Documentary investigation has particular strengths to offer the study of the historical emergence... more Documentary investigation has particular strengths to offer the study of the historical emergence of sociological research. Here two documents relating to a Muintir na Tire initiative of the late 1950s to secure US scholarship funding for Irish students of sociology are introduced and reproduced. The reasons why the scheme did not get off the ground, even though financial support appeared to be on offer, are discussed. Here a combination of Muintir na Tire's limited support within the Catholic Church and a modest, but significant, expansion of Irish social science educational capacity brought about by the use of Archbishop McQuaid's power within University College Dublin are emphasised.
In October 1951 John McAteer, who had been selected by the Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) as a... more In October 1951 John McAteer, who had been selected by the Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) as a member of a team that was to visit the United States under the auspices of Ireland’s Marshall Aid Technical Assistance (TA) programme, had his application for an entry visa rejected. This paper examines this episode of Ireland’s Marshall Plan participation experience drawing upon files in the Irish National Archives. It begins by tracing the difficulties the 1945 split between rival Irish trade union congresses created for efforts to foster joint employer-trade union action within Ireland’s Marshall Aid TA programme. It then turns to the manner in which one of the union congresses, the ITUC, selected the members of its team to visit the USA and the issues raised by the selection for part of its own support base as well as for agencies of the Irish and US governments involved in Marshall Aid administration. Once McAteer had been refused a visa the ITUC decided to combine protest at his e...
It reappears now on the centenary of the Lockout and in the year in which a Taoiseach has apologi... more It reappears now on the centenary of the Lockout and in the year in which a Taoiseach has apologised unreservedly to women who spent time in Magdalen laundries. must be handled and of a regulation forbidding the wearing of union badges in the factory, Jacob's closed down completely on 1 September 1913. iv A fortnight later the factory was reopened with a gradual build-up of workforce numbers, first in the male areas and later in the female ones. On 11 October Jacob's issued an ultimatum to those who had not returned to work to do so by October 15 or be taken off the firm's books. Old workers who had returned to work were paid `loyalty money' increases in their wage rates from 14 October, the day on which the Dublin employers rejected the report of Sir George Askwith's inquiry as a basis for a general settlement of the conflict. Between 16 October and 3 November the factory advertised in the press every day for women workers. v Locked Up in High Park Against this background of exacerbated friction, physical clashes occurred in the vicinity of the factory between those working and those remaining out during early November which gave rise to a spate of assault or intimidation prosecutions and to custodial sentences for a number of those convicted. In one of these cases: A girl named Mary E. Murphy, who was on strike from Messrs Jacob's factory in Dublin, was charged with assaulting one of the girls employed by Messrs. Jacob by giving her a box on the face and calling her a "scab" on the morning of the 3rd [of November], and with acting in a similar manner in the afternoon of the same day when complainant was returning from dinner. Murphy was remanded for a week and was sent to High Park Reformatory, which is a place of detention under the Children Act, 1908. After the remand, she was convicted of assault and sentenced to one month in the same reformatory. vi Already imprisoned in Mountjoy at the beginning of November 1913, and the focus of a Labour movement campaign to force the Liberal government to order his release, was James Larkin. This pressure bore fruit on Thursday, November 13, when Larkin was freed after serving less than three weeks of a seven month sentence. Speaking at a meeting in Beresford Place the following (Friday) evening, James Connolly, who had deputised for Larkin during his time in jail, announced that demonstrations due to be held at the weekend in Dublin and Manchester would go ahead, with their original purpose of demanding Larkin's release
This article begins by examining a series of 1944 articles by Michael Sayers published in the New... more This article begins by examining a series of 1944 articles by Michael Sayers published in the New York newspaper PM and the official response denying the existence of anti-Semitism in Ireland they prompted. The content of the articles and the character of the official response to them are evaluated and the career of their author is then outlined. A Dublin-born Jewish writer, Sayers became politically active in the USA during the 1940s and, having been "blacklisted" as the Cold War intensified, returned to Europe to continue working mainly as a pseudonymous writer of television scripts. He was eventually able to return to New York where he died in 2010 aged 98. While "blacklisted" during the 1950s Sayers had a play staged under his real name in Dublin without controversy despite the repeated attacks being made in the city at that time on authors and actors whose alleged left-wing leanings rendered them objectionable to Catholic vigilantes. The paper concludes with an examination of this episode.
The catalytic effect of the OECD-linked study that produced Investment in Education is a much cel... more The catalytic effect of the OECD-linked study that produced Investment in Education is a much celebrated episode of Ireland’s modernisation. A remarkably broad cross-departmental consensus supported the initiative. Bureaucratic caution and ministerial self-preservation were set aside to allow a “warts and all” portrait of Irish education to be painted by the study team. Special efforts were made to focus public attention on the findings of a damning report that legitimated a quickening pace of government action to increase access to an expanded, rationalised and reoriented education system. But, as well as developmentalist triumph over conservatism in the education field, there was also significant division between state and civil society developmentalists. This is examined through an analysis of the relationship between the Federation of Lay Catholic Secondary Schools and the Department of Education.
