I have, somewhat adventurously, adopted a method of making the notes and references more easily accessible to curious readers and to scholars than is the norm, taking advantage of the services provided by the Internet. The book exists in the printed version, with the notes and references in conventional format, except that some words will be seen to be underlined. The meaning of this is that in the hypertext version of the book, which exists on the Internet, a reader wishing to dig deeper into the background will find additional material, as they say, 'hot-linked'. To access the hypertext version, a dedicated reader will need to contact the author at rjtechne@iol.ie, who will be in a position to enable access either to the internet or via CD-ROM. Registered access initially will be a free service, in support of the development of the market for the book.

In these introductory notes I have given a few 'notes and references' which exemplify, and relate to, those given in the subsequent chapters. Where supportive material exists in the associated hypertext, occasionally where possible this is the complete document referenced. More usually it is an abstract or review of the referenced document, or focused essay based on primary sources(1). The underlining of the chapter references in the remainder of this introductory note implies that in the hypertext version one can jump directly to the chapter concerned, as one can from the table of contents.

I have tended, I hope consistently, to adopt the use of italics for retrospective comment, to distinguish it from the basic narrative. I use italics also for titles of books.

The critical overview of the century is developed in the following chapters, at the level of approximately one chapter per decade. The mid-century chapters divide into differing perspectives, as seen by my father Joe Johnston (JJ henceforth) and by the present writer Roy Johnston (RJ henceforth, though sometimes in the first person), but I try to conserve some degree of unity.

The experience can also be approached via 'threads', 'streams' or 'themes', dedicated to particular lines of activity, where it is useful to see the continuity of effort. The Appendices summarise these streams or themes.

JJ, Partition and the Free State

Chapter 2 covers JJ's 1910s period in Oxford, where he did a further degree in the humanities, specialising in ancient history and archaeology, graduating in 1912. He moved in radical Liberal circles. He then returned to TCD where he did the Fellowship Examination in 1913, becoming among the last of the Fellows to become so 'by examination'. In 1913, after returning from Oxford and gaining his Fellowship, he wrote a polemical book(3) attacking Carson and the arming of the Orangemen. In 1914 JJ applied for and got an Albert Kahn (AK) (4) Travelling Fellowship (AKTF); with this he travelled round the world. The AKTF experience must have been the stimulus for his switch from classics to economics, which he proclaimed as his field from then on, without having studied it formally. As a consequence JJ found his academic career in TCD(5) becoming difficult and fraught with tension and controversy. JJ's Albert Kahn period, and subsequent contact with Charles Garnier(6) the AK Foundation Secretary (lasting right up to 1949), indicated a consistent role for him in support of Irish independence, with which the AK Foundation was in sympathy and to which it lent early support. This post-1914 career re-orientation helped JJ to relate to the developing political situation in Ireland, from a Protestant Home Ruler perspective. Post-1916 JJ seems to have been engaged actively in politics, but presumably with circumspection, as he has left few papers. He published in the Manchester Guardian and London Times, under a pseudonym, material which was supportive of the Canadian-type resolution of the political problem, in the context of the opportunity presented by the 1917 Irish Convention.

Chapter 3 shows how during the War of Independence he remained in touch with the AKF and kept Garnier briefed about Irish affairs, with a view to trying to influence French public opinion in the Irish interest. Subsequently in the later 1920s JJ was active in trying to support the declining co-operative movement (which had been split under Partition); he did extern lecturing, initially when the war of independence was on in Dublin in TCD to trade unionists, then later outside Dublin; these were mostly under the auspices of the Barrington Trust(7). The Barrington Lectures had been initiated a century earlier, in the aftermath of the Famine, and were in effect a sort of outreach campaign by the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society (SSISI)(8), with the aim of avoiding future famines through enlightenment.

This photo of Joe Johnston appeared on his 1926 election publicity material.

In the late 1920s JJ sought election to the Seanad, initially however without success. He had published a book(9) in 1925 which attempted to popularise the basic concepts of economic thinking, and which contained some seminal ideas which now would now be recognised as relating the 'development economics' domain, emphasising the importance of getting a good deal for the agricultural primary producers. As regards political(10) activity, there is a suggestion that JJ had been involved in support of the Thomas Davis Society (TDS), which in the early 20s was a Sinn Fein 'front' in TCD. JJ participated in the first Agriculture Commission set up in 1922 by the Free State Goverment.

