Some Thoughts on Democracy

Recent events in Egypt and Turkey draw attention to the difficulties posed by the transition to democracy and the problems associated with democratic consolidation. Although the number of democracies has grown since the 1980s, in many cases they are neither  consolidated nor stable. What has happened in Egypt is not unusual in the twentieth century: a crisis leads to a political rupture with the past but the evolution of democracy itself is often chaotic and this allows the military or other elite power brokers to intervene (often with the claim that they are defending the revolution or democracy itself) and in effect end the democratic experiment. This is a more likely outcome in Egypt than in Turkey where the problem is that the current government is and remains legitimate having been elected three time. Here the challenge is majoritarianism: the government and the Prime Minister in particular acts on the basis that if there is a majority for a policy or decision then others do not have to be consulted or in extreme cases can be ignored. While not as dangerous as Egypt, recent events in Turkey suggest that a consolidated democracy is one where all (or most) strands of opinion within the political system can make a contribution to that system (even when these voices are unrepresentative or minority).
While reflecting on these matters for a study on democracy between 1900 and 1950, I returned to the Irish case and in particular the reasons why Ireland remained a democracy after independence and through the inter-war period (1918-1939). The question here is whether the challenges that appeared amounted to a real threat to Irish democracy. If the period from 1910 to 1937 is taken as a single unit, then there is a strong case to be made that Ireland should not have survived as a democratic state, never mind emerging as a consolidated and stable constitutional democracy by 1939. In comparative terms, states that encountered only some of these challenges ceased to be democratic during the inter-war period.

The advantages that Ireland had are important:

1: Ireland had shared in the British parliamentary and constitutional tradition before World War 1 (those democracies that survived the inter war period tended to have such a tradition – Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and the United States).

2: The population was relatively highly educated, the new state was not corrupt and its civil service was efficient.

3: The military was under civilian control (at least from 1924) and it did not play a key political role in the new state (direct or indirect military intervention was often the occasion for the end of parliamentary rule in inter war Europe and Latin America).

4: Irish income per capita was reasonable high in a comparative context in 1912 and remained so into the 1930s and beyond. Irish income was around sixty per cent of the British average but ahead of Italy and France and close to the Scandinavian states.

5: Ireland had a strong and vibrant civic culture and a complex network of political and other associations. Majority outcomes were widely accepted prior to World War One, though challenged in the decade that followed.

These contributions to maintaining democracy and consolidating parliamentary institutions are significant and should not be ignored, but there are a number of other features that need to be assessed to gain a fuller sense of what was achieved and how the democratic prospect could have been lost.

1: Though a constituent part of the British state, Ireland (and nationalist Ireland in particular) was treated as a quasi-colony. Its status within the state was different in important ways to that of Scotland for example though significantly different from India which was treated as a colony in every respect. This hybrid status alienated nationalist Ireland and prevented the majority of Irish people from becoming British as proved to be the case with Scotland (Scottish and British).

2: Ireland was divided along nationalist and religious lines and democratisation reinforced these divisions prior to the First World War. Jack Snyder has made a persuasive case that newly democratising states are more inclined to go to war over nationalist issues than stable democratic states.[1] Ireland was democratising in the years before 1914 and was also challenging the state with demands for self-determination. Within Ireland these demands led to the mobilisation of a counter-nationalist movement committed to retaining the link with Britain. As a consequence these demands were incommensurable and the emergence of two armed movements in Ireland demonstrated that majority outcomes (whether within the state or island) had lost their legitimacy among nationalists and unionists. This made the prospect of violence greater and the threshold for conflict lower.

3: Roman Catholicism was the dominant religion in Ireland, whereas Protestantism was the dominant religion in the British state. There is a strong relationship between those states that developed representative institutions prior to 1914 and extended or consolidated democratic systems during the inter-war period and a dominant secular or Protestant culture/tradition (U.S., New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden; France and Belgium). Dominant Catholic states are more closely associated with authoritarian outcomes before 1914 and are more likely to become authoritarian during the inter-war period. Belgium is the exception prior to 1914 but a case can be made that the Belgium constitution is secular and that this was accepted by Catholic political movements in the 1880s when they became the dominant force.

It might also be added that the strong link between Catholicism and nationalism in Ireland was not necessarily conducive to democracy as the Catholic Church was anti-democratic prior to 1914 and indifferent to regime (to say the least) during the inter-war period. The relationship between the existence of a dominant Catholic tradition in a society and democracy remained weak up to 1945.

4: These factors were compounded by the Home Rule Crisis, the First World War, the 1916 Rebellion and the Irish War of Independence. As elsewhere in Europe, war and conflict reduces the threshold for the use of violence when the war is over. Much of the violence in inter-war Europe had former soldiers in the forefront of the conflict (Hitler and Mussolini are the most obvious but there are many other examples). The presence of large numbers of ex-servicemen in a community provides a pool of military experience to draw on for extremists or for counter-insurgency (black and tans in the Irish case).

