Irish historians said to be a somewhat parochial bunch

OPENING the 8th Desmond Greaves Summer School at Beggar's Bush Barracks, Dublin, at the weekend, Dr Terry Eagleton, Warton Professor of English Literature at Oxford, expressed the view that Irish historians "are in general a somewhat parochial bunch".

In his opinion, if "they were gathered together in the Colorado desert, viewing the stealthy descent of a fleet of Venusian spacecraft, they would almost certainly be excitedly discussing what Edna Longley said about Seamus Deane".

Speaking on "The Ideology of Irish Studies," in a lengthy and erudite address, he argued that "deconstructing Irish nationalism is fairly fashionable in some circles these days and with any luck will get you a job; deconstructing liberal humanism or postmodern pluralism will probably not, but at least it's a mite more original".

He felt there was need for "a more precise term to characterise this latest phase of revisionism" as opposed to "the nationalist one" which made Ireland "seem more civilised and hence more palatable to its British neighbours

He favoured "middle class liberal" as that term, before remarking that "the middle class pluralism shared by a large number of Irish historians and cultural commentators today is more hopelessly mystified than unionism and nationalism ever were".

Liberal humanism, he said, detested violence,"except when it comes to Dunkirk or the Gulf or the Malvinas". It celebrated individual liberty "and supports a socio economic system which makes a mockery of it".

It praises pluralism "but is scrupulous about who it allows to address its seminars".

And it "is in general every bit as much an ideology as Seventh Day Adventism. Indeed in modern Ireland it is more of an ideology than it is elsewhere".

The real difference between revisionists and their critics came down to class, or "class outlook" as he clarifies it. It came down to people who believed "it hasn't been all that bad, and those who believe it is actually very bad indeed and has been so for a very long time."

He referred to an Irish novelist who remarked that he loathed the Easter Rising, thereby revealing himself as "a helpless prisoner of nationalist ideology", and a well known Irish historian (neither was named) who remarked to him: "I detest heroism."

The fact that the latter could only see "political martyrdom as destructive, unlike the way most Americans see Luther King", indicated how much he, too, was "still hampered by a history he deplores".