JJ and the Seanad, early RJ and the Emergency

Chapter 5 divides naturally into two parts, Part 1 covering the war and Part 2 the immediate post-war period. JJ became a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1943, and the basis of his acceptance is a useful mid-career marker He continued his critique of government policies in the Seanad. Post-war there were many articles, and more books. JJ served on the post-war Agricultural Commission, somewhat critically. He was also instrumental in building up the North-South Irish Association(14), this being the only intellectual think-tank having an all-Ireland dimension.

In the mid 1940s the present writer became associated with a school Marxist group, in which we tried to understand the war. This later evolved into the TCD student Left; this is covered in Part 2 of Chapter 5. We called it the Promethean Society, the objective of which was to re-introduce Marxist thinking into the Labour movement in Ireland(15). Our political inpact as the post-war 'student Left' led to the reconstitution of the Students Representative Council, and the Irish Students Association, forerunner of Union of Students in Ireland. Our Marxism, which was based on Connolly, was rooted in bottom-up democracy: the role of the Promethean Society was as a sort of 'think-tank' to study the situation and come up with a solution to a perceived problem, which the membership of the democratic movement would be likely to accept when it was put to them(16). In my case, with my science background, it became necessary to make the link between the science and the politics creatively, and the catalyst was JD Bernal's writings(17). There was also the question of nuclear weapons, and the peace movement, with which Bernal was associated.

Parallel Universes

The present writer RJ spend the first two years of the decade in France absorbing the culture of the high-technology scientific laboratory. JJ and I remained, as it were, in parallel universes. I went in 1951 on a French Government bourse, and worked with Professor Louis Leprince-Ringuet, in the Ecole Polytechnique, on cosmic rays. This gave insights into theory-practice interaction, dialectics of experimental technology, competitive and co-operative team-work(21).

I managed to get back to Ireland via the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, where cosmic ray work had been initiated under Janossy, a Hungarian anti-fascist refugee. This was an introduction to cutting-edge experimental technology, and indeed to systems engineering. There followed a creative period of 7 years in which I was able to do some scientific work of value, mostly on the experimental technology of high-energy particle physics. I was however aware of the problem of how work like this could be made relevant to the development of a relatively backward fringe economy; the 'science and society' problem, as identified by JD Bernal(22).

The 1950s on the whole was a black period politically. The Sputnik however was a fortifier of the illusion that Soviet society had achieved a valid socialist model. I cultivated relations with various pioneering broad-left groups, and I was also in contact with Sean Cronin who had led the IRA 1950s border campaign. There were increasingly uneasy relations with the 'orthodox Left', and an increasingly perceived need for a 'broad Left'(23).

RJ and the Northern Crisis; JJ and the EEC

JJ wrote in the 1960s on the EEC accession, initially in favour of it, and then later critically(24). His main point was the negative effect of subsidised agriculture in developed countries on the world market accessible to developing countries. He attended international conferences in these issues. JJ's last book was an annotated edition of Berkeley's Querist, linked to a set of his own analyses(25). This was his 'magnum opus' and it sank without trace. It does however encapsulate his 'development economics' thinking, and he identified Berkeley as the Adam Smith of the development economics field. It was published in 1970 with some TCD sponsorship. Some copies were taken up by libraries; it got few reviews, and was remaindered(26). For his Querist book he was awarded in 1972, at the age of 82, the degree of D Litt; having done this he died, reasonably contented.

For the present writer RJ in the 1960s, after the DIAS epoch, which ended in the autumn of 1960, there was a period in London, in an industrial process innovation group in Guinness (Park Royal). Politically I identified with the Connolly Association, which had identified the problem as being to keep the Irish in London from being lost from Irish to British politics, and to try to mobilise them into an interest in Ireland(27). The chance to return to Ireland came in the summer of 1963, with Aer Lingus the national airline recruiting people to help them cope with the projected IBM 'real-time reservations system' deal(28).

In parallel with this came the opportunity to be associated with the politicising of the post-1950s Republican Movement, under the leadership of Cathal Goulding(29).

The history of this episode is quite complex. In summary, the movement was successfully politicised up to a point, in the context of active support for the non-violent Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) which had been a consequence of the Wolfe Tone Societies initiative, but the armed pogroms initiated by the B-Specials in the Falls Road in August 1969 was fatal to the politicisation process, and helped to promote the Provisionals, who had been lurking in the undergrowth in tacit opposition. The Provisionals were also encouraged by the Government party Fianna Fail, with a view to splitting the republican movement, which was actively engaged in exposing the shady land deals behind Fianna Fail financing, in the Dublin development environment. This was a preview of the situation currently being exposed in various Tribunals. As a consequence the Republican Left was marginalised and failed to develop, being also hampered by its own resurgent militarist illusions, in competition with the Provisionals. This latter process prompted the present writer's resignation in early 1972.

