Category: Books Page 3 of 7

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO IRISH CATHOLICISM?

On May 31, 2021

Derek Scally is an Irish Times journalist, based in Germany for the last 20 years, and he has written “The Best Catholics in the World, The Irish, the Church and the end of a Special Relationship” which was published recently.

His perspective on the subject is shown in the dedication of the book to his parents, “with thanks for their belief”.

Aged 44, he says he is “a member of the last generation to have a full Irish Catholic childhood”.

He served as an altar boy at Mass in his North Dublin parish, but now admits to having a “shaky grasp on Roman Catholicism”.

This is an honest book and painful reading, all the more so because the author is not fundamentally unsympathetic to Irish Catholicism. He sees that it had given meaning and purpose, to the lives of successive generations of Irish people.

He conducted hundreds of interviews with members of Church, from Cardinal Sean Brady, to the head of the Sisters of Mercy, to the people still active in his own old parish in Edenmore. He draws them out on their understanding of the events that influenced the decline in practice and faith among Irish Catholics over the past 60 years . He also interviewed victims of clerical sex abuse, inmates in mother and baby homes, and women who lived out their lives in places like the Magdalen laundries.

Inevitably the picture is selective. The focus is on those who suffered, or were treated unjustly in church settings.

There is no counter factual in the sense that the book does not explore what might have happened if these church run institutions had never existed, and people were left to their fate.

There are no international comparisons either. The book deals with early twentieth century Irish Catholicism, as if it was something completely unique for its time. Many of the abuses and cruelties the book identifies were found in other cultures too.

It is hard for a reader to quantify how uniquely “Irish”, or “Catholic”, the problems were. My own view is that none of the abuses cited are unique either the Catholicism or to Ireland.

The author accepts that priests and nuns have taken the blame, not only for the failings of some among them, but also for the failings of wider Irish society.

Ireland was much poorer financially when some of the abuses occurred. But lack of money is never an excuse for turning a blind eye to rape or cruelty.

Class distinctions abounded, and “respectability” was at a premium. This encouraged silence about embarrassing things. It allowed “knowing,” but simultaneously not “really knowing”, that certain things were going on. In a sense, people decided not to “know” things that they had persuaded themselves they could do nothing about.

In this, the church reflected the evasions of Irish society, just as much as the other way around. But it is human nature that, when failings are finally exposed, the anger is often directed at others, or at the system, rather than channelled into an examination of one’s own assumptions.

It is true that Irish society was shaped by strict, and sometimes unforgiving, notions of sexual morality, which were inculcated by the Catholic Church. But such notions were not a particularly Irish, or even Catholic, thing. Victorian morality, and Victorian hypocrisy, was to be found on our neighbouring island, and further afield too. It just survived a decade or so longer in Ireland.

It was Irish families, not Irish priests or nuns, who banished unmarried daughters, when they became pregnant.

It was cash strapped Irish governments which, in the early years of the state, were content to allow religious orders to take on the responsibility for running reformatories, and other institutions to shelter people, whose families who could not, or sometimes would not, look after them.

This book is impressionistic rather than scientific. The author allows the interviewees to tell their story. It does not provide a roadmap to redemption for the Irish church, or for Irish society, but it contains some hints.

Although the author thanks his parents for their belief, he admits that religion was never discussed in his home when he was growing up,” let alone personal faith”. That job was left to the school.

So it is no wonder that, when the scandals came along, people could stop going to Mass and feel good about it, without thinking what they might be losing. The role played by religious practice in providing guard rails within which one could live a good and sane life had never been discussed, or even put into words, and was thus too easily cast aside.

As Bishop Paul Tighe told the author, the church discouraged people from asking questions.

“We became a lazy church, and we are reaping that legacy now” he said.

The author, who lives in Germany, might usefully have studied the Catholic Church there over the last century. That might show whether there are lessons Irish Catholicism could learn, or could have learned. Equally he might have established if the Irish case is really as exceptional, as his provocative book title implies.

While this book will annoy some people, it may be a spur to the necessary heartfelt and rigorous discussion about the role of faith in our society, a discussion Irish people have been postponing for a long time.

It should also prompt us to ask whether this generation of Irish families, like the previous ones, is also capable of turning a blind eye to family responsibilities. The example comes to mind of elderly relatives and neighbours left unvisited in nursing homes. Now the running of these homes is no longer delegated to nuns, but to for profit corporations!

THE PRESIDENT’S TAKE ON THE EUROPEAN UNION

By John Bruton

On May 26, 2021

In Books, European Union, Michael D. Higgins

The President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins has recently published a collection of his speeches entitled “Reclaiming the European Street, Speeches on Europe and the European Union 2016-20” . The publisher is the Lilliput Press

Drawing on a lifetime of reading in sociology, philosophy and history, President Higgins makes his case for European unity and for Ireland’s participation in it.

