Revisionism (Ireland)

Revisionism in Irish historiography refers to a historical revisionist tendency and group of historians who are critical of the orthodox view of Irish history since the achievement of partial Irish independence, which comes from the perspective of Irish nationalism. For opponents, Revisionists are regarded as apologists for the British Empire in Ireland, proponents of a form of denialism and even in some cases advocates of neo-unionism, while the Revisionists on the other hand see themselves as positing a progressive cosmopolitan narrative opposed to a "narrowly sectarian" viewpoint.

History

The revisionist school of Irish history can be said to have originated in the 1930s when it was championed by Robert Dudley Edwards, D. B. Quinn and T. W. Moody.^[1]

Themes

Figures

Brendan Bradshaw, Fellow and Director of Studies in History at Queens' College, Cambridge, stated that there has been an "iconistic assault" on nationalist martyrs. Examples include Ruth Dudley Edwards' criticisms of Patrick Pearse and Tom Dunne's criticism of Wolfe Tone in his book Theobald Wolfe Tone: Colonial Outsider.^[1]

Patrick Pearse and the Provisional IRA

One trend is to link the violence of people like Patrick Pearse and the Easter rebels to the violence of the Provisional IRA by saying Pearse provided a template for the ideology of the Provisionals.

The current (2011 - 2025) President of the Republic of Ireland Michael D. Higgins has criticised this calling it "loose revisionism" and "tendentious". He followed up: “This was of course a somewhat simplistic and ideological assumption, and contemporary historians are more interested in the human rights breaches and the political and social basis of conflict and exclusion as a source of violence in the Northern Ireland of the 1970s.”^[2]

Historians and other writers

Revisionists

Anti-Revisionist

References

Boyce, D George (1996). The Making of Modern Irish History: Revisionism and the Revisionist Controversy. Routledge. ISBN 041512171X.
Bradshaw, Brendan (2016). 'And so began the Irish Nation': nationality, national consciousness and nationalism in pre-modern Ireland. Routledge. ISBN 9781472442567.
Brady, Ciaran (1995). Interpreting Irish History: The Debate on Historical Revisionism, 1938-94. Irish Academic Press. ISBN 0716525461.
Heartfield, James (2015). Who's Afraid of the Easter Rising? 1916-2016. Zero Books. ISBN 978-1782798873.
Perry, Robert (2013). Revisionist Scholarship and Modern Irish Politics. Routledge. ISBN 978-1409451273.

Notes

^ ^a ^b Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Nancy J. Curtin, Journal of British Studies 35 (April 1996) 195-219
^ President Michael D. Higgins, Speech at a State Ceremonial Event in honour of Patrick Pearse and the Irish language
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Evi Gkotzaridis, Irish Revisionism and Continental Theory: An Intellectual Kinship, The Irish Review, 27 (2001)
^ Brendan Bradshaw, 'Nationalism and historical scholarship in modern Ireland', in: Irish Historical Studies, 26 (1989), 329-351.
^ Kevin Whelan, 'Come all you staunch revisionists: towards a post-revisionist agenda for Irish history', in: The Irish Reporter, 2 (1991), 23-26.

External links

The Revisionist Debate in Ireland at Project Muse
Beyond Revisionism, Reassessing the Great Irish Famine at History Ireland

[jstor-1] Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Nancy J. Curtin, Journal of British Studies 35 (April 1996) 195-219

[2] President Michael D. Higgins, Speech at a State Ceremonial Event in honour of Patrick Pearse and the Irish language

[jstor2-3] Evi Gkotzaridis, Irish Revisionism and Continental Theory: An Intellectual Kinship, The Irish Review, 27 (2001)

[4] Brendan Bradshaw, 'Nationalism and historical scholarship in modern Ireland', in: Irish Historical Studies, 26 (1989), 329-351.

[5] Kevin Whelan, 'Come all you staunch revisionists: towards a post-revisionist agenda for Irish history', in: The Irish Reporter, 2 (1991), 23-26.

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