The Magheramorne Manifesto of the Independent Orange Order has been hailed as a bold attempt from... more The Magheramorne Manifesto of the Independent Orange Order has been hailed as a bold attempt from an unlikely quarter to positively address the sectarian divisions and regional polarisation of early 20 th century Ireland. But the Order's leading light, Lindsay Crawford, has also been indicted for formulating an 'empty radicalism' which demanded changes in the field of education that it was impossible for the Catholic community to accept. This working paper reassesses Crawford's ideological project in the light of hitherto underused sources of evidence. It highlights convergence between Crawford's thinking and that of 'Irish Ireland' activists in movements such as the Gaelic League and Sinn Fein. It argues that heterodox educational views were prevalent to a significant extent among the Irish Irelanders to whom Crawford looked for a positive response to his national regeneration project. The case is also made that, in the absence of unanimous acceptance of their desirability among lay Catholics, the support of Protestants-and particularly that of Crawford's fellow Irish Anglicansprovided existing school management arrangements with a vital source of sustenance.
Canon Law obliged Catholic religious periodicals to submit to an ecclesiastical censorship proces... more Canon Law obliged Catholic religious periodicals to submit to an ecclesiastical censorship process whereby a Nihil Obstat from a diocesan censor and an Imprimatur from a bishop had to be obtained. The changed environment within the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council in some places gave rise to heightened tensions between conservative censors and innovative editors. This article examines a series of clashes involving the Dublin Archdiocese of John Charles McQuaid and REALITY, a Redemptorist monthly with a large and mainly young readership. The manner in which REALITY’s recruitment of a panel of lay Associate Editors changed the terms of this struggle is highlighted.
a short piece written for the Irish Times website on the fiftieth anniversary of the July 1968 pu... more a short piece written for the Irish Times website on the fiftieth anniversary of the July 1968 publication of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae: based on the chapter "The best news Ireland ever got? The reception of Humanae Vitae on the Pope's Green Island" pp. 275-301 in Alana Harris (ed.) "The Schism of '68: Catholicism, Contraception and Humanae Vitae in Europe, 1945-1975" Palgrave Macmillan, 2018
Published in Cathair na Mart (Journal of the Westport Historical Society) Volume 21, 2001, pp. 12... more Published in Cathair na Mart (Journal of the Westport Historical Society) Volume 21, 2001, pp. 127-145.
The nineteenth century Union between Britain and Ireland functioned within a wider dynamic cont... more The nineteenth century Union between Britain and Ireland functioned within a wider dynamic context of state liberalisation. The dismantling of internal and external tariff barriers exposed the existing Irish economy to the full influence of market forces operating at the statewide and international levels. As centralisation and concentration of capital increased, the type of manufacturing specialisation which proved viable in Dublin provided the basis for only an attenuated industrialisation.
Liberalisation took political as well as economic forms. The state adopted an increasingly neutral attitude on religious questions. Trade union organisation was legalised. In the course of successive extensions of the parliamentary franchise statewide parity of political rights became institutionalised. But because of the radically uneven pattern of capitalist development to which it gave rise liberalisation produced a polarisation rather than an integration of Irish society.
Such uneven development in the course of industrialisation is the starting point for the theory of Internal Colonialism which argues that, as a result, a division between an English core and `Celtic' peripheral regions was institutionalised within the United Kingdom. It holds that subsequent reaction to the disadvantages suffered by the peripheries took the form of a broadly-based nationalism only when the cities of a disadvantaged periphery did not develop a cultural pattern which diverged from that of the surrounding rural areas. The supposed absence of such cultural divergences has been put forward to explain why most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom: their presence has been seen as the reason why Scotland and Wales failed to follow suit.
In this thesis the case of Dublin is used to assess these arguments. The hypothesis that similarity or difference between urban and rural cultures had a decisive effect on the political outcome of British uneven development is rejected. In place of cultural divergence, it is argued that, to explain how Irish independence came about, it is necessary to examine the performance of the UK state in its role as manager of conflict within civil society in Ireland.
Following the solidification of Catholic Nationalist and Protestant Unionist blocs in the 1880s the UK government sought to widen the basis of consent for its rule in Ireland. In the course of expanding its role this state became both more colonial and more metropolitan. The autonomy of the state from indigenous social forces associated with its `overdevelopment' in a colonial context was exploited. But consensual rule also brought the extension of new political and social rights to the Irish population. Home Rule was not "killed by kindness" but a more complex and differentiated political environment was created as new grassroots movements emerged whose activities intertwined with the initiatives of the state in a series of specific fields of policy.
The expansion of the consensual elements of rule was, however, to be accompanied by the breakdown of the state's function of coercion. The conjunction of an intractable crisis over the third Home Rule Bill and the outbreak of a war which could only be waged by an unprecedented state mobilisation of social resources created a situation of `dual militarisation' in which the UK state first lost its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its Irish territory and ultimately forfeited the degree of qualified legitimacy it had enjoyed.
This paper begins by examining a series of articles by Michael Sayers published in the New York ... more This paper begins by examining a series of articles by Michael Sayers published in the New York newspaper PM in March 1944 and the official response denying the existence of Antisemitism in Ireland they prompted. The content of the articles and the character of the official response to them are then evaluated.
