Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #308827 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

The Red and the Green: An Impossible Mix?
Henry Patterson brings plenty of serious thought and intelligent analysis to bear on his theme: the emergence, persistence, content and in his view ultimate impossibility of 'social republicanism' - the long-running series of attempts to integrate a range of social, economic and cultural issues into the Irish nationalist project, and to assert the hegemony of politics over militarism.
The idea undergoing this critique is traced from the writings of early ideologues - James Connolly, Liam Mellors, Peadar O'Donnell - via the vicissitudes of political change in the south of Ireland to the leftist 'rethinking' of the 1960s and 'final spasm' of latter-day Provisional IRA rationalisations and rhetoric. Its failure is seen to be an inevitable result of certain basic flaws, first and foremost the refusal to consider the proposition that to take the socio-economic dimension seriously might tend to compromise or negate the central objective, i.e. that a 32-county republic might not be in the best interests of a substantial section of the working class. Crucial misjudgements are identified, about the potential and the structure of rural society in the south as well as the deeply problematic attitudes adopted towards Ulster Protestants, ranging from the overtly hostile (rabid Orangemen who should be driven into the sea) to the ultimately patronising (a deluded group perpetually unable to discern its own situation or know what's good for it). The latter view resulted in the inclination to seek out illusorily hopeful signs of unity, with every significant strike involving Protestants hailed as the start of a break with Unionist ideology, and the actions of small groups and individuals being taken as representative of much wider trends.
The author's preoccupation is with the basic conditions of Irish life: apart from an intriguing allusion to 'certain moral-existential characteristics of the republican personality' psychological aspects and other fancy frills are largely ignored. His long paragraphs, sections and chapters are however leavened by a capacity for sardonic humour and occasional phrase-making - on Constance Markiewicz, for example, 'rewriting history with a dazzling mixture of red and green inks' - and by the interest of the argument, cogently and iconoclastically presented. It probably helps, though, to have some acquaintance with the icons in question, and non-initiates may feel they are getting a little more than they really need to know about such matters as land annuities. The assumption is that readers will be fairly well clued-up; no index is provided to guide them, although the chronology and footnotes are useful. Dealing with the late 1960s onwards, the narrative adopts a more journalistic mode to match the general deterioration in the situation, with inside stories of who met whom in which hotel, although many of the notorious, high-profile features of the (late 20th century) 'troubles' are taken as read - racketeering gets about one mention in passing.
With social republicanism thus deemed impossible from the start, and socialism itself apparently rendered impossible by the tragic unfolding of events, Patterson plumps for a reformist tunnel at the end of which he reckons there may be a little light, involving an end to 'Thatcherism', in the sense of policies that maintain high unemployment and preclude 'effective citizenship' for the Northern Irish Catholics. It is thus not an entirely pessimistic work, and even given how things have moved, or in some respects stagnated if not regressed, in the dozen years since it was written, the sustained attempt at understanding is its own justification.