Frontlines: Brut Force

A favoured jibe about the Duke of Edinburgh is that he opens his mouth only to change feet. The list of his gaffes is long. And now it seems that many stalwart members of Fine Gael are saying much the same of their former leader John Bruton, after a series of ill-timed and provocative public pronouncements on the 1916 rising and the economy.

Let’s take his comments on 1916. True to his own political views, he pointed out that tough but peaceful, parliamentary tactics had got the Home Rule Bill onto the statute books in September 1914. This, he argues, was as significant an achievement as all that followed from 1916 and the war of independence. Furthermore, on his website he reiterates his argument that Ireland could have achieved better results, for all the people of the island, if it had continued to follow the successful non-violent parliamentary Home Rule path, and had not embarked on the physical violence initiated by the IRB and the Irish Citizen Army in Easter Week of 1916.
He went on to engage in speculation regarding what might now obtain had the armed struggle not been initiated. A predictable barrage of abuse followed, online and off. It obscured more thoughtful responses. Even at this juncture, it is fair to say that the more considered ripostes came from professional historians rather than journalists, politicians, commentators or tossers.
Writing in the Irish Times, Ronan Fanning, Professor Emeritus of Modern History in UCD pointed out that John Redmond, for whom Bruton expressed great admiration, had agreed to the suspension of Home Rule on the outbreak of the Great War. The path of violence actually began with the Ulster Volunteers. Fanning adds that the “inescapable historical reality” was that the apparent achievement of Home Rule was illusory. He concluded: “Mr Bruton... is calling for the commemoration of a settlement that never was: the 1914 Act was a fudged compromise that could never have been implemented as it was enacted.”
As with science, the thing about history is that you have to follow the evidence. It’s not a matter of searching for evidence that supports your own enthusiasm, ideology or cause. Nor is there scope for naïve what-iffery. Good historians know this; politicians (in general) don’t. Nor, of course, do journalists, bloggers or BTL tossers (or barristers, given their propensity to argue that black is white one day and the opposite the next).
But the kerfuffle illustrates that this decade of commemorations is potentially trickier than it looks. It’s going to be important to balance the gathering cloud of partisan rhetoric with calmer considerations. In that regard, even at this early juncture, hats off to RTE and Myles Dungan in particular.
John Bruton’s other news splash arose from comments made at an Irish Banking Federation conference in June, which prompted journalists to dig out others he had made (in 2013) regarding welfare. He described a host of welfare programmes in Europe as “completely unaffordable.”
It was pointed out that he is himself paid a very handsome pension by this State of just under €135,000 a year and that he has also held a major European position (EU ambassador in Washington) and now works on behalf of the Brussels lobbying firm Cabinet DN and is chairperson of the Irish Financial Services Centre (IFSC). No matter how you spin it, this is not a viable platform from which to berate States for their welfare policies.
It isn’t just that he’s a former prime minister, though that should have guaranteed circumspection. He’s also a former leader of Fine Gael and is still very closely associated with the party. Fine Gael will be in power for the run up to 2016 and its top brass must be livid that he is mullocking about at a time when sensitivity is required – on both the centenaries and the economy.
Despite the nice things often said about our education system, many citizens have only a hazy knowledge of Irish history other than the simplicities peddled in popular Rpublican ballads. Keeping the commemorations calm and sane won’t be easy. As regards the economy, a man so blessed by good fortune should refrain from rubbing the noses of those less favoured in it, even if only to avoid association with Marie Antoinette.
The thing is, the world’s state of chassis is as great as it was a hundred years ago. There are migrants suffocating in containers and drowning in death ships as they try to reach Europe. War is loosed upon huge swathes of the world, but especially in the Middle East. And pestilence? You got it – apart from the usual suspects that kill millions annually, we now have an Ebola epidemic in Africa that may be bigger than everyone thought.
These catastrophes are not caused by history, they are caused by those who ignore it. They are the result of crusted political processes, driven by self-interest and ideological blindness. We in Ireland are no more immune than anyone.
No doubt John Bruton is intelligent. He is knowledgeable too. But he is not wise. Intelligence and knowledge are important, but it is wisdom that will guide us through both the horrors of the world we live in and our own mined landscape over the next decade.
The wise are amongst us (look no further than the Áras) – but in the age of celebrity and self-importance it is a task of the utmost urgency to creat platforms for them to be heard.