In Ireland there was a large cohort of ex-servicemen who had fought in the War. But this was compounded by a militant paramilitary force that had fought in the War of Independence, many of whom were dissatisfied with the political compromise involved in the Treaty and the existence of the Irish Free State. Both government and opposition in the new state had been bloodied in war and were prepared to use violence to achieve their political ends. For many the lesson of the period 1912-1923 was that violence achieved results that would not have been otherwise available and this continued to be applied in the years that followed. There were consequently many individuals available for military action should this be required and these men were disciplined and capable of using armaments.

5: The Irish Civil War reinforced these tendencies and in my view neutralised most of the positive attributes inherited from the pre-1914 period. It is at this level that individual agency weakens the influence of structural explanations for democratic consolidation. The civil war divided the elite, contributed to deep divisions within what had been a united movement for independence and permitted atrocities on both sides. Though the Irish civil war was not on the same scale experienced by Finland immediately after it became independent; in the Irish case the legacy of civil war was mostly negative for both government and opposition. Friendships were broken, friends were executed or murdered and political stabilisation was only assured by the application of draconian laws by the government. The political system and political competition in the 1920s and after also reinforced the negative impact of the civil war. Moreover, the Free State government remained committed to repression where it considered it necessary and between 1927 and 1932 implemented further legislation to constrain and harass republican militants.

6: Territorial loss was a major contributor to political instability throughout Europe after 1918. For example, Germany lost about thirteen per cent of its pre-war territory and other states even more so. In the case of Ireland, about 20 per cent of the national territory was ‘lost’ as a result of partition. This view might be contested by unionists and the British but for Irish nationalist it constituted a part of the historic homeland. It was also the territory where the Tain, Gaelic Ireland's great epic was based. It also was an area that contained important symbolic features for Irish nationalism and Catholicism (Armagh;t he United Irishmen among others). A case can be made that this was as much a psychic loss as a territorial one.

The legitimacy of Northern Ireland was never conceded by nationalists during the inter-war period and nationalist and republican parties within Northern Ireland rejected its legitimacy and looked to the independent Irish state for support. This loss was compounded by a sense of grievance among nationalists north and south and promoted irredentist demands among the public. Other examples of this might include the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia and Hungarian minorities in adjacent states.

7: Ireland was beset by a series of crisis that weakened democracy both in the immediate post war period and during the Great Depression. Immediately after the state was established it was challenged by civil war and this in turn affected the recovery of the economy for the post war depression. Unemployment was high and much of the physical infrastructure had been damaged as a consequence of the previous conflicts. These challenges were overcome but government policy during the 1920s was conservative and focussed on exporting agriculture which probably reduced opportunities elsewhere. These agrarian elites also adopted labour repressive policies against its labour force and in effect weakened the trade union movement in rural Ireland. The Great Depression also contributed to further instability in the farming sector and the Economic War with Britain radicalised the most important section of rural Ireland. While economic crisis itself does not lead to the undermining of democracy, multiple crises such as those that Ireland experienced weakens the influence of parliamentary politics and provides an avenue for paramilitary and anti-democratic forces to seek authoritarian alternatives.

8: There was also a legitimacy crisis for much of this period. The IRA and republican forces rejected the legitimacy of the state and indeed fought to undermine the Free State in the Civil War. Subsequently, between 25 and 30 per cent of the electorate supported anti-system parties. Fianna Fáil remained ambiguous about the legitimacy of the state and the democratic nature of the political system until they themselves formed a government in 1932. Prior to this the party was close to the IRA and proved to be a disloyal opposition committed to destroying the Free State t if possible. After Fianna Fáil came to power, the opposition remained sceptical in respect of the new government’s democratic credentials. Opposition leaders feared that de Valera would prove to the Kerensky of Irish politics. This may appear fanciful but the organisation of the Blueshirt movement and the challenge to the government from the right should not be underestimated. Violent clashes between the Blueshirts, the IRA and Fianna Fáil supporters heightened tension and speeches by leading members of the movement especially Eoin O’Duffy and to an extent John A. Costello can be construed as sceptical of the existing system. The commitment to corporatism in Fine Gael was strong and there is not a single example where corporate structures were introduce that the parliamentary system was maintained (Austria, Portugal and Italy).

The major threat to democracy in inter-war Europe comes from the military and/or the right not from the left. Leftist insurgency destabilises the system but is rarely successful in established a left wing government by insurrection (Russia is the exception: Hungary and Munich are the norm). Right wing insurgency also destabilises democratic politics but often build on the threat from the left to install an authoritarian government (Italy). The right has clear advantages in that is it often associated with traditional forces in society such as the church, the armed forces and the dominant economic elites. It is possible for the right to mobilise against the parliamentary system more successfully and comprehensively than parties on the left because the right in most countries provide to be more sceptical of democracy than was the case with the left especially social democrats.