As might be expected of a man of the Left, he is critical of capitalism, and sees state or collective action, whether at national or EU level, as capable of playing a bigger role in helping the people of Europe to flourish and achieve their potential.

For similar reasons he is against what he calls “austerity”, but does not address what is to be done if the interest rate at which a state can borrow becomes unaffordable, which is where Ireland found itself in 2010.

No politician chooses austerity for its own sake! But sometimes it is necessary to preserve a country’s freedom of action.

AN INTELLECTUAL JOURNEY

Michael D Higgins was not always enthusiastic about European integration.

In their introduction to this collection of speeches, his editors, Joachim Fischer and Fergal Lenehan , point out that he campaigned against the Single European Act of 1987, and also campaigned against the Maastricht Treaty of 1992.

These two Treaties provided the legal basis for the EU’s biggest achievements, namely the creation of Single Market, and the establishment of the Economic and Monetary Union and the Euro. They also enhanced the role of the democratically elected European Parliament.

It would have been interesting if the editors of this collection could have elaborated upon President Higgins’ intellectual journey on European integration, from the sceptical positions he adopted in 1987 and 1992, to the more favourable ones he adopts today. President Higgins journey is one many left leaning politicians have followed and it would have been interesting to tease this out.

In an attempt to understand the evolution of his thinking, I reread some of the speeches he made in the Senate and Dail in the 1980’s on moves to closer EU integration.

One major concern he had then was the effect of the new EU Treaties on Irish neutrality. He opposed confining Irish neutrality merely to military matters. He believed Ireland should be politically as well as militarily neutral. Such a position is not sustainable nowadays. The EU is now adopting common positions on geopolitical issues, on a daily basis. As an EU member, Ireland is not politically neutral. States are now so interdependent, that complete political neutrality is almost impossible. The recent cyber attack shows how we need common defences that work.

Michael D Higgins was also sceptical about the EU Single Market, and feared it would lead to job losses. These fears have not been realised. The contrary proved to be the case. Employment here is much higher than it as in 1992 when the Single Market was inaugurated.

ALTIERO SPINELLI

A clue to the influences that led Michael D Higgins, over the past 20 years, to a more favourable view of European integration may be found in the careers of the people he quotes in the speeches in this book.

The most frequently cited is Altiero Spinelli, author of the European Parliament’s 1984 Spinelli Report, which was the precursor of the Single European Act of 1987.

Spinelli had been a member of the Communist resistance to Italian Fascism and was imprisoned on the island of Ventotene. There he co wrote the Ventotene Manifesto.

This Manifesto is mentioned dozens of times in this book.

Learning from the lesson of the World War, then in progress, the Ventotene Manifesto called in 1941 for a wholly new Europe. It sought

“the definitive abolition of the division of Europe into national sovereign states”

because it was

“impossible to maintain a balance of power between European states”.

It argued for a revolution, with a goal of the emancipation of the working classes. But, interestingly, it added that

“the working classes must not be left at the mercy of the economic power of monopolistic trade unions”.

This may have been a reference to the corporatist trade unions set up under Fascism, but it could be seen as a general argument against the closed shop.

After the War, Spinelli pursued the goal of European Unity, and supported the unsuccessful attempt to set up a European Defence community in 1954.

From 1970 to 1976, he was a member of the European Commission, and came to Dublin in 1972 when Ireland was debating whether to join the then European Common Market. On that occasion he met Michael D Higgins, and sought to persuade the Irish Labour Party that support for European Unity should not be left to “conservative” parties.

Spinelli did not achieve his goal at first attempt, as Labour opposed Ireland joining the Common Market at that time. But Spinelli left a lasting impression on Michael D Higgins, which is evidenced by the contents of Michael D Higgins speeches over 40 years later.

WHAT ECONOMIC ROLE FOR THE STATE?

Another Italian intellectual influence, acknowledged by the author, is the economist Mariana Mazzucato.

She argues for an “Entrepreneurial State”, claiming that many important technological advances originate in decisions by the public sector, and that economic development cannot be left to the private sector. I agree with this. Indeed free markets themselves can only exist if a state in there to make and enforce rules.

But when the state itself gets involved directly in managing businesses, it can be slow to adapt to new realities, because of political pressures, including from monopolistic trade unions, of the kind identified in the Ventotene Manifesto.

Looking to the future, President Higgins says

“EU Institutions must be adequate and sufficient to enable the restoration and protection of social cohesion”.

This asks too much of the EU.

