No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2015
This article contributes to the the mapping of the ‘pathways of transmission’ of the Northern Ireland ‘problem’ by drawing attention to three problematic aspects of John Whyte’s appraisal of the pre-1969 historiography, in Interpreting Northern Ireland (1990): that the work of T. W. Moody and J. C. Beckett and their fellow historians before 1969 was ‘lightweight’ and ‘bland’; that they effectively ignored Ulster’s history of sectarian rioting until Andrew Boyd’s book Holy war in Belfast (1969) brought it ‘back into the consciousness of historians’; and that the ‘external conflict paradigm’ was ‘dominant’ in their discourse. These are examined in sections II–V. The content of the pre-1969 historiography is examined in section I and a preliminary reappraisal is offered in section VI.
1 McGarry, John and O’Leary, Brendan, Explaining Northern Ireland: broken images (Oxford, 1995), pp 1Google Scholar, 355.
2 [Richard Haas and Meghan O’Sullivan,] Proposed Agreement 31 December 2013: an agreement among the parties of the Northern Ireland Executive on parades, select commemorations, and related protests; flags and emblems; and contending with the past, http://www.northernireland.gov.uk/haass.pdf, accessed 7 July 2014.
3 Zalewski, Marysia and Barry, John (eds), Intervening in Northern Ireland: critically rethinking representations of the conflict (London, 2007)Google Scholar, also published as a Special Issue of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, ix, no. 4 (Dec. 2006); Bourke, Richard, ‘Languages of conflict and the Northern Ireland Troubles’ in Journal of Modern History, lxxxviii, no. 3 (Sept. 2011), pp 544–578CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Whyte, John, Interpreting Northern Ireland (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar; Lambkin, Brian, ‘The historiography of the conflict in Northern Ireland and the reception of Andrew Boyd’s Holy war in Belfast (1969)’ in R.I.A. Proc., cxiv C (2014), pp 1–32Google Scholar; idem, ‘Academic antagonism and the “resetting” of the Northern Ireland “problem”, 1969–1970: Owen Dudley Edwards v Hugh Trevor-Roper’ in Irish Political Studies (published online, August 2014). John Henry (J. H.) Whyte (1928–90) was professor of Irish Politics in Queen’s University Belfast, 1982–5 and in University College Dublin 1985–90.
5 Patterson, Henry, ‘Brian Maginess and the limits of liberal Unionism’ in Irish Review, xxv (1999/2000), pp 95–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 97.
6 Whyte, , Interpreting Northern Ireland, p. viiiGoogle Scholar.
7 CAIN (Conflict Archive on the INternet), http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/bibdbs/index.html, accessed 8/07/14.
8 Whyte’s book was based on a series of preceding articles: ‘Interpretations of the Northern Ireland problem: an appraisal’ in Economic and Social Review, ix (1978), pp 257–82; ‘Why is the Northern Ireland problem so intractable?’ in Parliamentary Affairs, xxxiv (1981), pp 422–35; Is research on the Northern Ireland problem worthwhile?: an inaugural lecture delivered before the Queen’s University of Belfast on 18 January 1983 (Belfast, 1983); ‘How much discrimination was there under the Unionist regime, 1921–1968?’ in Tom Gallagher and James O’Connell (eds), Contemporary Irish studies (Manchester, 1983), pp 1–35; ‘How is the boundary maintained between the two communities in Northern Ireland?’ in Ethnic and Racial Studies, ix (1986), pp 219–34; ‘Interpretations of the Northern Ireland problem’ in Charles Townshend (ed.), Consensus in Ireland: approaches and recessions (Oxford, 1988), pp 24–46.
9 Whyte, , Interpreting Northern Ireland, p. 103Google Scholar.
10 Ibid., p. 258.
11 McGarry, and O’Leary, , Explaining Northern Ireland, pp 1, 355Google Scholar.
12 Whyte, ‘Why is the Northern Ireland problem so intractable?’.
13 Whyte, , Interpreting Northern Ireland, pp 257–259Google Scholar; McGarry, and O’Leary, , Explaining Northern Ireland, p. 363Google Scholar.
14 Barritt, D. P. and Carter, C. F., The Northern Ireland problem (Oxford, 1962), p 155Google Scholar.
15 For comparison, it is worth noting that Patrick Buckland in A history of Northern Ireland (Dublin, 1981), although referring to fewer bibliographical items (128) had given greater weight to the pre-1969 historiography: 28 items (22 per cent).