9: the payment of land annuities to the British state was a major objection of contention between Fianna Fáil and the British government. The refusal to pay them led to the economic war and this in turn provided much of the momentum behind the Blueshirt movement. These payments which amounted to a major transfer of resources from Ireland to Britain were compared to the reparations that Germany had to pay after the Versailles Treaty; in fact Seán MacEntee the Minister for Finance in the Fianna Fáil government claimed that the land annuities as a percentage of Irish GNP was greater than the amount paid by Germany.

10: The existence of the PR system is often seen to be a destabilising factor in the weakening of democratic regimes (Germany is often cited) and the first past the post system in Britain and in the US cited as ones that provided the government with a safe working majority. Other related contribution to sustaining or undermining democracy might include a strong/weak presidency; the existence of parties and leaders who support or oppose democracy (Finnish democracy was secured in part because the majority of political parties opted to maintain democracy against right wing insurgency; this also proved to be the case with Belgium in 1938?)

To summarise the argument: Ireland started out with some advantages in terms of democratisation but had not become a consolidated democracy by 1927. Nor had it achieved this by 1932 but had by 1938. The disruptive impact of the First World War, 1916, the War of Independence and the Civil War heightened the prospect that Ireland would not survive as a democracy.

Ireland was overwhelming Catholic, a strong nationalist ideology was shared by most of the citizens of the new state, it was irredentist and there had been substantial territorial loss due to partition. These features were also reinforced by the rural nature of the society and the recurrent violence that prevailed after the new state was established. The Minister for Justice was murdered in 1927 and the rule of law was frequently undermined by the intimidation of the IRA.

Why then did Ireland survive as a democracy when virtually every other successor state in Europe did not and those that were Catholic, rural and irredentist even less so?

One contributory factor was that Ireland was lucky with its neighbour Great Britain. Military intervention in Irish public life must have been attractive to some sections of the British elite yet it did not occur. There is little evidence that Britain tried to destabilise the new Irish state, not even when faced with de Valera’s revisionist foreign policy and his party’s commitment to revising the Treaty settlement out of existence. The external element was largely benign and this may support the findings of research on the so called democratic peace that no two democracies go to war with one another.

Another factor to this was the reluctance of the republican elite after 1922 to reclaim the north by force. De Valera made a more forceful claim to the north than his predecessor but did not pursue this beyond political campaigning and diplomacy; the uncertainties that a war would have brought did not arise.

The Cumann na nGaedheal governments had achieved much after 1923, though given the disloyal nature of the opposition it could not be confident that the system had been consolidate. In particular, the government’s decisive actions after the murder of Kevin O’Higgins forced Fianna Fáil to abandon abstention and enter the Dáil and participate in parliamentary politics (if perhaps reluctantly at first and in a highly confrontational fashion). Cumann na nGaedheal also refused to be associated with any plans to neutralise Fianna Fáil in 1932 and made a major contribution to consolidation by accepting the electoral outcome.

As a consequence Fianna Fáil not only abandoned abstention but after forming a government took care to introduce its radical programme for change gradually and with the support of the majority in the Dáil and the country. Successive re-elections made Fianna Fáil the dominant political party in the state and provided it with the opportunity to transform the political, economic and diplomatic landscape of the state. This culminated in the 1937 Constitution which provided the institutional and legal foundations for a republican policy. De Valera was able to highlight by 1939 how much had been changed over seven years and had largely been achieved in a peaceful and democratic fashion.

A fuller explanation for this outcome is required but I will not pursue it here. It is enough to conclude that the actions of individuals and groups play the most important role in undermining democracy or indeed consolidating it. While other outcomes were always possible in Ireland, the evolution of politics from 1932 onwards expanded the foundations for a fully consolidated democracy by the time de Valera declared neutrality in 1939.

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[1] Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York, 2000)

Some Thoughts on Contemporary History

The attached essay was originally written as an introduction to a special issue of Irish Historical Studies (May 2013) which I edited and contributed to. The published version is somewhat different in focus and shorter than this one and I thought it might be of interest in the context of how historians construct different chronological periods for research. 

The Origins of Contemporary Ireland: New Perspectives on the Recent Past

Introduction

The contributions to this special issue of Irish Historical Studies explore recent Irish history from a variety of perspectives. It is possible to publish this special issue now because a significant output of new research on the period has appeared.[1] This was reinforced by the large number of proposals received for a conference organised in UCD in November 2010 on a similar theme and from which the articles presented here have been drawn.[2] The on-going release of government archives and the availability of diverse other sources for research provides the means for the application of historical methodologies to Irish history into the 1980s if not beyond. One of the aims of this issue is to engage with the existing literature in the field and to review interpretations of the period offered by the social sciences and journalism. It does not claim to be comprehensive as research on many topics is still at an early stage.[3] These articles provide new perspectives on specific topics and investigate themes and questions that emerge in the 1960s and 1970s in a changing Ireland. Surveying this period, Roy Foster concluded that, we live in ‘contemporary history’, adding that ‘For Ireland, it is the rate of change in the last thirty years of the Twentieth Century that is most bewildering’.^[4] There is an implicit view in the contributions that this is the period when contemporary Ireland appears as a focus for discussion and research.

