy, Divided We Stand (1955)
21Edna O’Brien, The Country Girls (1960); John McGahern, The Dark (1965)
22Cecil Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger (1962)
23Conor Cruise O’Brien, States of Ireland (1972)
24A.T.Q. Stewart, The Narrow Ground (1977)
25C.S. Andrews, Dublin Made Me (1979)
26Nell McCafferty, A Woman to Blame: The Kerry Babies Case (1985)
27Noel Browne, Against the Tide (1986)
28Fintan O’Toole, Meanwhile Back at the Ranch: The Politics of Irish Beef (1995)
30Elaine A. Byrne, Political Corruption in Ireland: A Crooked Harp? (2012)
1
Irish Arguments
Londoner Dr Samuel Johnson famously remarked that the Irish were a fair people: they never spoke well of each other. This was echoed by Dubliner George Bernard Shaw’s remark, ‘If an Irishman were roasting on a spit, one could always find another one to turn it.’ Whatever the fairness of these adages, it is the case that the Irish seem to be addicted to long and occasionally endless argument, without being quite aware that the arguments have long ceased to be new; they are rediscovered as if for the first time in generation after generation. Much of this long conversation has been heavily infested by the argumentum ad hominem. Examples of such long-running arguments have been: the question of who is and who is not Irish? Could a viable Irish nation consist only of the Protestants loyal to the Crown? (This question changed over time to a more dangerous one: Geoffrey Keating’s