In October 1951 John McAteer, who had been selected by the Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) as a... more In October 1951 John McAteer, who had been selected by the Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) as a member of a team that was to visit the United States under the auspices of Ireland’s Marshall Aid Technical Assistance (TA) programme, had his application for an entry visa rejected. This paper examines this episode of Ireland’s Marshall Plan participation experience drawing upon files in the Irish National Archives. It begins by tracing the difficulties the 1945 split between rival Irish trade union congresses created for efforts to foster joint employer-trade union action within Ireland’s Marshall Aid TA programme. It then turns to the manner in which one of the union congresses, the ITUC, selected the members of its team to visit the USA and the issues raised by the selection for part of its own support base as well as for agencies of the Irish and US governments involved in Marshall Aid administration. Once McAteer had been refused a visa the ITUC decided to combine protest at his exclusion with continued participation in the TA project despite internal demands that it withdraw entirely. Briefing of the press by ITUC officers may have been responsible for press coverage that suggested that the Stormont government was to blame for the US attitude towards McAteer. No evidence to support such a contention has been found in the Irish National Archives files examined.
The catalytic effect of the OECD-linked study that produced Investment in Education is a much cel... more The catalytic effect of the OECD-linked study that produced Investment in Education is a much celebrated episode of Ireland's modernisation. A remarkably broad cross-departmental consensus supported the initiative. Bureaucratic caution and ministerial self-preservation were set aside to allow a "warts and all" portrait of Irish education to be painted by the study team. Special efforts were made to focus public attention on the findings of a damning report that legitimated a quickening pace of government action to increase access to an expanded, rationalised and reoriented education system. But, as well as developmentalist triumph over conservatism in the education field, there was also significant division between state and civil society developmentalists. This is examined through an analysis of the relationship between the Federation of Lay Catholic Secondary Schools and the Department of Education.
Muintir na Tire's role in the emergence of the discipline of Sociology in Ireland is usually ackn... more Muintir na Tire's role in the emergence of the discipline of Sociology in Ireland is usually acknowledged with reference to the Limerick Rural Survey (1958-64) that it initiated, part-funded and published. In the first half of the 1960s the movement also put proposals to the Irish government and sought US foundation grants for a centre or institute that would operate in the field of rural sociology and form part of Muintir na Tire's organisational structure. Although Taoiseach Sean Lemass was positively disposed towards these initatives, opposition from the Departments of Agriculture, Education and Finance prevailed against them and Muintir na Tire was ultimately to find itself completely excluded from participation in the state-resourced institutional arrangements for carrying out social/sociological research in Ireland.
NIRSA-National Institute for Regional and Spatial …, 2009
In February 1958, the Irish Catholic Hierarchy sent a letter to its US counterpart. The letter st... more In February 1958, the Irish Catholic Hierarchy sent a letter to its US counterpart. The letter stated that the UN policy of the Irish government `did not represent the feelings of Irish Catholics'. It also called on the US bishops ` make their influence effectively felt' by Irish representatives in the United States in relation to two plays in the programme of the 1958 Dublin Theatre Festival which the Archbishop of Dublin regarded as objectionable. This was to be done by, in effect, threatening to encourage a US tourist boycott of Ireland. On neither of these matters had the Irish hierarchy made representations to the Irish government. This paper reproduces the letter, sets out the context in which it was sent, examines the response to it by churchmen in the USA and the role this played in bringing about the postponement of the Theatre Festival. Irish diplomatic and ministerial reaction to the discovery of what the Irish hierarchy had done is also discussed.
Over the past sixty years, the Republic of Ireland has experienced two forms of americanisation. ... more Over the past sixty years, the Republic of Ireland has experienced two forms of americanisation. One of these was aid during the early post-war decades from the US government or from European agencies that owed their existence to US government funding, like the European Productivity Agency. The second was investment by US private corporations that began to increase in importance from the late 1960s. This paper notes some contrasts between the two. The early period was one in which a productivity drive was unsuccessfully attempted: the latter was one in productivity statistics were rendered increasingly incredible by the transfer pricing indulged in by multinational corporations. European `free' (as opposed to `red') trade unions were promoted by US government policy against a Cold War backdrop but, as US corporate investment has becomes increasingly important, Irish unions in the private sector came to experience the same `slow strangulation' that was being visited on their US counterparts.
This paper traces the development of a programme of Marshall Plan technical assistance to Irish i... more This paper traces the development of a programme of Marshall Plan technical assistance to Irish industrial development. The programme emerged following criticism that US aid policy was downgrading Irish industrial development through an excessive emphasis on agriculture. In 1950 and 1951 the US Economic Cooperation Administration established a relationship with the Department of Industry and Commerce and the newly established Industrial Development Authority through a programme of proposed technical assistance projects. This programme covered the country's untapped industrial potential, statesponsored companies and companies in the private sector. In relation to the private sector, the programme sought to tackle the issue of inefficiencies in the industries established behind high tariff walls since the early 1930s mainly by bringing US industrial consultants to Ireland. Just as an ambitious and elaborate Irish industrial TA programme was about to get under way, it was wrecked by the suspension of US aid to Ireland in January 1952. Some aspects of the proposed programme were carried out with Irish Government funding but well-resourced initiatives to tackle the shortcomings of protected private sector industrial firms through technical assistance schemes were not to materialise until full membership of the EEC became a central state strategy objective a decade later.