RJ, Science and Political Evolution

Politically, an attempt to re-establish a working relationship with the 'orthodox left' proved totally barren, the pathology of the latter having gone beyond redemption following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. A subsequent period with the Labour Party proved to be equally barren, in that procedures for policy development, and analysis of problems in terms of feasible routes towards solutions, with membership participation, and a learning mode, were largely non-existent.

Chapter 9 covers the 1980s which were a nadir-period; I worked out my contract with TCD in various processes of attempted re-invention, with occasional bits of consultancy from State agencies(32). One such involved looking at the role of the Innovation Centre in Limerick and its relationship with the National Institute of Higher Education (NIHE), which had been somewhat abrasive. I proposed a model, based on the development of the NIHE postgraduate process as the prime innovation contact-point, which has since become the norm. Another project involved evaluating the Regional Colleges as sources of local innovative enterprise development(33). This work I understand has since proved useful.

Chapter 10 shows finally how by the early 1990s the Green Party had emerged into existence, and while it was initially somewhat 'crank fringe', it seemed to have enough going for it to enable a constructive interaction to take place. A constitutional reform procedure was initiated, in which I was able to participate, and a new model has emerged, which promises to be the makings of the necessary democratic vehicle for the development of radical conservationist policies, with full participation by a conscious principled membership(34). On the scientific front in the 1990s association with a young and vibrant software house has enabled me to contribute to the development of a philosophy of knowledge-base development, and this work is ongoing(35), representing a culmination of a lifetime of dedication to the inductive approach to problem-solving.

This photo of Roy Johnston was taken in the context of his 1990s development work in the information technology domain.

In the concluding 'reflections on the century' I make a modest attempt to produce a philosophical synthesis of the foregoing experience, relating development economics, science, the innovation process and politics, in such a way as perhaps to recapture the spirit of the 18th century Enlightenment in a manner adapted to the needs of the 21st century, primarily in battling with the new wave of religious fundamentalist obscurantism.

Notes and References

2. I attempt to construct some sort of feel for JJ's intellectual environment from the analysis of books he had in his possession prior to 1910, and from analysis of the family background (Appendix 1), and the schooling in Dungannon. I have chronicled the details of JJ's participation in TCD student debates in the 1900s module of the 'political' thread. This is overviewed for the century in Appendix 10. The Standish O'Grady influence has become apparent in this context, thanks to EA Hagan's editing of his contribution to Larkin's Irish Worker (UCD Press, 2002).

3. Civil War in Ulster published in 1913 by Sealy, Bryers and Walker, Dublin; in its original edition it is on record in several libraries in Ireland, Britain and in the USA. It has been re-published in 1999 by UCD Press, with the present writer's introduction, and this is the version accessible in the hypertext.

4. For more about the Albert Kahn Foundation see the related AK background module in the hypertext; there is also an overview of, and entry-points to, this thread via Appendix 3. The dominant part played by India in his 1914-15 world tour was due to the opportunities presented by the presence there of his elder brothers in the Civil Service. The visits to Java, China, Japan and the USA are in less depth; they are treated in the hypertext summary of JJ's AK Report. The 'agricultural production' visit to France in 1916 he wrote up for the Irish Times; it was also published as a pamphlet by Maunsel, and is available in his papers. In these published accounts JJ emphasised the importance in the Irish context of good local government and a strong co-operative movement.

5. The Board minutes of the period have JJ on record in support of a better deal for the 'skips', or College menservants who looked after the students' rooms. JJ's interaction with academic life at this time was controversial; the Board minutes give something of the flavour.

6. I have abstracted for the hypertext the Garnier correspondence from the relevant file in JJ's papers (in the Linen Hall archive), where it is preserved in Folder 4.

7. The Barrington Lectures were initiated in 1849 by John Barrington, a Dublin merchant, with a view to providing for the instruction of the Irish people in Liberal economics. Before World War 1 they had been managed by the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society (SSISI). The Centenary Volume of the Proceedings of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, published in 1947 edited by R D Collison Black, contains background information about the Barrington Lectures. There is given a complete series of Barrington Lecturers from 1852 to 1946 in the Centenary Volume. The most notable of the Barrington Lecturers pre-war was C H Oldham, who was a Home Rule supporter and a prolific contributor of papers to the Society between 1895 and 1925. He was an early influence on JJ.