I

The notion of contemporary history as a distinctive period for historical study remains controversial. Many historians would accept Arthur Marwick’s view that the term ‘contemporary’ is merely a convenient label for the study of the most recent past. According to this view, ‘the contemporary historian employs the same concepts and the same methodology as any other historian’. Despite this, Marwick concedes that there are specific problems associated with such research, ‘often one simply does not know “what happened next”, and one finds difficulty in supressing the influence of personal recollection’.^[5] A more radical and conceptually nuanced analysis has been provided by Geoffrey Barraclough who maintained that contemporary history needs to be treated in a distinctive fashion and involves a rupture with the methods employed when researching modern history. For Barraclough, contemporary history focuses on the recent past, but it is not merely the study of the most recent period of history as Marwick maintains. This rupture between the modern and the contemporary is central to Barraclough’s claim that historians of the contemporary era have to take account of the substantive and subtle differences between the two eras. He also challenges the working assumptions of most historians that each successive period is ‘the most recent phase of a continuous process’, emphasising instead the disruptive and unstable aspects of the contemporary period. In brief, Barraclough suggests that the contemporary era begins around the 1890s and is characterised by the decline of Europe, the redistribution of power to the United States and the Soviet Union as well as the emergence of new problems, conflicts and institutions.[6] Peter Catterall revisited the question of distinctiveness and concluded cautiously that the methods, themes and sources employed in studying the recent past does set contemporary history apart from the modern period.^[7] More recently Spohr Readman reviewed the question extensively, concluding that while historians do not follow Barraclough’s specific periodization they do treat the period 1945-1990 as a distinctive period in their research.[8]

Contemporary history can be written in a number of ways and not always by historians. Journalists often provide early assessments of the recent past, based on extensive interviews and the examination of available documentation.[9] Social scientists contribute to an understanding of the contemporary era by their research on economic policy, elections and the social system.[10] Historians also contribute to discussions of the contemporary era when they are engaged in longer term studies. For example, J. J. Lee’s influential study Ireland: 1912-1985 contains and extensive discussion of Ireland since 1960 which, unlike the earlier chapters, was not based on archival sources. Lee’s work (and that of Bew, Ferriter and Foster) draws attention to the danger of ‘presentism’ when dealing with recent or current issues. Lee was concerned to explain the relatively poor performance of the Irish economy since independence. The positive response to Lee’s analysis suggests widespread concern with the state of the economy at that time. Foster’s Luck and the Irish by contrast was in large part a celebration of the success of the Celtic tiger.^[11] These works and other historical studies sustain Foster’s view that ‘it should be possible for a historian to look at the latest period in Irish history from a historical standpoint, as opposed to that of a sociologist, or an economist, or a political scientist – though the insights of all these disciplines must be employed’.^[12]

Notwithstanding this point, the most valuable resource that the historian brings to the discussion of the contemporary era is the sophisticated interrogation of archives and the historical methodology based on this. [13] Contemporary history came into general usage when historians began to study the origins of the First World War in the decade immediately after 1919, studies made possible by the release of considerable documents by the former belligerents. This also occurred after the Second World War and following the end of the Cold War.[14] One outcome of this process was that major historical studies were published on a past that was still well within living memory. This interaction between history and memory is a challenge and opportunity for historians and is perhaps the most significant departure from traditional history writing.[15] The issues addressed by Barraclough have not been resolved since the publication of his pioneering study, but they do continue to provoke debate and reflection. The writing of contemporary history has become more sophisticated, even if individual historians do not adopt Barraclough’s periodization. What has emerged is a rich and diverse field broadly focussed on the twentieth century, and more recently on the post 1945 period. Despite this, there is little agreement about what constitutes contemporary history in the specialist journals. Inter-war Europe remains strongly represented, while the 1945-70 period is now a major focus for research and publication. The period since 1971 is less well served although it is a strong feature of Contemporary British History.[16]