Documentary investigation has particular strengths to offer the study of the historical emergence... more Documentary investigation has particular strengths to offer the study of the historical emergence of sociological research. Here two documents relating to a Muintir na Tire initiative of the late 1950s to secure US scholarship funding for Irish students of sociology are introduced and reproduced. The reasons why the scheme did not get off the ground, even though financial support appeared to be on offer, are discussed. Here a combination of Muintir na Tire's limited support within the Catholic Church and a modest, but significant, expansion of Irish social science educational capacity brought about by the use of Archbishop McQuaid's power within University College Dublin are emphasised.
In October 1951 John McAteer, who had been selected by the Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) as a... more In October 1951 John McAteer, who had been selected by the Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) as a member of a team that was to visit the United States under the auspices of Ireland’s Marshall Aid Technical Assistance (TA) programme, had his application for an entry visa rejected. This paper examines this episode of Ireland’s Marshall Plan participation experience drawing upon files in the Irish National Archives. It begins by tracing the difficulties the 1945 split between rival Irish trade union congresses created for efforts to foster joint employer-trade union action within Ireland’s Marshall Aid TA programme. It then turns to the manner in which one of the union congresses, the ITUC, selected the members of its team to visit the USA and the issues raised by the selection for part of its own support base as well as for agencies of the Irish and US governments involved in Marshall Aid administration. Once McAteer had been refused a visa the ITUC decided to combine protest at his e...
It reappears now on the centenary of the Lockout and in the year in which a Taoiseach has apologi... more It reappears now on the centenary of the Lockout and in the year in which a Taoiseach has apologised unreservedly to women who spent time in Magdalen laundries. must be handled and of a regulation forbidding the wearing of union badges in the factory, Jacob's closed down completely on 1 September 1913. iv A fortnight later the factory was reopened with a gradual build-up of workforce numbers, first in the male areas and later in the female ones. On 11 October Jacob's issued an ultimatum to those who had not returned to work to do so by October 15 or be taken off the firm's books. Old workers who had returned to work were paid `loyalty money' increases in their wage rates from 14 October, the day on which the Dublin employers rejected the report of Sir George Askwith's inquiry as a basis for a general settlement of the conflict. Between 16 October and 3 November the factory advertised in the press every day for women workers. v Locked Up in High Park Against this background of exacerbated friction, physical clashes occurred in the vicinity of the factory between those working and those remaining out during early November which gave rise to a spate of assault or intimidation prosecutions and to custodial sentences for a number of those convicted. In one of these cases: A girl named Mary E. Murphy, who was on strike from Messrs Jacob's factory in Dublin, was charged with assaulting one of the girls employed by Messrs. Jacob by giving her a box on the face and calling her a "scab" on the morning of the 3rd [of November], and with acting in a similar manner in the afternoon of the same day when complainant was returning from dinner. Murphy was remanded for a week and was sent to High Park Reformatory, which is a place of detention under the Children Act, 1908. After the remand, she was convicted of assault and sentenced to one month in the same reformatory. vi Already imprisoned in Mountjoy at the beginning of November 1913, and the focus of a Labour movement campaign to force the Liberal government to order his release, was James Larkin. This pressure bore fruit on Thursday, November 13, when Larkin was freed after serving less than three weeks of a seven month sentence. Speaking at a meeting in Beresford Place the following (Friday) evening, James Connolly, who had deputised for Larkin during his time in jail, announced that demonstrations due to be held at the weekend in Dublin and Manchester would go ahead, with their original purpose of demanding Larkin's release
This article begins by examining a series of 1944 articles by Michael Sayers published in the New... more This article begins by examining a series of 1944 articles by Michael Sayers published in the New York newspaper PM and the official response denying the existence of anti-Semitism in Ireland they prompted. The content of the articles and the character of the official response to them are evaluated and the career of their author is then outlined. A Dublin-born Jewish writer, Sayers became politically active in the USA during the 1940s and, having been "blacklisted" as the Cold War intensified, returned to Europe to continue working mainly as a pseudonymous writer of television scripts. He was eventually able to return to New York where he died in 2010 aged 98. While "blacklisted" during the 1950s Sayers had a play staged under his real name in Dublin without controversy despite the repeated attacks being made in the city at that time on authors and actors whose alleged left-wing leanings rendered them objectionable to Catholic vigilantes. The paper concludes with an examination of this episode.
The catalytic effect of the OECD-linked study that produced Investment in Education is a much cel... more The catalytic effect of the OECD-linked study that produced Investment in Education is a much celebrated episode of Ireland’s modernisation. A remarkably broad cross-departmental consensus supported the initiative. Bureaucratic caution and ministerial self-preservation were set aside to allow a “warts and all” portrait of Irish education to be painted by the study team. Special efforts were made to focus public attention on the findings of a damning report that legitimated a quickening pace of government action to increase access to an expanded, rationalised and reoriented education system. But, as well as developmentalist triumph over conservatism in the education field, there was also significant division between state and civil society developmentalists. This is examined through an analysis of the relationship between the Federation of Lay Catholic Secondary Schools and the Department of Education.