8. For the background to the SSISI see Appendix 6, and for JJ's first paper, Some Causes and Consequences of Distributive Waste, see J SSISI vol XIV p353, 1926-7. For the Rockefeller Foundation background in context see Appendix 5 where I overview the 'academic research and publication' thread. The French component of his Rockefeller project are absent from his SSISI paper, but they surfaced strongly in JJ's work for the 1926 Prices Tribunal.

9. The earlier Barrington Lectures series by JJ seems eventually to have blossomed into his Groundwork of Economics , published by the Educational Co in 1925, or perhaps in 1926. (There is no date of publication given on the book itself.) It was certainly being reviewed in 1926, prior to the Seanad elections. JJ seems to have had in mind that his later Barrington series, outside Dublin, would have been promotional for his book. Subsequently in a Seanad speech, he referred to the difficulty in filling a hall during this period, in this context.

10. Evidence among JJ's papers is thin on the ground, but I have collected what I can find in the 1920s political module in the hypertext. He continued to receive communications from Erskine Childers. He wrote a letter of condolence on the death of Michael Collins, which was acknowledged. There was also contact with Dermot MacManus, an ex-service mature student, who had been the prime mover of the Thomas Davis Society from 1919, and who subsequently commanded the Free State Army in the West during the civil war. There are some intriguing hints, like copies of letters from Pierrepoint the hangman to the Governor of Mountjoy regarding clients in that institution: MacManus became Deputy Governor of Mountjoy Prison. JJ was also in the early 1920s involved in the work of the Boundary Commission, from the economic angle. There were papers to do with this, but they have vanished. I suspect them of being used by Kevin O'Sheil's biographer, and I remain in hopes of tracking then down. There is among his papers a copy of the 1923 Handbook of the Ulster Question, edited by Kevin O'Shiel, Director of the North-Eastern Boundary Bureau, which is annotated in JJ's handwriting. The missing papers, if I can find them, and which I recollect from my earlier encounter with his papers in 1971, will indicate the extent of his role in the production of this Boundary Commission report. He remained in close touch with Kevin O'Shiel during the 30s and 40s, to the best of my recollection.

11. I count as 'outreach' JJ's work with the SSISI (Statistical and Social Inquiry Society), where he served on the Council during the decade, the related Barrington Lectures, which in 1932 he managed to bring in under the SSISI umbrella again, after their post-war period of alienation, and finally the Irish Association, of which he became a founder-member in 1938. In all three networks JJ consistently promoted all-Ireland thinking.

12. I abstract JJ's book The Nemesis of Economic Nationalism, published by PS King & Son, London, 1934, in a dedicated module in the background hypertext, and if re-publication in full turns out to be appropriate, as in the case of 'Civil War in Ulster', we will do this. This book also owes something to the co-operative movement; the Co-operative Conference Association had published a pamphlet written by JJ in 1933, of which a copy was among JJ's papers, entitled The Importance of Economy in the Distribution of Goods. Because it is rare I think it is worth reproducing in full, in the supportive hypertext, where it is accessed in the Plunkett stream. Also it contains embryonic versions of certain of JJ's key economic concepts, as developed in the Nemesis of Economic Nationalism, and his later attempt to establish consumer demand as the basis of credit. JJ sent a complimentary copy to Charles Garnier, at the Albert Kahn Foundation in Paris, with which he remained in touch durning the 1930s.

13. JJ's Seanad election address I have given in full in Appendix 8, along with the names of his support committee. His maiden speech on May 11 1938 is on record in Column 99 of Vol 21 of the Seanad Reports; I also reproduce this in full in the hypertext support material; it is also hotlinked from the chronological summary of his speeches which I have collected in the 1930s Seanad module of the hypertext.

14. The Irish Association records, in the Northern Ireland Public Record Office, for the period of JJ's Presidency from 1946 to 1954 are extremely sparse, though quite detailed in other respects; it almost looks as if a conscious effort had been made to expunge them, by some hard-core Unionist agent who had never forgiven him for his Civil War in Ulster. I have however done what I could in the hypertext which is overviewed in Appendix 9. He did develop a good relationship with Irene Calvert the Stormont MP and the industrialist Sir Graham Larmour.

