There
is much to be said for the concept ‘published and
be damned’. Indeed the Stevens Team investigating
the death of Pat Finucane, is currently attempting
to damn the journalist Ed Moloney for publishing
a damning account suggesting RUC collusion in the
Loyalist killing of the Belfast solicitor. But seemingly
the author Eoin Neeson was prepared to publish but
not to be damned. He allowed himself to be drawn
into a dogfight with the reviewer Brian Maye over
his book Birth Of A Republic.
While
the literary fracas stoked my interest it is, nevertheless,
an over-sensitive or insecure writer who responds
to reviews critical of their work. Jonathan Stevenson
and Liam Clarke are cases in point. But they were
no where near as prolific as Neeson. It remains
a sad fact of literary life that many reviewers
seem not to read the book in full to begin with.
So why bother engaging them on matters not fully
investigated never mind understood ? He does protest
too much.
Neeson
complains that over the past thirty years people
seem to know less and less about the Rising of 1916.
But in his 1937 book on Michael Collins, Frank O’Connor
then commented that the post-Rising generation was
‘utterly indifferent to the great story that began
in Easter 1916 ... even bored by it’. It cannot,
therefore, be that modern ‘revisionist’ writing
must bear sole responsibility for the latest indifference.
At
one level Eoin Neeson is clearly intent on challenging
what he considers to be this revisionist historiography.
But like so many who attack revisionism he fails
- despite his caveat that ‘judicious and prudent
reassessment of accepted and standard versions of
historical events is a very proper and desirable
thing’ - to distinguish between history that is
intellectually revised and that which is revised
politically. There can be nothing whatsoever wrong
with intellectual revisionism. We sincerely hope
that the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody
Sunday intellectually revises the findings of Lord
Widgery who subjected the original evidence to political
revisionism.
Furthermore,
Neeson is less than illuminating when he quotes
Bryan McMahon as saying ‘the greatest mistake a
commentator can make is to pass judgement on "then”
in the context of “now”. But unless we do precisely
that, tyrants of the past such as Pinochet can cite
context not immediately germane to our present understanding
in defence of their crimes against humanity. Throughout
the work the author persistently rejects all criticism
of the 1916 Rising on this basis. And even if we
do agree that in relative terms his point is correct
this brings us nowhere nearer to solving the methodological
dilemma of evaluating the “then” from the perspective
of the “then” as opposed to the “now”. As none of
us now exist in the “then” we are compelled to create
our sense of the “then” from what we know now. The
point can be fought over endlessly. But in this
sense it is strange to see Eoin Neeson struggling
with the question of whether Roger Casement was
homosexual. No one should seek to defend Casement
against allegations of homosexuality for the very
reason that no one should be defended against allegations
of heterosexuality. The only concern in this matter
is the perfidy of Britain. But if by the standards
of Casement’s day homosexuality was wrong then it
is inconsistent for Eoin Neeson to consider the
merits of the issue from today’s less repressive
perspective.
In
his bid to distinguish between revisionism and revision
Neeson fails to appreciate that revisionism never
occurs merely for its own sake. And given that history
is invariably constructed from the perspective of
the present there remains the very real danger that
those more powerful are the very people most able
and most inclined to indulge in political revisionism.
It is arguable that the flourishing of local history
networks such as Glandore in West Belfast’s Ballymurphy
is fast becoming the site of a struggle to protect
the veracity of historical development from political
revisionism. Eoin Neeson is aware of the problems
but apart from vacuous truisms offers little in
the way of strategising a course out of the fog.
This
review does insufficient justice to the many interesting
areas in Birth Of A Republic. But as an author
of ten plays and fourteen books Eoin Neeson has
deservedly made his mark. And the methodological
questions were of such significance that comment
followed need.