The Magheramorne Manifesto of the Independent Orange Order has been hailed as a bold attempt from... more The Magheramorne Manifesto of the Independent Orange Order has been hailed as a bold attempt from an unlikely quarter to positively address the sectarian divisions and regional polarisation of early 20 th century Ireland. But the Order's leading light, Lindsay Crawford, has also been indicted for formulating an 'empty radicalism' which demanded changes in the field of education that it was impossible for the Catholic community to accept. This working paper reassesses Crawford's ideological project in the light of hitherto underused sources of evidence. It highlights convergence between Crawford's thinking and that of 'Irish Ireland' activists in movements such as the Gaelic League and Sinn Fein. It argues that heterodox educational views were prevalent to a significant extent among the Irish Irelanders to whom Crawford looked for a positive response to his national regeneration project. The case is also made that, in the absence of unanimous acceptance of their desirability among lay Catholics, the support of Protestants-and particularly that of Crawford's fellow Irish Anglicansprovided existing school management arrangements with a vital source of sustenance.
Canon Law obliged Catholic religious periodicals to submit to an ecclesiastical censorship proces... more Canon Law obliged Catholic religious periodicals to submit to an ecclesiastical censorship process whereby a Nihil Obstat from a diocesan censor and an Imprimatur from a bishop had to be obtained. The changed environment within the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council in some places gave rise to heightened tensions between conservative censors and innovative editors. This article examines a series of clashes involving the Dublin Archdiocese of John Charles McQuaid and REALITY, a Redemptorist monthly with a large and mainly young readership. The manner in which REALITY’s recruitment of a panel of lay Associate Editors changed the terms of this struggle is highlighted.
a short piece written for the Irish Times website on the fiftieth anniversary of the July 1968 pu... more a short piece written for the Irish Times website on the fiftieth anniversary of the July 1968 publication of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae: based on the chapter "The best news Ireland ever got? The reception of Humanae Vitae on the Pope's Green Island" pp. 275-301 in Alana Harris (ed.) "The Schism of '68: Catholicism, Contraception and Humanae Vitae in Europe, 1945-1975" Palgrave Macmillan, 2018
Published in Cathair na Mart (Journal of the Westport Historical Society) Volume 21, 2001, pp. 12... more Published in Cathair na Mart (Journal of the Westport Historical Society) Volume 21, 2001, pp. 127-145.
The nineteenth century Union between Britain and Ireland functioned within a wider dynamic cont... more The nineteenth century Union between Britain and Ireland functioned within a wider dynamic context of state liberalisation. The dismantling of internal and external tariff barriers exposed the existing Irish economy to the full influence of market forces operating at the statewide and international levels. As centralisation and concentration of capital increased, the type of manufacturing specialisation which proved viable in Dublin provided the basis for only an attenuated industrialisation.
Liberalisation took political as well as economic forms. The state adopted an increasingly neutral attitude on religious questions. Trade union organisation was legalised. In the course of successive extensions of the parliamentary franchise statewide parity of political rights became institutionalised. But because of the radically uneven pattern of capitalist development to which it gave rise liberalisation produced a polarisation rather than an integration of Irish society.
Such uneven development in the course of industrialisation is the starting point for the theory of Internal Colonialism which argues that, as a result, a division between an English core and `Celtic' peripheral regions was institutionalised within the United Kingdom. It holds that subsequent reaction to the disadvantages suffered by the peripheries took the form of a broadly-based nationalism only when the cities of a disadvantaged periphery did not develop a cultural pattern which diverged from that of the surrounding rural areas. The supposed absence of such cultural divergences has been put forward to explain why most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom: their presence has been seen as the reason why Scotland and Wales failed to follow suit.
In this thesis the case of Dublin is used to assess these arguments. The hypothesis that similarity or difference between urban and rural cultures had a decisive effect on the political outcome of British uneven development is rejected. In place of cultural divergence, it is argued that, to explain how Irish independence came about, it is necessary to examine the performance of the UK state in its role as manager of conflict within civil society in Ireland.
Following the solidification of Catholic Nationalist and Protestant Unionist blocs in the 1880s the UK government sought to widen the basis of consent for its rule in Ireland. In the course of expanding its role this state became both more colonial and more metropolitan. The autonomy of the state from indigenous social forces associated with its `overdevelopment' in a colonial context was exploited. But consensual rule also brought the extension of new political and social rights to the Irish population. Home Rule was not "killed by kindness" but a more complex and differentiated political environment was created as new grassroots movements emerged whose activities intertwined with the initiatives of the state in a series of specific fields of policy.
The expansion of the consensual elements of rule was, however, to be accompanied by the breakdown of the state's function of coercion. The conjunction of an intractable crisis over the third Home Rule Bill and the outbreak of a war which could only be waged by an unprecedented state mobilisation of social resources created a situation of `dual militarisation' in which the UK state first lost its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its Irish territory and ultimately forfeited the degree of qualified legitimacy it had enjoyed.