15. I have recorded my early political thoughts under the influence of the war when in school in the 1940s module of the political thread. Later when in Trinity College the Marxist influence developed, under the influence primarily of C Desmond Greaves, a London-based Marxist with an Irish family background, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, who specialised in the 'Irish Question', writing what has become a standard work The Life and Times of James Connolly, published by Lawrence and Wishart in 1960, followed by Liam Mellows and the Irish Revolution, also published by L&W in 1971; there were also numerous other polemical works.

16. The role of the aspirant democratic Marxist 'Promethean Society' is treated in the TCD section of the 1940s political module of the hypertext.

17. I have written some notes on our 'Science and Society' thinking under the influence of JD Bernal in the 1940s module of the this thread, which is overviewed in Appendix 11.

18. JJ had become President of the Irish Association, succeeding Lord Charlemont the founding President in 1946. His period as President is however very poorly documented. The Kilkenny Debates of 1954, in which Hubert Butler had a hand locally, was a high point of his Presidency, being the first time politicians from both parts of Ireland had appeared on the same platform. I have summarised the Irish Association thread in Appendix 9, and some details of the debates are given in the 1950s module of that thread.

19. This keynote paper was published with the title Berkeley's Influence as an Economist in Hermathena Vol LXXXII p76, 1953; I have reproduced it in full in the hypertext.

20. JJ made 31 speeches in the Seanad between April 1951 and July 1954. I have abstracted this record and it is available in the support documentation, along with his first and last speeches given in full.

21. RJ's published scientific papers are abstracted in the academic stream of the hypertext, together with an indication of their significance.

22. The science and society' problem had been addressed in the writings of the Marxist JD Bernal FRS, whose book Science in History, published by Watts (London) in 1954, was influential in the present writer's understanding of the role of science as a catalyst of social change.

23. The Greaves 1950s contacts however were influential in strengthening RJ's interest in the 'national question' and the ending of partition, while the Skeffington contact helped to encourage a critical view of the USSR, and to initiate the distancing of RJ from the Irish Workers' League. Greaves needless to say had no use for Skeffington.

24. JJ's attitude to EEC accession was initially in favour of it, publishing a book Why Ireland Needs the Common Market (Mercier Press, Cork, 1962) and then later, in his final years, he was critical with articles and letters to the newspapers.

25. Bishop Berkeley's Querist in Historical Perspective, Dun Dealgan Press, 1970.

26. This work has however since been referenced in the context of the 'development economics' domain by Salim Rachid in the Univerity of Illinois, who has identified an 18th century 'Irish School of Economic Development' which included Swift, Berkeley, Molyneux, Dobbs and Prior, the latter two giving the group an important applied-scientific dimension.

27. The Connolly Association in the 1960s, led by Desmond Greaves, was the vehicle for this, and the key issue of the time was the release of the IRA prisoners, the 1950s IRA campaign being over, the people concerned having learned their lesson, and in process of deciding on the need to 'go political'. The idea of Civil Rights as being the key issue in Northern Ireland emerged on the agenda.

28. This enabled me to get into computer-based problem analysis, at quite a detailed hands-on level. I go into this in some depth, as it offers another handle on the inductive approach to organisational learning.

29. The Wolfe Tone Societies were the key influence behind the 1960s attempted politicising of the Republican Movement.

30. JJ's death occurred in the middle of the 1972 IFORS (International Federation of Operations Research Societies) conference, which took place in TCD. I was on the international programme committee. I contributed a response to one of the keynote speakers, on the topic of Simulation. This paper was read on my behalf by Maurice Foley (who went on to be Chief Executive of Guinness Peat Avaition), as I was at the funeral.

31. I edited the material from the Irish Times Science and Technology column into a book In Search of Techne during the early 1980s, for publication by Tycooley, a firm specialising in servicing the UN development agency market. Unfortunately the firm closed down. I am taking this opportunity to publish the material in the present supportive hypertext.

32. This consultancy was mostly of a socio-technical character, resulting in reports which were not usually for the public domain; I have outlined some of them in the hypertext.

33. An 'executive summary' of the Regional Colleges report is available in the hypertext.

34. I have given an account of the development of the Green party during the 1990s in the 1990s political module.

35. Most of the work with the software firm Irish Medical Systems has been in the socio-technical domain, and I have outlined some of it in the hypertext, in particular that related to case-based reasoning, some of which is included in the book by Bergmann et al, Industrial Applications of Case-based Reasoning, published by Springer Verlag in 1999.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999