II

In the Irish case, neither 1890 nor 1945 provide a persuasive point of departure for contemporary history. While it is difficult to fit individual cases into the macro-historical framework outlined by Barraclough, it is possible to adopt his suggestion that ‘contemporary history should be considered as a distinct period of time, with characteristics of its own which mark it off from the preceding period’.[17]  For example, it is arguable that the period from 1959, when Eamon de Valera retires as Taoiseach, to the general election of 2011 when Fianna Fáil ceased to be the dominant party in the political system can be treated as a distinctive period for the purposes of historical research.[18] A change in leadership itself does not constitute a new era, nor does it necessarily announce the beginning of a new distinctive phase in history. However, the succession of Seán Lemass was in many ways a ‘turning point’ and a decisive moment in the emergence of contemporary Ireland.[19] Care should be taken not to associate an entire period with a single individual and attention needs to be paid to the complex nature of continuity as well as change in the process being assessed.[20] Enda Delaney has applied the term ‘late modernity’ to this period when, as he puts it, Ireland ‘became self-consciously “modern”’. He also warns against a one dimensional or determinist framework for analysing the period, suggesting that continuity overlaps and coexists with change.^[21] Notwithstanding this caution, it is possible to argue that the ‘Lemass era’ is a distinctive one and its break with the previous period influenced the direction of Ireland for the next fifty years. [22] His leadership is associated with economic change, a dramatic shift in Irish diplomatic priorities and institutional innovation in government and public life. These changes were reinforced by educational reform, the introduction of a national television service and the appearance of new ideas and attitudes.[23]

By the middle of the 1960s, change was already discernible. The German novelist Heinrich Böll was dismayed by the pace and nature of change when he revisited Ireland in the 1960s. He noted the absence of references to nuns in newspapers and was appalled by discussion about contraception. Böll recognised that many in Ireland would not share his concerns and that there were those who believed that pace of change was far too slow.[24] Lemass was aware that his policies would have a significant impact on Ireland. Desmond Fisher recalled that:

He predicted great changes in Ireland before the end of the century-contraception and divorce being legalised and materialism becoming widespread because of growing prosperity. Back in 1962 these predictions seemed, at least to me, to be a bit daring.[25]

Yet Lemass in turn was succeeded by Jack Lynch, a more cautious politician who was much less inclined to promote change. Nevertheless, it is possible to underestimate how much changed in the decades after 1959. Not a single aspect of Irish society was untouched by these changes and though some lead to conflict and confrontation others were quickly assimilated by the society. The debates on contraception and divorce reflect the former, while the attraction of foreign investment and membership of the European Economic Community remained broadly consensual. There is room for debate on the extent and meaning of change but there is a strong case to be made that by 2011 Ireland is a qualitatively different place to that of 1959. The key point for this discussion is that this process is dynamic non-determinist.

III

How then should the period be evaluated? This remains an open question and the contributions included here adopt a variety of methods to answer specific questions. However, writing history when the individuals who experienced it are still alive poses specific problems as well as opportunities.  The dilemma for the contemporary historian was starkly highlighted when veteran Fianna Fáil TD Dan Breen complained at a party meeting that a history book was ‘misleading and untrue’ because of its treatment of the War of Independence among other matters. In response, the Minister for Education revealed that discussions had taken place with the authors and that a section on the civil war had been removed.[26] By the 1970s many of these issues remained controversial, but careful studies of Ireland since independence could and were written. While archival sources remained limited for much of the period, studies such as Lyons’s Ireland since the Famine and Murphy’s Ireland in the Twentieth Century provided careful and balanced assessments of contemporary issues and controversies.^[27] Subsequent studies expanded the range of analysis and incorporated archival sources as they appeared. By the 1990s the material was available to write comprehensive histories of Ireland since 1945 and subsequently to transform the study of contemporary Ireland. Government archives were not the only source available and they were complemented by private papers of politicians and organisations as well as memoirs, diaries and oral histories.[28] While recognising the important contribution that research based on these archives has made Thomas Hachey has noted the ‘overwhelming dominance of political history’ in recent Irish historiography. He suggests that this has created an ‘imbalance’ in the discipline and notes the absence of ‘new history’ with its emphasis on culture rather than politics and the lack of engagement by historians with the insights of postmodernism and poststructuralism.^[29] Privileging official sources is a constant concern for all history writing and not just contemporary history. It is important however to draw a distinction between the need to take account of the ‘new’ history and the nihilistic philosophical positions taken by advocates of postmodernism and poststructuralism in respect of history.^[30] Thus, Carlo Ginsberg, a major influence on the ‘new’ historiography strongly rejects any association between his work and that of postmodernism or poststructuralism. The new historiography has encouraged the adoption of a multi-dimensional approach to historical themes.^[31] Of particular importance is the focus on non-elite history and the establishment of critical distance between the historian and the state or elite view of the world. There is an awareness that it is necessary for historians to offer a more inclusive narrative that explores the experiences and behaviour of the majority who are often unseen by history. Hachey’s criticism is a valid one in this respect, though the situation is not as pessimistic as he suggests. Historians do need to be especially alert to privileging elite or political history, but some caution is necessary. Official sources can also hold important clues to the attitudes and behaviour of everyday life or the concerns of the ordinary person. Court records have been used by Diarmaid Ferriter to uncover a hidden aspect of Irish sexuality. The significant body of correspondence received by the Taoiseach and other government departments during the contraception controversy in the 1970s can be mined for popular attitudes towards this issue. An oral history of the elite Women’s Liberation Movement can be contrasted with the views of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association, the largest women’s organisation in Ireland.^[32]

