Old Irish World

Century of Endeavour

The Old Irish World

(c) Roy Johnston 1999

This book was published in 1912, and JJ probably purchased it on his return from Oxford. It is a sequel to the 'Making of Ireland and her Undoing' in that it is a collection of essays in which the author expands on various aspects of the earlier book.

It is probable however that JJ was somewhat critical of ASG's starry-eyed acceptance of the new National University of Ireland. He had noted the following paragraph on p2, and added a question-mark to the words printed in bold:

'The hope that our people may win out of that trough lies to a great extent in the new sails set by the National University, if they may at last catch the fresh breezes of heaven, and be swept into the open sea of free knowledge and candid thinking..'.

Later on in the book, on p59, he had marked the following sentences:

'...Political influences, the fears of absentee landlords or of a Protestant ascendancy, prevailed in London. English rulers dreaded the knowledge of the Irish more than they dreaded their ignorance; and the door was shut on history, science and truth, with the results that we have seen in succeeding generations...'.

JJ it seems queried, in passing, ASG's attribution of the defences at Ardglass to the need of commerce (p79) but this statement is expanded at length in the subsequent chapter (p130) devoted to the detailed history of the defences at Ardglass, and there are no further marginal comments or markings by JJ. Presumably he accepted, in the end, her arguments as to its importance, given that it is the only tide-independent sheltered anchorage between Dublin Bay and Belfast Lough.

I give these seemingly trivial points because they illustrate something of the culture-gap which lay between those of the Northern Liberal Protestant community and the emerging national identity. Because of this gap, and despite the best efforts of national-minded Protestants such as JJ, ASG, AE and others, Irish national identity emerged as Catholic-dominated, and the demand for Partition was reinforced.

It is perhaps worth noting that the final chapter of ASG's 'Old Irish World', entitled 'Tradition in Irish History', was a reprint from the Nineteenth Century and After, March 1909. This periodical crops up again as a window into the British ideas-market for JJ's agricultural economics. This confluence confirms its status as a Liberal 'think-tank' periodical.

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