The EU is only allowed to spend 1% of EU GDP, and there is no sign that limit will be raised soon. So restoring social cohesion must primarily be the responsibility of member states, which spend 40% of GDP or more, and have the power to levy taxes, in a way that the EU cannot do.

It is interesting to note that, on the eve of the pandemic, the Economic and Social Research Institute found that income inequality in Ireland was at its lowest level for many years, and 16% below the level it was in 1987. It is notable that this report got little or no coverage in the Irish media.

GREEN AUSTERITY.

The President is right when he condemns the

“uncritical pursuit of ever accelerating growth without consideration of the consequences”.

That must change if we are to meet the challenge of climate change.

Lower economic growth will mean less tax revenue and less money to spend. Green living will mean more austere living, and a more limited range of choices.

It is to be hoped that we will take responsibility for this ourselves as a people, and avoid blaming it on external agencies like the EU.

The issues raised in this book are important, and they reflect a serious and engaged mind.

THE LIFE, AND AFTER LIFE, OF A SPY

By John Bruton

On April 18, 2021

In Books, John Bruton

I have enjoyed reading “The Happy Traitor, the extraordinary story of George Blake” by Simon Kuper.

Kuper writes regularly in the Financial Times and it was my sense of his talent as a writer, rather than the subject , that initially drew me to this recently published book.

Blake, although portrayed as a traitor to Britain, was not really British by allegiance. He was Dutch, with a Dutch mother and a father who came from an Egyptian Jewish family. Behar, not Blake was his real surname.

He was brought up as a Calvinist and retained the strict outlook of that faith throughout his life.

Aged 20,he escaped from Nazi occupied Holland to Britain in 1942, via Belgium , France and Spain.

In Britain he joined the Royal Navy and, because of his talent for foreign languages, he was assigned to the intelligence services. He served on Korea during the Korean War, and was captured and imprisoned by the Communists.

It was there, in a North Korean prison, that he began to transfer his allegiance from Calvinism to Communism.

After his release and return to Britain, he returned to the British intelligence services, but made contact with the Soviet Embassy and stated copying large quantities of top secret material and handing it over to the Soviets. As a result of his activities, hundreds of British informers in the Soviet Union were identified and executed.

His activities were eventually uncovered in 1961 and he was sentenced to 42 years in gaol, a much more severe punishment than that suffered by more upper class traitors like Blunt, Philby and McClean.

As Irish readers will recall he was helped to escape from prison in 1966 by an Irish man he had come to know in prison, Sean Bourke.

He got to Russia via East Berlin and was provided with accommodation and a pension by the KGB.

According to Kuper, in old age, Blake

“acquired something he had lacked in his youth; the ability to find happiness in the here and now, beyond either power or ideas.”

He died late last year.

A Difficult Birth: the early years of Northern Ireland, 1920-25

By John Bruton

On March 17, 2021

In Books

We are approaching the centenary of the coming into existence of Northern Ireland, whose Parliament was opened by King George the fifth on 22 June 1921. This event took place just three weeks before the Truce of 11 July 1921 that ended the Irish War of Independence.

The creation of the Parliament of Northern Ireland had already been authorised by the Government of Ireland Act of 1920. It had also authorised the creation of a Parliament of Southern Ireland, with similar devolved powers.

Elections to both parliaments were held on 24 May 1921, but the Southern Parliament only met once, because the Sinn Fein members refused to sit there, and sat instead in what constituted itself as the second Dail. The Dail was considered to be an illegal assembly by the UK authorities.

When the Northern Parliament met, a substantial majority of those who were elected DID take their seats. The Unionist Party had won 40 seats of the 52 seats with 66% of the vote, against 6 seats each for Sinn Fein and for Joe Devlin’s constitutional Nationalists who had respectively won 20%, and 11.8%, of the vote. The size of the Unionist victory caused surprise in some quarters, although the voting had taken place against a background of continuing violence. The Sinn Fein and Nationalist MPs did not take their seats in the Northern Parliament at this stage.

The powers of the Northern Ireland Parliament were quite limited, as pointed out at the time, by Lord Donoughmore and others.

He said it was “unsound” to set up a Parliament without the usual powers of taxation. Over 90% of the taxes in Northern Ireland (NI) were, he said, to be set and collected by the Imperial Parliament in London.

To grant the new NI Parliament the power to spend, without also having the responsibility of raising taxes to finance that spending, lent itself to gesture politics and to the systemic avoidance of responsibility. That problem remains to this day in Northern Ireland and other devolved UK administrations.

The Unionists, led by Sir James Craig, who became Northern Ireland’s first Prime Minister, did not regard the establishment of Northern Ireland as an end in itself. In theory at least, they would have preferred if there had been no devolution of powers at all, and if the whole of Ireland continued to be governed directly from Westminster. In establishing an administration in NI, Ulster Unionists saw themselves as taking on a duty, rather than enjoying a newly conferred freedom.