This paper begins by examining a series of articles by Michael Sayers published in the New York ... more This paper begins by examining a series of articles by Michael Sayers published in the New York newspaper PM in March 1944 and the official response denying the existence of Antisemitism in Ireland they prompted. The content of the articles and the character of the official response to them are then evaluated.
In October 1951 John McAteer, who had been selected by the Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) as a... more In October 1951 John McAteer, who had been selected by the Irish Trade Union Congress (ITUC) as a member of a team that was to visit the United States under the auspices of Ireland’s Marshall Aid Technical Assistance (TA) programme, had his application for an entry visa rejected. This paper examines this episode of Ireland’s Marshall Plan participation experience drawing upon files in the Irish National Archives. It begins by tracing the difficulties the 1945 split between rival Irish trade union congresses created for efforts to foster joint employer-trade union action within Ireland’s Marshall Aid TA programme. It then turns to the manner in which one of the union congresses, the ITUC, selected the members of its team to visit the USA and the issues raised by the selection for part of its own support base as well as for agencies of the Irish and US governments involved in Marshall Aid administration. Once McAteer had been refused a visa the ITUC decided to combine protest at his exclusion with continued participation in the TA project despite internal demands that it withdraw entirely. Briefing of the press by ITUC officers may have been responsible for press coverage that suggested that the Stormont government was to blame for the US attitude towards McAteer. No evidence to support such a contention has been found in the Irish National Archives files examined.
The catalytic effect of the OECD-linked study that produced Investment in Education is a much cel... more The catalytic effect of the OECD-linked study that produced Investment in Education is a much celebrated episode of Ireland's modernisation. A remarkably broad cross-departmental consensus supported the initiative. Bureaucratic caution and ministerial self-preservation were set aside to allow a "warts and all" portrait of Irish education to be painted by the study team. Special efforts were made to focus public attention on the findings of a damning report that legitimated a quickening pace of government action to increase access to an expanded, rationalised and reoriented education system. But, as well as developmentalist triumph over conservatism in the education field, there was also significant division between state and civil society developmentalists. This is examined through an analysis of the relationship between the Federation of Lay Catholic Secondary Schools and the Department of Education.
Muintir na Tire's role in the emergence of the discipline of Sociology in Ireland is usually ackn... more Muintir na Tire's role in the emergence of the discipline of Sociology in Ireland is usually acknowledged with reference to the Limerick Rural Survey (1958-64) that it initiated, part-funded and published. In the first half of the 1960s the movement also put proposals to the Irish government and sought US foundation grants for a centre or institute that would operate in the field of rural sociology and form part of Muintir na Tire's organisational structure. Although Taoiseach Sean Lemass was positively disposed towards these initatives, opposition from the Departments of Agriculture, Education and Finance prevailed against them and Muintir na Tire was ultimately to find itself completely excluded from participation in the state-resourced institutional arrangements for carrying out social/sociological research in Ireland.
NIRSA-National Institute for Regional and Spatial …, 2009
In February 1958, the Irish Catholic Hierarchy sent a letter to its US counterpart. The letter st... more In February 1958, the Irish Catholic Hierarchy sent a letter to its US counterpart. The letter stated that the UN policy of the Irish government `did not represent the feelings of Irish Catholics'. It also called on the US bishops ` make their influence effectively felt' by Irish representatives in the United States in relation to two plays in the programme of the 1958 Dublin Theatre Festival which the Archbishop of Dublin regarded as objectionable. This was to be done by, in effect, threatening to encourage a US tourist boycott of Ireland. On neither of these matters had the Irish hierarchy made representations to the Irish government. This paper reproduces the letter, sets out the context in which it was sent, examines the response to it by churchmen in the USA and the role this played in bringing about the postponement of the Theatre Festival. Irish diplomatic and ministerial reaction to the discovery of what the Irish hierarchy had done is also discussed.
Over the past sixty years, the Republic of Ireland has experienced two forms of americanisation. ... more Over the past sixty years, the Republic of Ireland has experienced two forms of americanisation. One of these was aid during the early post-war decades from the US government or from European agencies that owed their existence to US government funding, like the European Productivity Agency. The second was investment by US private corporations that began to increase in importance from the late 1960s. This paper notes some contrasts between the two. The early period was one in which a productivity drive was unsuccessfully attempted: the latter was one in productivity statistics were rendered increasingly incredible by the transfer pricing indulged in by multinational corporations. European `free' (as opposed to `red') trade unions were promoted by US government policy against a Cold War backdrop but, as US corporate investment has becomes increasingly important, Irish unions in the private sector came to experience the same `slow strangulation' that was being visited on their US counterparts.
