Student name: Denis Savage

Student number: 112309081

Module: Historical debate
Module code: H13001
Lecturer: Dr Donal Drisceoil
Essay title: State of the art or ideological project?








Since the turn of the twentieth century, the debate on the means in which Irish Historiography is to
be written has been an area which has been reawakened but is shrouded in controversy by the
conception of revisionism. The origins of revisionism in Ireland can be traced back to T.W Moody and
Robert Dudley Edwards whom are accredited for being the founding fathers of revisionism in
Ireland, founding Irish Historical Studies in 1938. This acted as technical journal for historians
dedicated to archivally based research and self-consciously opposed to nationalist myth in the name
of scientific objectivity
1
. Moody and Edwards set about revolutionising the archaic way in which
history had been told in Ireland, which Moody called the mental war of liberation from the
servitude of myth of Irish nationalist history, by applying scientific methods to the evidence
2
.In
summary, revisionism set about implementing a professional approach to the writing of history in
which Irish past would be revised in lieu of new evidence. However, in practice this was far from the
case, instead it became a means of attacking Irish nationalism. To quote Desmond Fennell,
Revisionism, both in its ultimate thrust, and as a matter of objective fact, is the historiography of
the Irish counter-revolution
3
.In the forthcoming paragraphs, this essay will outline the reasons
behind why Irish historical revisionism was ultimately an ideological project. The forthcoming
paragraphs will discuss two phases of revisionism along with its political intentions
Revisionism sets about quite explicitly to challenge nationalist and republican history which it finds
methodologically suspect
4
however this cause is rife with contractions, due to the fact that what it
is revising is being claimed as bad, whilst what is being reconstructed is objectively and
scientifically true. In doing so, as stated by countless anti-revisionists such as Bradshaw and
Whelan, revisionism is becoming negatively biased contrary to the opinion free nature that it
markets itself as , with Whelan going as far as saying that revisionism is seeking to remove Irish

1
Kevin, Whelan, The Revisionist Debate in Ireland, Duke University Press, Spring 2004,p.184
2
Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.197
3
Desmond, Fennell, Against Revisionism rep in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting Irish History, (IAP 1994), P.186
4
Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.198
nationalist consciousness from historical record.
5
An even more damming charge levelled at
revisionism is in its failings to deal sufficiently with the trauma and pain of Irish history. This sense
that Irish trauma is merely overlooked, is further compounded by the way in which the famine is
portrayed Robert Dudley Edwards and T.D Williams The Great Irish Famine (which is often touted
as the model revisionist text)to deal with the pain felt by the Irish. The famine is merely treated as
an episode in Irish history in which the cause is never specified, with the British being cast only as
benign administrators. Whilst revisionism reigned, famine was not a fashionable topic and it set
about marginalising the idea that the famine was the major event in Irish history and to assign its
elevation there as an effect of the insidious nationalist bias in Irish historiography
6
As an ideal,
revisionism promises to revolutionise Irish History, however in reality it is little more than a means of
enforcing the political agenda of that current time.
This paragraph will look at the first phase of revisionism and how it was used as a political tool.
According to Ronan Fanning, those who are in power control to a very large extent the presentation
of the past and seek to make sure that it is presented in such a way to legitimize their own
authority
7
. A republican nationalist history served well for Irish political figures in a pre-
independence world, but with the British now removed from the equation and a great deal of angst
within the fledgling state, many felt a new style of history was required. As A history that is defined
as nationalist struggle excludes those who did not partake in or benefit from that struggle.
8
The
new state was left with the woes of over 800 years of British occupation coupled with a brutal civil
war. For many of the political and social elite, it was felt that unless Ireland rid itself of its obsession
in the past and its lamenting of nationalist icons, it would never be able to advance. The anti-
nationalist agenda of revisionism provided the perfect platform to revolutionise the Irish states
perspective, both on itself and the future. F.S.L Lyons captures the mind-set of that time, with the