While they had opposed Home Rule for a united island of Ireland, they were willing to live with Home Rule for two separate parts of Ireland, as provided for in the Government of Ireland Act of 1920.

This arrangement prevented their part of Ulster being subject to Dublin rule, which was their overriding objective.

Northern Ireland did not enjoy a peaceful birth, as we all know. Violence had already commenced in 1920. The first casualty was a Clareman, Denis Moroney, an RIC sergeant, who was killed by the IRA in Derry city on 15 May 1920.

But the violence was more overtly sectarian, and lasted much longer, in Belfast. It was am intensification of six similar sectarian outbursts that had occurred at different times in the 19^th century.

There were particular reasons for the outburst after the end of the Great War.

Military recruitment had led to a labour shortage, and many Catholics had been recruited, during the War, to fill jobs in Belfast that had previously been filled by Protestants, in places like the ship yards.

The end of the war in November 1918 meant that many Loyalists returned from the Front, and wanted their jobs back. This led to violent evictions of Catholic workers from their jobs. The Dublin Castle government refused to intervene, on the ground that these were “trade union issues”, and the displaced workers were even initially denied unemployment benefits.

This led to retaliatory attacks on trams carrying Loyalist workers to or from their jobs, whenever the tram route passed through a predominantly Nationalist neighbourhood. Once one knew the terminus of a tram, one could work out the likely religious affiliation of most of the passengers on it!

Several Protestants, who worked in predominantly Catholic workforces, such as the docks and the brewing industry, were also edged out of their jobs.

The IRA murder of RIC commander Gerald Smyth in Cork in July 1920 led to retaliations against the small Catholic community in Banbridge, Smyth’s home town.

Catholics and Protestants in mixed neighbourhoods were burned, or intimidated, out of their homes.

As in the early 1970’s, fugitives sought refuge in Dublin and Cork.

An ill judged and ineffective boycott of goods manufactured in the North was organised in the South, as a response to the attacks on Catholics.

Under the Truce of 11 July 1921, the IRA had agreed that attacks on Crown forces and civilians were to cease, and there was to be no interference with Government or private property.

Apart from some score settling and house burning, the Truce held in the South until the outbreak of the Civil War a year later. This Truce created space in which it was possible to negotiate a Treaty that led to the creation a Free State government for Southern Ireland (a government that did have the responsibility of raising taxation!).

But the Truce of July 1921 did not hold in Northern Ireland. In fact the conflict intensified there, for reasons partially explored in this book.

Attacks on Catholics continued, and the James Craig’s government took little effective action to stop it. They did establish special constabularies, but these were recruited mainly among the Protestant community.

In fact, some noteworthy sectarian killings were carried out by people wearing police uniforms.

60% of the fatalities in this conflict were Catholic, although Catholics were only 35% of the population. Thanks to the pre War gun running, the Loyalist community had more arms and ammunition than Nationalists had.

In early 1922, after the signing of the Treaty, but before the outbreak of the Civil War here, meetings were arranged between Michael Collins and James Craig, in an attempt to reduce the violence. The very fact of such meetings taking place place showed political courage on the part of both leaders.

In return for an end to the boycott of Belfast goods in the South, they agreed that there would be a reorganisation of policing on non sectarian lines. A Police Committee and a Conciliation Committee were to be set up. But grassroots Unionist opinion did not take kindly to the pact.

Neither Collins nor Craig was fully in control of their own side. As a result, false hopes were raised.

The “Irish Independent” even hoped that the Collins/ Craig pact would be “a great and decided advance towards Irish union”. This optimistic interpretation was without foundation, but it was guaranteed to annoy Unionists. The same excess of optimism is being repeated in some quarters today, in respect of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It could have similar malign results.

In fact, sectarian killings intensified in the wake of the Craig/Collins pact, on an escalating tit for tat basis.

Six people, some elderly, were killed in Lisdrumliska near Newry by the IRA in June 1922, in an attempt at ethnic cleansing of Protestants from that townland. Three Catholics were shot dead in Cushendun by police, in a futile search for arms.

When the Civil War started in the South, in August 1922, with the shelling of the Four Courts, the trouble subsided somewhat in the North, as many (but not all) of the Northern division of the IRA (like Charles Haughey’s father) went south to join the pro Treaty National Army.

Alan Parkinson gives a thorough account of the suffering on all sides in these years.

He gives the victims a name, and in so doing restores their humanity. They are no longer just statistics, but people who came from somewhere, lived a life, and then had that life deliberately cut short, by someone who still enjoys the unearned privilege of anonymity.