16 Whyte, , Interpreting Northern Ireland, pp v, 269–296Google Scholar.
17 These would include Mogey’s, John M.Rural life in Northern Ireland: five regional studies (1947)Google Scholar, written on behalf of the Northern Ireland Council of Social Service. Whyte’s bibliography also included some pre-1969 items offering international comparative evidence such as Alford, Robert R., Party and society: the Anglo-American democracies (London, 1964)Google Scholar.
18 Whyte referred to an article and book by Jones, Emrys, ‘The distribution and segregation of Roman Catholics in Belfast’ in Sociological Review, iv (1956), pp 167–189CrossRefGoogle Scholar and A social geography of Belfast (London, 1960), which are counted here as relating to the ‘internal conflict paradigm’. However, Jones comprehended both internal and external conflict paradigms in ‘Problems of partition and segregation in Northern Ireland’ in Journal of Conflict Resolution [Chicago], iv (1960), pp 96–105.
19 Barritt, and Carter, , The Northern Ireland problem, p. 3Google Scholar.
20 Only one of these cited The Northern Ireland problem, and then only as a source about industrialisation: Lawrence, R. J., The Government of Northern Ireland: public finance and public services 1921–1964 (Oxford, 1965), p. 29Google Scholar, n.3.
21 Whyte, , Interpreting Northern Ireland, p. 3Google Scholar.
22 Ibid., p. 165.
23 Ibid., p. 123.
24 Lambkin, , ‘Historiography of the conflict’, pp 1–32Google Scholar.
25 Lambkin, , Opposite religions still?, pp 10–11Google Scholar.
26 Doyle, Mark, Fighting like the devil for the sake of God: Protestants, Catholics and the origins of violence in Victorian Belfast (Manchester, 2009), p. 7Google Scholar.
27 Whyte, , Interpreting Northern Ireland, p. 122Google Scholar.
28 Ibid. On the state of the historiography of Ireland in general and Northern Ireland in particular from the 1930s to the 1970s, see Lee, J. J., Ireland 1912–1985: politics and society (Cambridge, 1989), pp 588–589Google Scholar, 596–7, 608, 620, 623.
29 On the avoidance by Irish Historical Studies of contemporary Irish history until the 1970s, see Lee, Ireland 1912–1985, p. 589; Fanning, Ronan, ‘“The great enchantment”: uses and abuses of modern Irish history’ in James Dooge (ed.), Ireland in the contemporary world: essays in honour of Garret FitzGerald (Dublin, 1986), pp 131–147Google Scholar; Brady, Ciaran (ed.), Interpreting Irish history: the debate on historical revisionism (Dublin, 1994), pp 149–151Google Scholar; and Boyce, D. George and O’Day, Alan (eds), The making of modern Irish history: revisionism and the revisionist controversy (London, 1996), pp 106CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 163–5, 218–19, 223–4, 232–34. F.S.L. Lyons pushed at the boundary with ‘The Irish Unionist Party and the devolution crisis of 1904–5’ in I.H.S., vi (1948–9), pp 1–22.
30 Whyte, , ‘Bishop Moriarty on disestablishment and the union, 1868’ in I.H.S., x (1956), pp 193–199Google Scholar; ‘Daniel O’Connell and the repeal party’ in I.H.S., xi (1958), pp 297–316.
31 Lee, , Ireland 1912–1985, p. 589Google Scholar.
32 Boyd, Andrew, Holy war in Belfast (Tralee, 1969)Google Scholar, inside back cover: ‘it is the first account ever written of the many religious riots that have swept through Belfast, generation after generation’.
33 Barritt, and Carter, , Northern Ireland problem, p. 2Google Scholar. Denis Barritt (1914–93) and Charles Carter (1919–2002) were colleagues in the department of Economics at the Queen’s University of Belfast; Barritt was a research officer (1955–64), recruited by Carter who was professor of Economics (1952–9).
34 Chart, D. A., A history of Northern Ireland (Belfast, 1927), p. 24Google Scholar. Chart (1878–1960) was the deputy keeper of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland from its inception in 1924 to his retirement in 1948. On history texts, including Chart’s, which was widely used in schools, see Mulcahy, B. J., ‘A study of the relationship between Ireland and England as portrayed in Irish post-primary school history textbooks, published since 1922, and dealing with the period 1800 to the present’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Hull, 1988)Google Scholar; Barton, K.C. and McCully, Alan, ‘History teaching and the perpetuation of memories: the Northern Ireland experience’, in Ed Cairns and M. D. Roe (eds), The role of memory in ethnic conflict (Basingstoke, 2003), pp 107–124CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, Margaret E., Reckoning with the past (Lanham MD, 2005), pp 132–135Google Scholar.