This paper traces the development of a programme of Marshall Plan technical assistance to Irish i... more This paper traces the development of a programme of Marshall Plan technical assistance to Irish industrial development. The programme emerged following criticism that US aid policy was downgrading Irish industrial development through an excessive emphasis on agriculture. In 1950 and 1951 the US Economic Cooperation Administration established a relationship with the Department of Industry and Commerce and the newly established Industrial Development Authority through a programme of proposed technical assistance projects. This programme covered the country's untapped industrial potential, statesponsored companies and companies in the private sector. In relation to the private sector, the programme sought to tackle the issue of inefficiencies in the industries established behind high tariff walls since the early 1930s mainly by bringing US industrial consultants to Ireland. Just as an ambitious and elaborate Irish industrial TA programme was about to get under way, it was wrecked by the suspension of US aid to Ireland in January 1952. Some aspects of the proposed programme were carried out with Irish Government funding but well-resourced initiatives to tackle the shortcomings of protected private sector industrial firms through technical assistance schemes were not to materialise until full membership of the EEC became a central state strategy objective a decade later.
The immense power the Catholic Church once wielded in Ireland has considerably diminished over th... more The immense power the Catholic Church once wielded in Ireland has considerably diminished over the last fifty years. During the same period the Irish state has pursued new economic and social development goals by wooing foreign investors and throwing the state's lot in with an ever-widening European integration project. How a less powerful church and a more assertive state related to one another during the key third quarter of the twentieth century is the subject of this book. Drawing on newly available material, it looks at how social science, which had been a church monopoly, was taken over and bent to new purposes by politicians and civil servants. This case study casts new light on wider processes of change, and the story features a strong and somewhat surprising cast of characters ranging from Sean Lemass and T.K. Whitaker to Archbishop John Charles McQuaid and Father Denis Fahey.
A Verbatim Theatre Performance based on the Meeting of Dublin City Council of December 7, 2015, w... more A Verbatim Theatre Performance based on the Meeting of Dublin City Council of December 7, 2015, which voted to defeat the Phibsborough Local Area Plan
paper presented to Irish Labour History Society "Visions of Labour and Class in Ireland and Euro... more paper presented to Irish Labour History Society "Visions of Labour and Class in Ireland and Europe, 2023" conference, Dublin, September 2023
paper presented to the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class conference `Labour, Gen... more paper presented to the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class conference `Labour, Gender, And Class in Ireland in the Struggle For Irish Independence, c. 1918-1924', NUI Galway, November 2019
paper presented to Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland conference, Galway, Novembe... more paper presented to Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland conference, Galway, November 2018
paper presented at "Rural Ireland: Ideals and Realities in the Twentieth Century" conference, NUI... more paper presented at "Rural Ireland: Ideals and Realities in the Twentieth Century" conference, NUI Galway, June 2018
1918 was a landmark year in which women over thirty attained to right to vote in parliamentary el... more 1918 was a landmark year in which women over thirty attained to right to vote in parliamentary elections and to stand for election to the United Kingdom parliament. For two decade prior to this substantial numbers of Irish women had the vote in local government elections and during this period those women also became eligible to stand for election to Irish local authorities. This paper examines the 1918 parliamentary advance in the light of its local government pre-history, highlighting the importance of the emergence of the Sinn Fein party for women’s participation opportunities in the early twentieth century decades.
paper presented at Citizen Woman 1918/2018 seminar, Maynooth University, 7 March 2018
Historical works on Ireland’s Jews, such as those of Hyman and Rivlin, mention Joseph Edelstein p... more Historical works on Ireland’s Jews, such as those of Hyman and Rivlin, mention Joseph Edelstein principally in connection with the early 20th century activities of political and intellectual societies such as the Judaeo-Irish Home Rule Association and the Jewish Literary and Social Club of Dublin.
A darker side to his life is, however, alluded to in Rivlin’s remark that “how Edelstein came to be in Portobello Barracks after the unlawful shooting [of Francis Sheehy Skeffington and two other men during the period in which the 1916 Rising was being suppressed] remains a mystery”. This is one of four episodes in Edelstein’s career that this paper will discuss. The others are:
• the manner in which Edelstein became a target for allegations by James Larkin’s popular newspaper the Irish Worker as a radical Labour challenge to the dominance of allegedly corrupt Home Rulers in Dublin municipal politics emerged before the First World War;
• the results of the attention of the Dublin Castle authorities being drawn to Edelstein’s allegedly making money from the ability to help secure Commission of the Peace appointments that he claimed to possess;
• Edelstein’s publication of a novel, The Money Lender, which deals with Jewish emigration from Russia to Dublin and the accumulation of wealth by an immigrant Jew from loan-sharking.
References:
Hyman, L. (1972) The Jews of Ireland Shannon: Irish University Press Rivlin, R. (2003) Shalom Ireland Dublin: Gill and Macmillan
A talk about cooperation between the military recruiting campaign and Dublin employers during the... more A talk about cooperation between the military recruiting campaign and Dublin employers during the Great War, based primarily on the records of Power's distillery
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Papers by Peter Murray
Liberalisation took political as well as economic forms. The state adopted an increasingly neutral attitude on religious questions. Trade union organisation was legalised. In the course of successive extensions of the parliamentary franchise statewide parity of political rights became institutionalised. But because of the radically uneven pattern of capitalist development to which it gave rise liberalisation produced a polarisation rather than an integration of Irish society.