The circumstances of its birth determine what Northern Ireland is today. Those pressing for a border poll should read this book.

PATRICK KAVANAGH

By John Bruton

On March 3, 2021

In Books

“Patrick Kavanagh, a biography” by Antoinette Quinn is one of the best, and most engaging , biographies I have ever read.

It was published by Gill and Macmillan in 2001 and it has been resting unread on my bookshelf ever since. Thanks to lockdown, I finally got around to reading it.

This book opens a window into the social history of Ireland from the 1920’s up to the 1960’s. Kavanagh saw himself as reacting , through his poetry and prose, against the romanticised Ireland of the Literary revival, embodied by Yeats and Synge.

As a journalistic controversialist, he even went as far as advocating defunding the Abbey Theatre, the Folklore Commission, and the Arts Council . He favoured the abandonment of compulsory Irish. He objected to the pomp surrounding the President,

While he is remembered primarily as a poet, he made his meagre living mainly as a freelance journalist, writing for publications such as “ The Irish Press”, “the Bell”, the “Catholic Standard”(as its film critic), and the “Irish Farmers Journal”.

He was not afraid to offend, or to advocate unpopular opinions. In today’s more puritanical era, he would probably have been the victim of the intolerant Cancel Culture (as was Kevin Myers recently).

He stayed on the farm in South Monaghan until he was 30, when he moved to Dublin, and later London for a while. His early poetry was rural realist, his later work was what one might call Ballsbridge romantic.

Unrequited love was a theme in both periods, most famously expressed in “On Raglan Road”.

This biography discusses every aspect of his life, his relationship with his parents and his siblings, his many girlfriends, his financial struggles and his eventual alcoholism.

He was quite a self centred person, but made some lasting friends, notably the late Senator Eoin Ryan (whose political views he would not have shared, but who was consistently generous to him). Other writers were also very helpful to him, but were not always thanked.

To read this book is to live through the life of Dublin in the years before, during , and just after the Second World War. It is brilliant.

LIVING THROUGH THE SECOND WORLD WAR

By John Bruton

On February 28, 2021

In Books

I have recently read two books that give different insights into the horror of the Second World War, and how it tested people’s values.

“The Son and Heir” by Alexander Munninghof ( published by Amazon Crossing in 2020) tells the story of the author’s own, once wealthy, Dutch family. They were part of the pre war German speaking business elite in Latvia. Initially part of a privileged minority, they had to leave Latvia, when the Hitler/Stalin Pact allocated Latvia to the Soviet sphere of influence in 1939.

The author’s grandfather was a domineering character, who had retained a strong ancestral affiliation with the Netherlands. After the family’s ejection from Latvia, he soon re established himself and his business there.

But the author’s own father, who had been sent to the Netherlands to school against his wishes, felt more German. He rebelled against his father by joining the SS at the beginning of the war . He served on the Eastern Front. On his return to the Netherlands after the War, he was imprisoned.

The family tensions, upheavals and the bitter separations described in this book illustrate the cost of war, even for those who survive uninjured.

“The Ratline, love, lies and justice on the trail of a Nazi fugitive” by Philippe Sands (published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson) is the story of Otto Wachter, a lifelong Austrian Nazi .He was involved in an attempted Nazi coup against the Austrian leader Dolfuss, and became influential when Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938.

Wachter later became a senior official in the German occupation, first of Poland, and later of Ukraine. He was involved in the extermination of thousands of Jews in both places.

After the defeat of Germany he escaped across the Alps on foot to Italy, leaving his wife and children behind in Vienna.

He was sheltered for several years in a convent in Rome. He might have found his way to Latin America, like other Nazi war criminals did, but he died in July 1949 of an infection he contracted by swimming the polluted Tiber river.

Like Munninghoff’s book, this is the story of a family.

Wacther’s devoted wife supported him and his ideology completely. She kept letters that enabled Sands to describe the life of a rising figure in the Nazi hierarchy.

Sands also describes the different ways in which Wachter’s children try to cope with his legacy.

Both books are worth reading.

AN ULSTER LOYALIST TELLS HIS STORY

By John Bruton

On January 18, 2021

In Books, John Bruton, Northern Ireland, Ulster

Billy Hutchinson is the leader of the small Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and represents it on Belfast City Council. He was, for a time, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He has recently written an autobiography entitled “My Life in Loyalism”, published by Merrion Press.

Billy Hutchinson played an important part, while in prison in the 1980’s and later on, in encouraging the Loyalist paramilitaries towards political accommodation, instead of violence.

Brexit creates a new, and potentially difficult, relationship between Ulster Loyalism and the rest of Ireland. So understanding Loyalism is more important than ever. This book is timely.