Contemporary historians need to be as methodologically sophisticated in using these sources as medieval or early modern historians are in their respective fields.[33] They also need to grapple with the challenge of newer media such as television and film. These data require careful and critical engagement in the same way that traditional documents are treated.[34] It is not enough to use them to illustrate, as is often the case with photographs, they need to be integrated into the fabric of the historical endeavour itself. Television broadcasts everything from interviews with politicians to life style shows and it can be through this visual encounter that the general public forms its first impression of an event.[35] Another major resource available to the contemporary historian is oral history, which records elite and popular memories, often long after the event. There have been major advances in terms of technique, scope and methodology in this important field of research. Historians often use one to one interviews when writing the recent past, especially on biographical studies, and this is a tried and tested technique for journalists.[36] Moreover, oral history alongside television and radio provides access to mass opinion in a way unknown in the past. It is now possible to collect memories from non-elite groups and from those whose voices have not been heard in the past. This creates the real possibility of a history of everyday life that gives meaning to mass experiences. However, there are methodological problems associated with these data, notably with the reliability of memory itself. Notwithstanding this, oral history provides an important resource for writing contemporary history and one that can provide significant insights if used with care and empathy.[37] One might add memoirs, autobiography and diaries such as those published by Noël Browne, Garret FitzGerald or Gemma Hussey.^[38]  The difficulty associated with such material is that they are often the only direct account we have and they can be partial and subjective. Diaries may be contemporary but memoirs rarely are, even when based on contemporary notes or diaries. Furthermore, once these sources are published, researchers go to these individuals for interviews which in turn reinforce the significance of their interpretation. There is also the issue of absence. Garret FitzGerald was accessible to researchers after he retired as Taoiseach, whereas Charles J. Haughey rarely agreed to be interviewed. While it is possible to use these sources positively, the impact of absence and the partial nature of the source require careful attention by historians.

Computing, the internet and electronic data collections provide additional resources for contemporary historians. Documents can be digitised and downloaded off-site and reports, research papers and statistical material can be more easily accessed through the internet. Large data sets can be more easily interrogated and content analysis is facilitated by powerful computing tools. Opinion polls provide a glimpse of mass opinion at a single point in time and can also be re-analysed by historians to ask new questions.[39] Opinion polling has been a regular feature of Irish life since the 1970s and the data sets are available from a number of data archives. A particularly important data set for the study of contemporary Ireland is the European Values Study which has collected data since 1981. It is possible by using these data to trace the evolution of popular attitudes to a wide range of topics in Ireland and compare them with other European states.^[40] The compelling case for using these data is that it provides access to non-elite views on a variety of topics and permits the historian to ask additional question about these views. This is reinforced if, as is increasingly the case, these surveys are accompanied by focus groups to collect the views of individuals.

While historians can now draw on a rich store of data collected by the social sciences and can apply historical methodologies to their interpretation, tensions remain. Peter Burke has drawn attention to the possibility of a ‘dialogue of the deaf’ between historians and social scientists. Burke believes in the possibility of a creative dialogue between the disciplines and this has considerable appeal.^[41] Notwithstanding this prospect, historians and social scientists are engaged in a rather different endeavour and employ distinctive methodologies. At the heart of historical methodology is documentation, whether a letter, a report or a video recording and narrative remains at the heart of the exercise.[42] An important case in point is the debate on the origins and evolution of European integration since 1945. Alan Milward challenged existing explanations for post war integration in Europe and in a series of sophisticated studies he and his colleagues drew on the archives of the states involved in the integration process to demonstrate the inadequacy of the social science paradigm.[43] Milward questioned these views by testing them against what specific actors (government, business and trade unions) were actually saying to one another and tracing the policy development within newly opened archives. Milward placed the state at the heart of the post war integration process and challenged explanations which implied that interdependence and integration were the motors for change. The work of Milward and his colleagues suggested that scholars had seriously misread the integration process and that its origins and success was not based on an inevitable drive for integration but as a consequence of domestic and self-interested considerations on the part of individual states. Thus the commitment to integration was always conditional on maintaining the sovereignty and integrity of the state, even paradoxically when the state was sharing some of its sovereignty.[44] In this case, Burke’s comment on the dialogue of the deaf has some strength and Milward’s work has not been assimilated into the mainstream of integrationist studies, even though no alternative explanation has been provided. The richness of Milward’s contribution is that he has worked assiduously in the archives of a number of states in Europe, but also provided an alternative theoretical approach to the question that is plausible.^[45]

IV

The writing of contemporary history is in an early phase in Ireland. The articles published in this issue seek to extend and deepen the understanding of major themes that have their origin in the period since 1959. The aim is to contribute to an historical understanding of the recent past and to establish where possible what is distinctive about the period. In broad terms the articles adopt Milward’s strategy of engaging with the existing literature and testing it against the archival record in its broadest sense. In doing so, the intention is to provide a more robust and persuasive narrative for a period that is now the object of historical research.

