The first anti-revisionist
Sir John T. Gilbert, 1829-1898: historian, archivist and librarian
Edited by Mary Clark et al
Four Courts Press
Price £22.50 (Hb)
Sir John T. Gilbert's legacy in Dublin is a jewel of a library, similar in importance to Irish history as Belfast's Linen Hall Library, the National Library or Marsh's Library, though very much underutilised. This book is the proceedings of a conference to mark the centenary of his death, held in 1998.
Having been the man who set up the Public Record Office in Ireland in 1867, much of Gilbert's work went up in flames as the fledgling Free State bombarded the republican garrison in the Four Courts in 1922 or in the explosions as the IRA evacuated the building. Lost to future generations was a wealth of historical data which could not be replaced and which left a void in our documentrary record of Ireland from the 1850s onwards.
Thomas Gilbert was born in the heart of Dublin in Jervis Street in 1829 and one of his first works was History of the City of Dublin. Among the many jobs he had was as librarian for the Royal Irish Academy for 34 years and he was himself a collector of books. He was asked in 1865 to inspect and advise Dublin Corporation on its neglected archive and from then he embarked on a crusade to overcome the neglect of archives in Ireland.
He was fascinated with books and was a member of the libraries of the Royal Dublin Society, Marsh's, and the Royal Irish Academy from an early age. Reading widely, his main interest was Irish history. He began building his own collection early on, concentrating on aquiring rare continental editions of little-known works of Irish writers and books by other authors on Ireland or Irish-related topics.
On his death in 1898, his widow sold his collection for the large sum in those days of £2,500. This collection is now housed in the Pearse Street publc library
Gilbert strenuously opposed the prejudiced history of Ireland current at the time, especially in relation to the 1640s, and he often clashed with his English antiquarian and historian contemporaries with his aim ``to rehabilitate episodes and actors in Irish history hitherto either disregarded or misunderstood''. Not overt in his nationalism, he let the historical documents and manuscripts speak for themselves.
U.S. and German spies in Ireland
A US spy in Ireland
Martin S. Quigley
Published by Marino
Price £9.99
The recent release of British Intelligence documents dealing with captured Irish spies operating for Germany during the Second World War shed further light on this murky aspect of Irish history.
One of the spies parachuted into Ireland was the son of the RIC man who arrested Roger Casement in 1916 and who resigned his commission after the Rising in protest at the execution of the leaders. John Francis O'Reilly was handed in to the authorities by his father in Kilkee, County Clare, while another man was arrested when spotted being dragged across several fields by his still-opened parachute. O'Reilly's father got reward money for his civic duty and along with money that the Germans gave John for his mission, John was able to buy the Esplanade Hotel in Parkgate Street after the war.
That at least one Irishman benefited from his connections with the Nazis is amazing, given the lack of enthusiasm, the ineptitude and the incompetence which characterised this episode.
Unlike the efforts in previous generations, ``England's enemies are Ireland's friends'' did not ring true on this occasion and the suggestions that help be sought from Nazi Germany caused much resentment and confusion as to the direction the movement was taking among the many republicans who'd opposed fascism in Europe in the previous decade.
The Germans were not the only ones sending spies to Ireland - the US also sent several and Ireland had hundreds of British spies and sympathetic Irish informants. Martin Quigley's autobiographical account ,A U.S. spy in Ireland, traces his clandestine activities in Ireland for the U.S. secret services - the OSS. Though he doesn't state it, for a young spy the posting to Ireland must have been a disappointment, with none of the usual cloak and dagger excitement which one would associate with the world of espionage. Quigley had expressed his view of spying in a high school article: ``Espionage always was and always will be one of the most effective weapons of war, calling for the bravest men, the shrewdest of schemers.'' Quigley's cover in Ireland was as an agent for an American film company. His brief was essentially the gathering of strategic intelligence: information, data, impressions, attitudes, actions and beliefs of the people in Ireland, especially regarding their state's `neutrality'. He fulfilled both roles fully.
He even tried to get backing for a scheme to end partition in exchange for lending ports to the U.S. for the duration of the war. [the caption under the picture of Emmet Dalton reads erroneously ``to lend the treaty ports to Britain''.] Emmet Dalton, who he knew through the film industry and to whom he put the idea, reported to him that the British High Command were content with the situation as it was. So ended that scheme.
Quigley expresses the view that most people would hold today, except for the unionists and the English Conservative Party, that in fact the 26 County state was far from neutral. De Valera's government and administration gave tacit support to the `Allies' despite their declared neutral position. Quigley shows how that `neutrality' was breached and that while the majority of Irish had ``deep-rooted feelings against the British'', very few were pro-German, with the numbers dwindling as the horrors of Nazism came to light.
By Aengus O Snodaigh
From the eye of the needle
The Junk Yard - Voices from an Irish Prison
Edited by Marsha Hunt
Mainstream Publishing: £5.99
As the majority of us toddle along with our own trials, Ireland's heroin crisis expands unabated; largely ignored by a state dictated to by a middle-class electorate and a media whose primary objective appears to be the titillation of a Sunday morning readership. Poverty in an age of affluence is being unable to write and having others write about you. ``Junk Yard'' avoids this common media trap with startling results.
Marsha Hunt, writer in residence at Mountjoy Jail, obviously won the respect of her students early on, leading to a powerful collection of short stories, heartbreaking yet humorous, told through the eyes of the addict.
The most telling statement is the penultimate sentence in the book'' ``Ninety per cent of addicts come from lower class areas.''
The majority of the writers in this book were born into an environment of absent, abusing or uncaring fathers and an extended family where mothers remained loyal as ever, to the end - ``she gave me life - I gave her hell''.
The Junkyard takes us on a trail of self destruction, from the first score: ``I was terrified getting a vein up... after that I was hooked... I was 16 years old. I'm now 29 and I'm still at it'', through the frantic daily routine of robbery and deception. This is a life of squalor ``the first thing that hits you is the smell of piss and puke... you're trying to avoid standing in the shit that someone left there the day before...'' and the turn on-''I ram the gear in and feel a string of citric acid... I'm safe, `till my next turn on''.
Throughout the collection, a dark sense of humour prevails, from the traditional Confo', where unwilling 12-year-olds were dressed to kill in suits that looked like ``me granny's wallpaper'' to the delicate operations of ``tooling up'' in a corner of a windswept field, only to be interrupted by an over-friendly horse; and the habits of a 15-year-old who ``generally does what most 15-year-olds do; go to school, smoke hash, and try and ride any bird that will let them'' - and there's me thinking that all 15-year-olds eat cornbeef sandwiches at rainy bus stops and were too busy hurling to have time for girlfriends!
Finally, this book touches on the issues we all need to face up to - proper treatment for addicts, increased taxes to fund real investment in blighted areas, possible European-wide legislation, and the need for a police force that backs communities in the battle against heroin.
You will read this book in a day - it is essential reading for republicans.
By Seán O Donaile.
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