Hutchinson contributed to the peace process. As the leader of the UVF prisoners in Long Kesh, through his contacts with Pat Thompson, his IRA counterpart, he helped get Catholic and Protestant clergy involved in exploring political ways forward.

The UVF had been founded in 1965, and was a violent response to the IRA threat in the late 1960’s. It was one of a proliferation of Loyalist paramilitary groups. It was a rival of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). The UVF was the more disciplined than the UDA and operated through a cell structure, whereas the UDA tended to hold public parades, and provide an umbrella under which several Loyalist groups could shelter.

The PUP, formed in 1975, became the vehicle the UVF used to move into politics and away from violence .

Billy Hutchinson had been born in 1955. He was a native of the Shankill Road and intensely proud of his locality. His father was a NI Labour supporter, with numerous Catholic friends, but his mother was a more traditional unionist.

Billy was first drawn onto political activity through soccer.

He was a supporter of Linfield FC. To get to Linfield’s ground at Windsor Park, Shankill supporters of the club had to cross the Falls Road and walk past the nationalist Unity Flats. This fortnightly procession of Linfield supporters, before and after home games, became an occasion for mutual provocations between the two communities.

This became especially acute when the sectarian temperature rose in the late 1960’s.

Hutchinson, then a tall teenager, older looking than his years, took a leading role in managing these confrontations. He saw himself as defending his locality. He also saw the Civil Rights movement as a front for the IRA, and the IRA as attempting to force unionists into a united Ireland.

As he admits, the crude view of the UVF was that, if they killed enough Catholics, the Catholic community would pressurize the IRA to stop.

This sort of thinking also had echoes in more “respectable “ unionism. Former Home Affairs Minister, Bill Craig, told a Vanguard rally in 1972, to

“build up the dossiers on the men and women who are a menace to this country, because if the politicians fail, it may be our job to liquidate the enemy”.

Of course, the IRA was equally brutal and indiscriminate. For example, Protestant families were being forced to abandon their homes in the New Barnsley estate when Catholics were forced out in other parts of the city.

Hutchinson and his friends felt that the RUC and the British Army were not protecting the Loyalist community from IRA intimidation.

Still a teenager, he became an armed bodyguard for the UVF leader Gusty Spence. He also undertook offensive operations, and gave weapons training, while also holding down a day job.

This book gives an insight into the life, and the infighting, within Loyalist paramilitarism.

Many people were shot on the basis of suspicions, often unfounded.

Hutchinson is a teetotaller, but much of the social life of Loyalism took place in pubs and clubhouses.

The reader is introduced to many unusual characters. One was a Catholic, Jimmy McKenna, whose brother Arthur had been killed by the IRA. Jimmy was determined to get revenge. So he offered his services to the UVF. After some hesitation they accepted him. He proved very useful because of his knowledge of republican areas. McKenna was eventually found to be working for the security forces.

Although there was much indiscriminate violence, there was also some political thinking taking place among Loyalists as early as the 1970’s.

For example, in January 1974, the UVF gave cautious support of a proposal by Desmond Boal, a former Unionist and DUP MP, for a federal Ireland , with autonomy for Northern Ireland . Boal had worked on the idea with Sean McBride, a former Irish Minister for External Affairs.

At the time, Hutchinson did not dismiss it, but asked a reasonable question. How could concessions to republicans be considered, while the IRA was still in existence, and people were being killed?

THE AMORALITY OF ARMED STRUGGLE

Then, at only 19 years of age, in late 1974, the law caught up with Billy Hutchinson. He was convicted of the murder of two Catholics, Michael Loughran and Edward Morgan.

As he puts it;

“ Even though the evidence was pointing toward my involvement in the shooting, I tried to maintain an air of defiance,”

and disingenuously added

“Loughran and Morgan had been identified as active republicans. How accurate the information was, I don’t know”.

This amoral detachment about the ending of two young lives is chilling.

But this sort of amorality is intrinsic to all “armed struggle”.

If one does not want that form of psychological and moral deformation to occur, one should not start armed struggles at all, especially if other potential remedies had not been exhausted. One should never retrospectively justify or glorify such killings. That applies equally to the events of 1916, 1919, and 1970. It applies as much to Kilmichael , as it does to Greysteel or Narrow Water .

Billy Hutchinson spent a long period in jail in Long Kesh for his crime, from 1975 until 1990.

PRISON LIFE

He gives an interesting account of prison life.

Gusty Spence was the commander of the UVF prisoners and military discipline was maintained among them. A similar regime applied among the IRA prisoners.

Hutchinson maintained a high level of fitness while in gaol, running 15 miles a day inside the perimeter of his compound.