35 Moody, T. W. and Beckett, J. C. (eds), Ulster since 1800: a political and economic survey (London, 1954)Google Scholar; Moody, T. W. and Beckett, J. C. (eds), Ulster since 1800: second series, a social survey (London, 1957)Google Scholar.
36 Theodore William (T. W.) Moody (1907–84) was founding editor with Robert Dudley (R. D.) Edwards in 1938 of Irish Historical Studies and professor of Modern History in Trinity College Dublin 1940–77. James Camlin (J. C.) Beckett (1912–96) became a member of the committee of management of Irish Historical Studies in 1945 and was professor of Irish History in Queen’s University Belfast, 1958–75.
37 Moody and Beckett (eds), Ulster since 1800, social survey, Preface.
38 Moody, T. W., ‘The social history of modern Ulster’, in Moody and Beckett (eds), Ulster since 1800 ... a social survey, pp 224Google Scholar, 225.
39 Ibid., p. 230.
40 Ibid., p. 232.
41 Ibid., pp 230–35. Beckett had previously written that ‘the real partition of Ireland is not on the map but in the minds of men’ in A short history of Ireland (London, 1952), p. 192. On the influence of this, see Burgess, Mary, ‘Mapping the narrow ground: geography, history and partition’, in Field Day Review, i (2005), pp 121–132Google Scholar at p. 121.
42 Beckett, , ‘Introduction’, Moody and Beckett (eds), Ulster since 1800 ... a social survey, p. 24Google Scholar.
43 Jones, Emrys, ‘Belfast’ in Moody and Beckett (eds), Ulster since 1800 ... a social survey, pp 97–98Google Scholar; F.S.L. Lyons, ‘The twentieth century’, ibid., pp 54–61 at p. 61.
44 Jonathan Bardon A History of Ulster (1992) discusses rioting in Belfast in 1829 (p. 247), 1857 (pp 306, 349–52), 1864 (pp 350–2), 1872 (pp 356–7), 1886 (pp 380–2, 404), 1912 (p. 436), 1920–2 (pp 467–74, 482, 489, 491, 494), 1935 (pp 539–41), 1964 (p. 632); and Derry in 1868–70 and 1899 (p. 396).
45 Hawthorne, James, Two centuries of Irish history (London, 1966), p. 1Google Scholar.
46 Hawthorne, a schoolteacher, had been recruited by B.B.C. Northern Ireland in 1960 as its first specialist schools producer: Hawthorne, James, ‘Above suspicion or controversy? The development of the B.B.C.’s Irish history programme for schools in Northern Ireland’ in Martin McLoone (ed.), Broadcasting in a divided community: seventy years of the B.B.C. in Northern Ireland (Belfast, 1996), pp 51–65Google Scholar, at p. 51.
47 Hammond, David, ‘Ulster will fight’ in Hawthorne, Two centuries, pp 95–104Google Scholar; Martin Wallace, ‘Northern Ireland’, ibid., pp 128–9.
48 Beckett, J. C. and Glasscock, R. E. (eds), Belfast: the origin and growth of an industrial city (London, 1967)Google Scholar. Beckett gave his inaugural lecture as the first professor of Irish History in Queen’s on 13 March 1963: Beckett, J. C., The study of Irish History (Belfast, 1963), p. 1Google Scholar.
49 See also Boyd, John, The middle of my journey (Belfast, 1990), pp 201–202Google Scholar.
50 Beckett, and Glasscock, , Belfast, pp vii–viiiGoogle Scholar.
51 The other chapters were Emrys Jones, ‘Late Victorian Belfast: 1850–1900’ (at pp 118–19); J. W. Boyle, ‘Belfast and the origins of Northern Ireland’ (p. 132); J. C. Beckett, ‘Belfast: a general survey’ (p. 188).
52 Campbell, ‘Between the wars’, p. 144. In contrast to Andrew Boyd who was born in 1921, Campbell (1910–79) had personal memories of the violence of the 1920s from living in Belfast’s Oldpark Road, to which he referred, under the pen name ‘Ultach’, in ‘The real case against partition’ in Capuchin Annual (Dublin, 1943), pp 284–5, 289, 306, 311.
53 Bardon, , History of Ulster, p. 632Google Scholar.
54 Kiely, Benedict, Counties of contention: a study of the origins and implications of the partition of Ireland (Cork, 1945, 2004), p. 186Google Scholar (reissued with a foreword by John Hume to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Mercier Press).