Such uneven development in the course of industrialisation is the starting point for the theory of Internal Colonialism which argues that, as a result, a division between an English core and `Celtic' peripheral regions was institutionalised within the United Kingdom. It holds that subsequent reaction to the disadvantages suffered by the peripheries took the form of a broadly-based nationalism only when the cities of a disadvantaged periphery did not develop a cultural pattern which diverged from that of the surrounding rural areas. The supposed absence of such cultural divergences has been put forward to explain why most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom: their presence has been seen as the reason why Scotland and Wales failed to follow suit.
In this thesis the case of Dublin is used to assess these arguments. The hypothesis that similarity or difference between urban and rural cultures had a decisive effect on the political outcome of British uneven development is rejected. In place of cultural divergence, it is argued that, to explain how Irish independence came about, it is necessary to examine the performance of the UK state in its role as manager of conflict within civil society in Ireland.
Following the solidification of Catholic Nationalist and Protestant Unionist blocs in the 1880s the UK government sought to widen the basis of consent for its rule in Ireland. In the course of expanding its role this state became both more colonial and more metropolitan. The autonomy of the state from indigenous social forces associated with its `overdevelopment' in a colonial context was exploited. But consensual rule also brought the extension of new political and social rights to the Irish population. Home Rule was not "killed by kindness" but a more complex and differentiated political environment was created as new grassroots movements emerged whose activities intertwined with the initiatives of the state in a series of specific fields of policy.
The expansion of the consensual elements of rule was, however, to be accompanied by the breakdown of the state's function of coercion. The conjunction of an intractable crisis over the third Home Rule Bill and the outbreak of a war which could only be waged by an unprecedented state mobilisation of social resources created a situation of `dual militarisation' in which the UK state first lost its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its Irish territory and ultimately forfeited the degree of qualified legitimacy it had enjoyed.
Liberalisation took political as well as economic forms. The state adopted an increasingly neutral attitude on religious questions. Trade union organisation was legalised. In the course of successive extensions of the parliamentary franchise statewide parity of political rights became institutionalised. But because of the radically uneven pattern of capitalist development to which it gave rise liberalisation produced a polarisation rather than an integration of Irish society.
Such uneven development in the course of industrialisation is the starting point for the theory of Internal Colonialism which argues that, as a result, a division between an English core and `Celtic' peripheral regions was institutionalised within the United Kingdom. It holds that subsequent reaction to the disadvantages suffered by the peripheries took the form of a broadly-based nationalism only when the cities of a disadvantaged periphery did not develop a cultural pattern which diverged from that of the surrounding rural areas. The supposed absence of such cultural divergences has been put forward to explain why most of Ireland seceded from the United Kingdom: their presence has been seen as the reason why Scotland and Wales failed to follow suit.
In this thesis the case of Dublin is used to assess these arguments. The hypothesis that similarity or difference between urban and rural cultures had a decisive effect on the political outcome of British uneven development is rejected. In place of cultural divergence, it is argued that, to explain how Irish independence came about, it is necessary to examine the performance of the UK state in its role as manager of conflict within civil society in Ireland.
Following the solidification of Catholic Nationalist and Protestant Unionist blocs in the 1880s the UK government sought to widen the basis of consent for its rule in Ireland. In the course of expanding its role this state became both more colonial and more metropolitan. The autonomy of the state from indigenous social forces associated with its `overdevelopment' in a colonial context was exploited. But consensual rule also brought the extension of new political and social rights to the Irish population. Home Rule was not "killed by kindness" but a more complex and differentiated political environment was created as new grassroots movements emerged whose activities intertwined with the initiatives of the state in a series of specific fields of policy.
The expansion of the consensual elements of rule was, however, to be accompanied by the breakdown of the state's function of coercion. The conjunction of an intractable crisis over the third Home Rule Bill and the outbreak of a war which could only be waged by an unprecedented state mobilisation of social resources created a situation of `dual militarisation' in which the UK state first lost its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its Irish territory and ultimately forfeited the degree of qualified legitimacy it had enjoyed.
paper presented at Citizen Woman 1918/2018 seminar, Maynooth University, 7 March 2018
A darker side to his life is, however, alluded to in Rivlin’s remark that “how Edelstein came to be in Portobello Barracks after the unlawful shooting [of Francis Sheehy Skeffington and two other men during the period in which the 1916 Rising was being suppressed] remains a mystery”. This is one of four episodes in Edelstein’s career that this paper will discuss. The others are:
• the manner in which Edelstein became a target for allegations by James Larkin’s popular newspaper the Irish Worker as a radical Labour challenge to the dominance of allegedly corrupt Home Rulers in Dublin municipal politics emerged before the First World War;
• the results of the attention of the Dublin Castle authorities being drawn to Edelstein’s allegedly making money from the ability to help secure Commission of the Peace appointments that he claimed to possess;
• Edelstein’s publication of a novel, The Money Lender, which deals with Jewish emigration from Russia to Dublin and the accumulation of wealth by an immigrant Jew from loan-sharking.
References:
Hyman, L. (1972) The Jews of Ireland Shannon: Irish University Press
Rivlin, R. (2003) Shalom Ireland Dublin: Gill and Macmillan