He had left school at 14 years of age but, while in prison , he passed his O levels and A levels, and got a degree in town planning, a useful qualification for someone who is now a member of Belfast City Council!

After his release in 1990, he was involved with Gusty Spence and others, in the peace process which led to the announcement, in October 1994, by the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) , of a ceasefire. This acknowledged the hurt suffered by victims of Loyalist violence, something the IRA has yet to do fully.

THE DEMOCRATIC ROOTS OF LOYALISM

One of the principles set out by the CLMC in this announcement was that

“there must be no dilution of the democratic procedure through which the rights of self determination of the people of Northern Ireland are guaranteed”.

This vital issue of democratic procedure will take on a new relevance after Brexit.

Under the Ireland Protocol of the Withdrawal Treaty, many of the laws to be applied the Northern Ireland will emanate from the EU, but without a democratic procedure involving elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland . That will call out for a remedy.

In his treatment of the peace process, Billy Hutchinson gives much praise to the late Irish American businessman, Bill Flynn, for his support for Loyalists on their journey.

On the other hand, he is dismissive of Ian Paisley, quoting his late father as saying that Paisley “would fight to the last drop of everyone else’s blood”.

Billy is self consciously a socialist in his political opinions, although this seems to signify as much a badge of identity as it does a precise political programme.

He may not have won a large number of votes in recent elections, but Hutchinson represents a strand of Unionism that is open to change.

The aftermath of Brexit will increase the importance of understanding the thinking of people like him.

While he acknowledges the help of Dr Mulvenna in preparing this autobiography, the text is very much his own, and will be of interest to future historians. So it is unfortunate that the book contains no index.

THE POWERFUL AND THE DAMNED

By John Bruton

On January 6, 2021

In Books

Over Christmas , I read the book with the above arresting title. It is by Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times for the past 15 years, who has just retired.

It is a gallop through the last decade and a half of economic and political history in the form of a diary.

Barber did actually not keep a daily diary but he did make notes on important events and meetings at the time and these provide the content of the books. Where his opinion has changed since, he includes a note in a different script, beside the original.

The book is published by Penguin.

He gets to the heart of the economic crisis of 2008 quite early in the book.

He blames it on competition between banks, who used new and obscure forms of credit to increase their revenues unsustainably, because if they failed to do so, the private equity firms, who wanted revenue growth for their clients, would desert them.

I am unsure that this structural problem in capitalism has since been solved, and we are now living through another rapid expansion of credit on artificially favourable terms. Let’s see what happens…..

As editor, Lionel Barber inherited a Blairite newspaper.

The FT had backed Labour in the 1997,2001 and 2005 General Elections. He switched to support the Tories in the 2010 General election.

Under Lionel Barber, The FT even supported David Cameron in the fateful General Election of 2015 .

As Barber put it at the time;

“We are holding our noses over Cameron’s Europe policy and his planned referendum (on Brexit). On balance , the case for continuity rests on the economic record of the coalition government”.

Given the FT’s strong support for EU membership, the FT got that call spectacularly wrong in supporting David Cameron in 2015.

Ed Miliband, as the alternative Prime Minister, would not have led the UK to exit from the EU. Jeremy Corbyn would never have led the Labour Party.

Barber is right when he says that no British government had ever made a serious political argument for EU membership, but if you vote for politicians, like Cameron, who have a superficial understanding of the EU, that should not be a surprise.

Under Lionel Barber’s editorship, the FT enjoyed commercial success, and adapted well to the digital media world.

It hosted some spectacularly good columnists. Martin Wolf and Philip Stephens spring to mind but there are many others.

Looking forward, Lionel Barber sees unregulated competition between the US and China as the number one threat to the world. I agree. The risk of military conflict between them remains real.

He also sees risks to democratic representative governance, if democratic states are perceived to fail in managing problems like Covid.

There are lots of anecdotes, and indiscreet word pictures of global figures in this book. But the author remains the star in his own show!

SAVING THE STATE….A HISTORY OF FINE GAEL

By John Bruton

On November 18, 2020

In Books, Fine Gael, Ireland

“Saving the State, Fine Gael from Collins to Varadkar”, by Stephen Collins and Ciara Meehan, is a good example of a fruitful cooperation between a distinguished academic historian, and an insightful political journalist.

Ciara Meehan is a reader in history in the University of Hertfordshire.

Stephen Collins is a long time political columnist in the “Irish Times”.

Both have written numerous books separately, but their combined work on this occasion combines readability and rigorous judgement. It deserves a wide readership.

Although I have spent my lifetime intimately involved with the ups and down of Fine Gael, I learned much that was new to me in this book.

I had not known, for example, that in forming his government in 1973, Liam Cosgrave offered the Ministry of Finance to Brendan Corish, the Labour Leader, if Brendan Corish would agree to take it himself.