55 Irish Times, 29 Jan. 1977. The episode is discussed in detail by Kiely in Counties of contention, pp 172–83. The pamphlet went through four reprints August–September 1943.
56 Irish Times, 14 Apr. 1945; see also 2 Jun. 1945.
57 Kiely, , Counties of contention, pp 112–113Google Scholar, 115, 116–26.
58 Ibid., p. 130.
59 MacCauley, James A., ‘Counties of contention’ in I.H.S., v no. 17 (Mar., 1946), pp 105–107Google Scholar, at p. 105.
60 Kiely, , Counties of contention, pp 128Google Scholar, 157, 171–83.
61 MacCauley, , ‘Counties’, p. 107Google Scholar. Kiely, , Counties of contention, p. 188Google Scholar.
62 Barritt, and Carter, , Northern Ireland problem, p. 71Google Scholar. See Jones, , Social geography, pp xiiiGoogle Scholar, 172, 190, 191; see also pp 53, 76.
63 Shea, Patrick, Voices and the sound of drums: an Irish autobiography (Belfast, 1981), p. 175Google Scholar; see also Elliott, Marianne, The Catholics of Ulster: a history (Belfast, 2000), p. 443Google Scholar.
64 Parker, Michael, Northern Ireland literature 1956–2006: the imprint of history, volume 1 (Basingstoke, 2007), pp 5–16Google Scholar.
65 Lambkin, , ‘Historiography of the conflict’, pp 9–10Google Scholar; Dennis Kennedy, ‘Waging holy war in Belfast: History, 1857–1969’ in Irish Times, 1 Sept. 1969.
66 Kiely, , Counties of contention, p. 130Google Scholar.
67 Whyte, , Interpreting, p. 123Google Scholar; Cathcart, Rex, The most contrary region: The B.B.C. in Northern Ireland, 1924–1984 (Belfast, 1984), pp 201Google Scholar, 263; see also Elliott, Catholics of Ulster, p. 408.
68 Obituary, The Independent, 16 Sept. 1994.
69 Cathcart, , Most contrary region, pp viiiGoogle Scholar, 263.
70 Hawthorne, James, Reporting violence –lessons from Northern Ireland? (Belfast, 1981), p. 6Google Scholar.
71 Cathcart, , Most contrary region, p. 201Google Scholar. This could be considered further evidence of the pre-1969 consensus about Barritt and Carter’s ‘setting’ of the ‘problem’.
72 Ibid., pp 176–7; Smith, Reckoning with the past, pp 135–6. Two Thomas Davis lecture series, broadcast in 1962 and 1967, included lectures on the history of Northern Ireland by Kennedy, David: ‘Catholics in Northern Ireland, 1926–39’ in Frank McManus (ed.), The years of the great test, 1926–39 (Cork, 1967), pp 138–160Google Scholar, and ‘Ulster during the war and after’ in Nowlan, Kevin B. and Williams, T. Desmond (eds), Ireland in the war years and after (Dublin, 1969), pp 52–66Google Scholar. The editors of the latter commented: ‘Until much more source material is made available, especially from state archives, in Ireland and elsewhere, it will be difficult to write definitive accounts of certain aspects of our recent history… A beginning, however, must be made’, ibid., p. ix.
73 Martin, F. X., ‘The Thomas Davis lectures, 1953–67’ in I.H.S., xvi (1967), pp 276–302Google Scholar, at p. 280.
74 ‘Ultach’ (J. J. Campbell), Orange terror: the partition of Ireland (Dublin, 1943). Campbell was then a teacher in St Malachy’s College, Belfast.
75 Campbell, , ‘Between the wars’, p. 146Google Scholar.
76 Ibid., pp 191–2.
77 Ibid., p. 190.
78 Patterson, Henry, Ireland since 1939: the persistence of conflict (Dublin, 2006), p. 182Google Scholar; Boyd, John, The middle of my journey (Belfast, 1990), pp 162–168Google Scholar. See also Gailey, Andrew, Crying in the wilderness: Jack Sayers: a liberal editor in Ulster, 1939–69 (Belfast, 1995), pp 64–66Google Scholar.
79 Not all of the other contributors would necessarily have held unionist positions. They were: J. C. Beckett, R. Black, W. Black, F. Boal, K. Connell, E. Evans, R. Glasscock, K. S. Isles, E. Jones, D. Neill, B. Wilson (Q.U.B.); F.S.L. Lyons, R.B. McDowell, T. W. Moody (T.C.D.); J. Boyle (Mount Allison, New Brunswick); E.R.R. Green (Manchester); J. L. McCracken (Magee College); J. M. Mogey (Oxford); and D. Bleakley, G. Camblin, C.E.B. Brett, J. Hewitt, H. Shearman.