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[1] ‘Theses on Irish history completed in Irish universities, 2009’ Irish Historical Studies XXXVII: 146 (2010), pp. 293-5 illustrates some recent work in the field.

[2] ‘Ireland since 1966: New Perspectives’ UCD, 11 November 2010. The conference was organised with the support of the UCD School of History and Archives and the Department of Politics, University of Glasgow.

[3] The editor would have wished to include articles on the Irish media and Irish membership of the EEC, but space restricted the number of articles that could be included and some potential authors were unable to contribute due to other commitments.

[4] Roy Foster, Luck and the Irish (London, 2007), p. 3

[5] Arthur Marwick, The Nature of History (London, 1970), p. 242; nor did the passage of time lead to a re-evaluation of these views, idem; The New Nature of History (London, 2001)

[6] Geoffrey Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History (Harmondsworth, Penguin 1967; original ed., 1964), pp. 1-20

[7] Peter Catterall, ‘What (if anything) is distinctive about contemporary history?’ Journal of Contemporary History 32: 4 (1997), pp. 441-52; Brian Brivati, Julia Buxton and Anthony Seldon (Eds.) The Contemporary History Handbook (Manchester, 1996)

[8] Kristina Spohr Readman, ‘Contemporary History in Europe: From mastering national Pasts to the Future of Writing the World’ in Journal of Contemporary History 46: 3 (2011), pp. 506-30

[9] First class examples of this genre include Fintan O’Toole, Meanwhile Back at the Ranch: The Politics of Irish Beef, (London, 1995); Stephen Collins, The Power Game: Fianna Fáil since Lemass (Dublin, 2000); Justin O’Brien, The Arms Trial (Dublin, 2000); Fintan O’Toole, Enough is Enough: How to Build a New Republic (London, 2010)

[10] Brian Nolan, Philip J. O’Connell and Christopher T. Whelan (eds.), Bust to Boom? The Irish Experience of Growth and Inequality (Dublin, 2000); Tony Fahey, Helen Russell and C. T. Whelan (Eds.) Best of times? The Social Impact of the Celtic Tiger (Dublin, 2007); Michael Gallagher and Michael Marsh, Days of blue Loyalty: The politics of membership of the Fine Gael party (Dublin, 2002); Brian Girvin and Gary Murphy (eds.) Continuity, change and Crisis in Ireland: New Perspectives, Research and Interpretation  special issue: Irish Political Studies 23: 4 (2008)

[11] R. G. Collingwood, ‘Can Historians be Impartial’ in R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of History and other writing in philosophy of history (Oxford, 1999), pp. 209-18; J. J. Lee, Ireland: 1912-1985 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 511-62; Foster, Luck and the Irish; Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland: 1900-2000 (London: 2004); Paul Bew, Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 486-555

[12] Foster, Luck and the Irish, p. 1

[13] Jan Palmowski and Kristina Spohr Readman, ‘Speaking Truth to Power: Contemporary History in the Twenty-First Century’, in Journal of Contemporary History 46: 3 (2011), pp. 485-505

[14] Kristina Spohr Readman, ‘Contemporary History in Europe’, pp. 506-30

[15] History and Memory, first published in 1989, remains the main journal for the examination of this interaction.

[16] A survey of Irish Historical Studies for this article found that out of 134 articles published since 2000 not a single one directly focussed on the period since 1959, though three did continue discussion of their theme into the 1960s. This is not significantly different from other history journals; Spohr Readman, ‘Contemporary History in Europe’, pp. 510-11

[17] Barraclough, An Introduction to Contemporary History, p. 12

[18] It is not my intention to defend this classification in detail and it is quite possible that alternatives can be provided.

[19] T. E. Hachey, ‘Introduction’ in T. E. Hachey (ed.) Turning Points in Twentieth-Century Irish History (Dublin: 2011), pp. 1-3

[20] Fergal Tobin, The Best of Decades: Ireland in the 1960s (Dublin: 1984); Brian Girvin and Gary Murphy, ‘Whose Ireland? The Lemass Era’ in Brian Girvin and Gary Murphy (Eds.) The Lemass Era: Politics and Society in the Ireland of Seán Lemass (Dublin: 2005), pp.1-11; for a recent critical reinterpretation of Lemass and his influence Bryce Evans, Seán Lemass: Democratic Dictator (Cork: 2011), pp. 207-59

[21] Enda Delaney, ‘Modernity, the past and Politics in Post-War Ireland’, in Hachey, Turning Points in Twentieth Century Irish History, pp. 103-18; Brian Girvin, ‘Continuity, Change and Crisis in Ireland: An Introduction and Discussion’ in Irish Political Studies 23: 4 (2008), pp. 457-74