Corish declined and opted instead for Health and Social Welfare, so Richie Ryan of Fine Gael got the unenviable job of navigating the oil crisis and implementing some very unpopular capital taxes.

Fine Gael was formed as a political party in 1933.

It was of a merger of the old Cumann na nGaedhael led by WT Cosgrave, The Centre Party led by Frank McDermott and James Dillon, and the Blueshirts led by Eoin O Duffy.

It was agreed between the three merging groups that O Duffy, although not a TD, would be the overall leader. This proved to be a mistake and it is a mystery to me that it was not foreseen at the time.

In making this choice, the new party displayed a lack of confidence in itself and what it had achieved and a desire to associate itself with ephemeral contemporary political fashions, as represented by O Duffy.

In his favour, O Duffy had been prominent in the War of Independence and in the formation of the Garda Siochana. He had had executive responsibility. He had set up a movement and had shown he could organize political rallies.

He was seen, according to the authors

” as a Michael Collins type, someone who could excite the party in the way that Cosgrave could not”.

If that was the reason, it was an odd decision, for a party which was, and is, deeply constitutionalist in its convictions and support base. WT Cosgrave, the state builder, ought to be the iconic figure for Fine Gael, and ought to be its model in choosing a leader, then , now, or in the future.

The title of this book, “Saving the State” summarizes very well for me the core value that underlies Fine Gael.

It is that value that has led it to enter government with its traditional rival, Fianna Fail, a decision that reflects credit on both parties.

The book is full of interesting detail, and brings us right up to the formation of the present government.

It is an insightful and readable account……well worth buying for Christmas, if you like modern Irish history.

BRITAIN AND EUROPE IN A TROUBLED WORLD

By John Bruton

On October 30, 2020

In Books, European Union

Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government in Kings College in London, has recently written a book on a very topical subject, “Britain and Europe in a Troubled World”.

Its publication by Yale University Press coincides with the likely agreement on a new future relationship between the UK and the EU, which the UK recently left.

The first part of the book is historical.

It shows that the Attlee Labour government in London in the early 1950’s chose not to join the European Coal and Steel Community(ECSC) because it had recently nationalised the British coal and Steel industry and felt that the ECSC would have too much of a private sector focus. It did not want a continental body telling Durham miners that their coal were surplus to requirements, or too costly.

Churchill favoured a United States of Europe, but with Britain in partnership, and trading, with it, but without being a member itself.

He saw Britain as most comfortable as sitting in the overlap between three concentric circles –

Europe,
the transatlantic relationship with America, and
the Commonwealth ( or Empire as Churchill would have preferred to call it).

Churchill even went as far as envisaging

“ a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship”

among Europeans. He was right in this, but the goal is not yet achieved.

Churchill’s successor as Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, wanted free trade with Europe, but no Customs Union and no political Union. He did not believe the six countries attempting to agree such a Union in 1957 would succeed in their goal.

But they did succeed.

Meanwhile the UK was losing its Empire, the links with the Commonwealth were weakening, and the Suez debacle of 1956 had reminded them that their alliance with the US was not based on equality.

So, in 1961, Macmillan changed his mind and made what he called the “grim choice”to join the Common Market, only to have the application vetoed by de Gaulle because he felt that Britain was too close the US, and was not wholehearted in its commitment to Europe.

Eventually another Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath did succeed in persuading France to allow the UK to join the European Communities in 1973. In the recent Brexit debate, many Brexiteers claimed that the UK only ever wanted to join a common market, without any political strings. But at the time Edward Heath told the House of Commons in April 1975 that the European Communities

“were founded for a political purpose, the political purpose was to absorb the new Germany into the structure of the European family”.

Vernon Bogdanor identifies a number of issues that led UK public opinion to turn away from the EU. notably

the rows about the UK’s financial contribution,
the ejection of the £ from the European Monetary System,
immigration, under the free movement provisions of the EU Treaties and
the upsurge in identity politics in the wake of the financial crash of 2008.

He has a final chapter in the book entitled “Never Closer Union” in which he attempts to say what will happen to the EU after Brexit.

It contains a number of contestable statements like

“ few in Europe had heard of Juncker” before he became President of the Commission,
Germany has “no desire for fiscal union”, and even that
there is a “very real possibility that the EU could disintegrate”.

Of course , nothing can be ruled out but the decision, after the UK had left, to allow the EU to borrow on its own account to boost the post Covid economic recovery suggest that the European Union is in much better health than the author believes.

Indeed his sentiments illustrate why Britain was never fully comfortable as a member of the European Union. It had joined with its head, but never with its heart or its imagination. In that sense Brexit was inevitable.