80 It was widely used in schools, north and south, in the 1970s and 1980s: Smith, Reckoning with the past, p. 133.
81 Tierney, Mark and MacCurtain, Margaret, The birth of modern Ireland (Dublin, 1969), pp 61Google Scholar, 113, 207, 218.
82 Whyte, , Interpreting Northern Ireland, p. 123Google Scholar.
83 Ibid., pp 172, 257–9.
84 Ibid., p. 258.
85 Moody, , ‘Social history of modern Ulster’, pp 232–233Google Scholar.
86 Wilson, Thomas, ‘Conclusion: devolution and partition’ in T. Wilson (ed.), Ulster under Home Rule (Oxford, 1955), pp 183–211Google Scholar, at pp 189, 193, 202, 204.
87 Ibid., p. 210.
88 Barritt, and Carter, , Northern Ireland problem, pp 71Google Scholar, 73. For Jones’s contributions see note 18 above.
89 Ibid., pp 55, 59, 61; Harris, Rosemary, ‘The selection of leaders in Ballybeg, Northern Ireland’ in Sociological Review ix, no. 2 (July 1961), pp 137–149CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 138. The other study by Harris was her unpublished M.A. thesis for London University (1954), eventually published in 1972 as Prejudice and tolerance in Ulster: a study of neighbours and ‘strangers’ in a border community (Manchester, 1972). The fifth study cited by Barritt and Carter was ‘Juvenile delinquency in areas of Belfast’, an unpublished B.Ed. dissertation for Queen’s University (1953) by F.A.W. Carter.
90 Kiely, , Counties of contention, p. 186Google Scholar.
91 Ibid., p. 184.
92 Quoted in Elliott, , Catholics of Ulster, p. 386Google Scholar.
93 Patterson, , Ireland since 1939, pp 120Google Scholar, 180, 127, 136.
94 Ibid., p. 206.
95 Cole, John, ‘Introduction’ in Terence O’Neill, Ulster at the crossroads (London, 1969), p. 24Google Scholar. Cole’s reference to sectarian rioting in the thirties is significant in that his ‘Introduction’ is dated May 1969, before the publication in August of Boyd’s Holy war in Belfast. See also Mulholland, Marc, Northern Ireland at the crossroads (Basingstoke, 2000), p. 172CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
96 Lambkin, ‘Historiography of the conflict’, pp 15–17’; idem, ‘Academic antagonism’.
97 Cole, , ‘Introduction’, p. 16Google Scholar.
98 O’Callaghan, Margaret, ‘Genealogies of partition: history, history-writing and “the Troubles” in Ireland’ in Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, ix, no. 4 (Dec. 2006), pp 619–634CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
99 Moody, T. W., The Ulster question, 1603–1973 (Dublin, 1974), p. viiGoogle Scholar; De Paor, Liam, Divided Ulster (London, 1970)Google Scholar; Budge, Ian and O’Leary, Cornelius, Belfast: approach to crisis: a study of Belfast politics, 1613–1970 (London, 1973)Google Scholar.
100 Moody, , Ulster question, p. 20Google Scholar. Moody included Boyd’s book under ‘Belfast’ along with the volumes edited by Beckett and Glasscock, and by Budge and O’Leary, and Mary McNeill’s The life and times of Mary Ann McCracken, 1770–1866: a Belfast panorama (Dublin, 1960).
101 Moody, , Ulster question, p. 112Google Scholar.
102 Wilson, Tom, Ulster: conflict and consent (Belfast, 1989), pp ixGoogle Scholar, xvi, 151, 153, 157, 158.
103 Fischer, David Hackett, Historians’ fallacies: toward a logic of historical thought (New York, 1970), p. 161Google Scholar.
104 Lambkin, , ‘Historiography of the conflict’, pp 9–11Google Scholar.
105 Lambkin, ‘Academic antagonism’.
106 For example, the works of J. W. Boyle, C. D. Greaves and Peadar Livingstone need consideration.
107 The first version of this paper was given to the Belfast Literary Society, 5 November 2012. I am grateful for comments and advice to Sir Peter Froggatt, Keith Jeffery and Dennis Kennedy, and also to Mark Adair, Barbara Boyd Graham, Patrick Fitzgerald, Johanne Devlin Trew, Kay Muhr, and the journal’s anonymous reviewers.