[22] Lemass International Forum, Royal Irish Academy 23 June 2009; the programme included academic papers and round tables that discussed Lemass’s influence and how this could be mobilised to meet the economic crisis that Ireland faced. The programme was extensively reported, Irish Times, 24 June 2009; Irish Independent, 24 June 2009

[23] Robert Savage, A Loss of Innocence? Television and Irish society 1960-72 (Manchester, 2010); Michael J. Geary, An Inconvenient Wait: Ireland’s Quest for Membership of the EEC 1957-73 (Dublin, 2009); Martin Wall, ‘Ireland and the European Economic community, 1973-1977: A Small State and European Integration’ (Ph.D., thesis, National University of Ireland,  Cork, 2011)

[24] Heinrich Böll, Irish Journal (Evanston, Illinois: 1994), pp. 121-27

[25] John Horgan, Seán Lemass: The Enigmatic Patriot (Dublin, 1997), p. 225

[26] Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party Minutes 11 June 1941 (U.C.D.A., P176/440)

[27] John A. Murphy, Ireland in the Twentieth Century (Dublin: 1975); F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine(London, rev. ed., 1973), pp. 559-694

[28] The papers of Conor Cruise O’Brien, Patrick Hillery and Garret FitzGerald, for instance, are held by UCDA.

[29] Hachey, ‘Introduction’, p. 3; Peter Catterall, ‘What (if anything) is distinctive about contemporary history?’ Journal of Contemporary History 32: 4 (1997), pp. 441-52, appeals for a more flexible understanding of sources and a serious questioning of official ones, p. 447;

[30] Peter Burke, ‘Overture. The New History: Its Past and its Future’ in Peter Burke (Ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing (2^nd ed., Oxford, 2001), pp. 1-24; Geoffrey Roberts (ed.) The History and Narrative Reader (London, 2001) explores most aspects of this debate within the philosophy of history.

[31] Peter Burke, ‘History of Events and the Revival of narrative’ in Roberts, The History and Narrative Reader, pp. 305-19

[32] Diarmaid Ferriter, Occasions of Sin (London, 2009); Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers’ Party (Dublin, 2009)Anne Stopper, Monday at Gaj’s: The Story of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement (Dublin, 2006); ICA papers are available in the NLI.

[33] Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Alters: Traditional religion in England c1400-c1580 (London, 2005); Wayne P. Te Brake, Shaping History: Ordinary People in European Politics 1500-1700 (London, 1998)

[34] Brivati, Buxton and Seldon, The Contemporary History Handbook, pp. 383-436

[35] There is very limited access for research purposes to RTE’s film archive; however its written archives are currently being transferred to UCDA.

[36] John Horgan for instance collected a considerable archive of interviews for his biography of Seán Lemass and has made it available to researchers.

[37] Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, The Oral History Reader (London, 1998)provides multiple insights into this complex area; see also Gwyn Prins ‘Oral History’ in Burke, New Perspectives on Historical Writing, pp. 120-56; Alison Winter, Memory: Fragments of a Modern History (Chicago, 2012) for a sceptical view.

[38] Noël Browne, Against the Tide (Dublin, 1986); John Horgan, Noël Browne: Passionate Outsider (Dublin, 2000); Correspondence between Conor Cruise O’Brien, Brendan Corish and Browne adds a further corrective to the original memoir (U. C. D. A. Conor Cruise O’Brien Papers P82/209-15); Garret FitzGerald, All in a Life: An Autobiography (Dublin, 1991); Gemma Hussey, at the Cutting Edge: Cabinet Diaries, 1982-1987 (Dublin, 1990)

[39] Developments in the field of computing and history can be followed in the International Journal of the Humanities and Arts Computing (formerly History and Computing)

[40] Opinion poll data sets can be accessed at www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/IOPA/index.php; www.ucd.ie/issda; www.data-archive.ac.uk

[41] Peter Burke, History and Social Theory (Cambridge, 2005 2^nd ed.), pp. 1-20.

[42] This discussion can be traced in Roberts, The History and Narrative Reader, pp. 69-140

[43] Desmond Dinan, ‘The Historiography of European Integration’ in Desmond Dinan (Ed.) Origins and Evolution of the European Union (Oxford, 2006), pp. 297-324

[44] A. S. Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation-State (London, 1992);  A. S. Milward, F. M. B. Lynch, Federico Romero, Ruggerio Ranieri and Vibeke Sørensen, The Frontiers of National Sovereignty: History and Theory 1945-1992 (London, 1993)

[45] Historians favourable to European integration as a political project find it difficult to accommodate Milward’s research as it undermines a normative belief in the inevitability of European integration; see Wolfram Kaiser and Antonio Varsori (Eds.), European Union History: Themes and Debates (Houndmills, Basingstoke, 2010); for a sympathetic assessment of Milward’s historiography see F. M. B. Lynch and Fernando Guirao, ‘The Implicit Theory of Historical Change in the Work of Alan S. Milward’ EUI Working Papers HEC 2012/01 (Florence, 2012)