Essays: John A Murphy is a much respected historian, a sharp commentator and former senator, and something of a character, with a mischievous sense of humour.
This book is a festschrift, a tribute by colleagues writing on themes related to John A's historical interests as well as his contribution, both serious and frivolous, to public life.
Apart from being a staunch Corkonian, John A is not easily co-opted into any school, notwithstanding his occasional column in the Sunday Independent, which tends to be more confident and less alarmist in its analysis than columns by others. That is a paper which seems to think that by making an enormous hissing and flapping noise like the geese in the capitol it can alert the public, awaken the senators and save the republic from the barbarian hordes. A cool introductory message from Conor Cruise O'Brien recognises that Murphy and he have sometimes been allies, but places more emphasis on their differences.
Joe Lee notes perceptively of his fellow history professor at UCC that "he has always been too independent-minded to subscribe fully to the values at the core of revisionism or to indulge in the unscholarly use of evidence, inherent in the imposition of the perspectives of the present on the past". That integrity makes Murphy stick out as a commentator who refuses to succumb to every passing enthusiasm or subscribe to the full ideological menu.
A book of this kind is not only for the friends and admirers of John A, but for those with a broad interest in history. Ruth Dudley Edwards and Úna O'Donoghue cover John A the spiky controversialist, who put the case most strongly for a focused 26-county nationalism.
An interesting essay by Desmond Clarke on English republican thought in the 17th century attributes the origin of the principle of consent to Harrington and Sydney rather than Locke's more famous Second Treatise of Civil Government. Liam Irwin has an interesting essay on the important but relatively forgotten figure of Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, later earl of Orrery, Lord President of Munster, rival to the duke of Ormonde, and superb prose writer. He was author of an eloquent pre-restoration manifesto on difficulties in church and state, signed by 44 Munster army officers in February 1660, one of whom, an ancestor, was Captain James Mansergh.
Maurice Bric has an essay on O'Connell's stand on anti-slavery and other contemporary movements, including the Hibernian Negro's Friend Society headed by Rev Charles Orpen (of that family). O'Connell felt slavery reflected poorly on American democracy, but then faced difficulties in justifying the disenfranchisement of women.
Emmet Larkin, the great historian of the 19th-century Irish Catholic church, outlines early initiatives to provide priests for the missions, especially within the expanding British Empire, the context for the foundation of All Hallows' College, Drumcondra, in 1843, which is still going strong.
Clíona Murphy revives the memory of an evangelical travel writer, Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, whose analysis of the causes of Irish destitution was confused by sectarian ideology. Maura Cronin, writing on Young Ireland in Cork in the 1840s, notes that, in the final analysis, the commercial self-interest of the southern capital took precedence over advanced politics.
Laurence Geary shows how the counter-attack by landlordism some years after the 1881 Land Act failed. Owen Dudley Edwards, in a typically provocative article on Parnell, argues that "the chief" was essentially neither English nor Irish (nor, a fortiori, Anglo-Irish), but Irish-American from his grandfather, Admiral Stewart, the American national hero of the war of 1812. Parnell was thus attuned more to the triumph of victory than of defeat. Secondarily, the article also outlines Parnell's early political debt to Bishop Nulty of Meath, who in bitter disappointment turned against him with a vengeance in 1891.
Tom Dunne shows the flaws in Daniel Corkery's Hidden Ireland, in particular his misunderstanding of the strength of Irish Jacobite loyalties. Tomás Ó Canainn writes about traditional Irish music in the United States from the 19th to the mid-20th century. James Donnelly Jr recounts the early years of Knock Shrine, including the reticence of the bishops at that time. Lawrence McCaffrey analyses the situation of the Catholic Church in America, its important historical role as well as its diminished standing following the scandals.
Eoghan Harris analyses unionism's missed opportunities with the media, making the important point that change is normally regarded as a good thing. His advice, which is apt to be frustratingly ignored, is to emphasise their endurance.
The title of the book raises the issue of the relationship, very close in Ireland, between history and the public sphere. When Ruairi Ó Brádaigh, president of Republican Sinn Féin, can maintain in a recent interview with Village magazine that "the historic Irish nation is entitled to national independence", by way of justifying an ongoing right to resist British rule in Ireland, regardless of overwhelming democratic support for the Good Friday Agreement, and when on the other hand the loyal orders insist on flaunting somewhere each year victories of centuries past in the face of nationalist residents, the need for people capable of analysing our history with knowledge and authority is clear. It is also necessary that vital parts of that knowledge be made accessible not just to university students by way of books and learned articles but also to the general public. However important it may be to focus on the future, clarifying the issues inherited from the past is essential, even where no consensus is likely.
One does not have to agree with all or most of John A Murphy's views to respect them as coming from an expert practitioner of the art of bringing the perspectives of history to bear on contemporary politics and especially the peace process. He recognises that one has to serve one's own generation, not just past and future ones.
Martin Mansergh is a Fianna Fáil senator and Irish Times columnist
History and the Public Sphere: Essays in Honour of John A Murphy Edited by Tom Dunne and Laurence M Geary Cork University Press, 294pp. €36.50