5
Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.200
6
Kevin, Whelan, The Revisionist Debate in Ireland, Duke University Press, Spring 2004,p.204
7
M.A.G., Tuathaigh, Irish Historical Revisionism: State of the Art or Ideological Project rep in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting
Irish History, (IAP 1994), P.313
8
Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp.212
dire past still overhanging the dire present. The theories of nationality, the theories of history, which
have brought Ireland to its present pass, cry out for re-examination
9
The previous scapegoat of
Great Britain as the cause of all Irish woes, was replaced with nationalism. Revisionists such as Sean
OFaolain claimed that the Irish obsession with nationalism created a mummified society, haplessly
marooned between an unattainable golden age from which they were irrevocably severed and a
future they were incapable of embracing
10
Aided by a new political agenda, revisionism set about
indoctrinating the Irish nation in a history free of nationalism.
In this paragraph, the second phase of revisionism will be look at and its motives.The 1960s in
Southern Ireland represented a time of affluence and economic transformation from the squalor
that had been experienced in the 1950s. This was in stark contrast to the events north of the
border, in which the eruption of the troubles once again sparked critical engagement with the Irish
past
11
as means of preventing the conflict from spilling over the border. There was a view that
nationalism should not and must not contribute to the situation in Northern Ireland.
12
The anti-
nationalist thrust of revisionism was once again chosen by the political elite of Southern Ireland to
stem the nationalist influence. This second phase of revisionism openly attacked the national
narrative, which according to Bradshaw saw the increasing dominance of more overtly iconoclastic
approach to a new generation which in place of positive bias towards the nationalist view in earlier
accounts simply substituted a negative bias as its value base
13
Aided by a political agenda wary of
nationalistic beliefs, the revisionists set about making anything remotely nationalist as a taboo,
claiming that the traditional Irish historical narrative (pro-nationalist, anti-British) was the principal
root of Irish problems, both sides of the border. For the revisionists, Irish nationalism exemplified by

9
Desmond, Fennell, Against Revisionism rep in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting Irish History, (IAP 1994), P.184
10
Kevin, Whelan, The Revisionist Debate in Ireland, Duke University Press, Spring 2004,pp. 1186
11
Brian, Girvan, Beyond Revisionism? Some Recent Contributions to the Study of Modern Ireland, Oxford University
Press, 2009, p.96
12
Robert, Perry, Revising Irish History: The Northern Ireland conflict and the war of ideas, Journal of European Studies,
Dec.2010, Vol.40, Issue 4, p.330
13
M.A.G., Tuathaigh, Irish Historical Revisionism: State of the Art or Ideological Project rep in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting
Irish History, (IAP 1994), pp.313
militant republicanism suffered from an addiction to violence, derived not from accurate analysis of
Irish-British relations, but from a flawed atavistic populism. In the new reconstructed telling of the
Irish past, all negative implications of British involvement in Ireland was merely glossed over. British
occupation was not the issue; Irish desire to rid itself of colonization was the problem. The
revisionist school of thought set about not only altering direction of Irish historiography but also
instilling guilt amongst the Irish people, under the free reign it was offered with the emergence of
the troubles.
In conclusion as an ideal, revisionism is something which could be commended in its desire to
modernise Irish historiography, unfortunately in practice it became little more than a political tool to
damage the credibility of Irish historical nationalism. Its claims of objective free and scientific based
history was something left to be desired, and if resulted in the neglecting of the central aspect of the
Irish historical experience, the march of the Irish people toward national self-expression
14
along
with the more catastrophic dimensions of Irish history such as the famine. Revisionism is more than
historians playing devil advocate, with the movement of history away from just academic purposes
and into public life, it has begun an immensely powerful tool offering a strategy of containment,
stressing the urgency of reformatting popular attitudes in the past in order to undermine the appeal
of republicanism
15
. One needs look no further than the controversy that is being caused in the run
up to the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising or works such as Peter Harts, The IRA and Its Enemies.
The history of Ireland in which revisionism sets out to reconstruct is one in which ignores pivotal
moments that define us, ranging from the various nationalists causes to the downplaying of the pain
caused by the Great Famine In short, revisionism desires to make us aliens of our own land. When
the ugly truth of the revisionist cause is brought to the surface, the words of Fanning resonate in

14
Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp.197
15
Kevin, Whelan, The Revisionist Debate in Ireland, Duke University Press, Spring 2004,pp. p.189
which he declared History is much, much too important to be abandoned to those who would
prostitute it for political purposes
16




Bibliography
1. Kevin, Whelan, The Revisionist Debate in Ireland, Duke University Press, Spring 2004,pp. 179-
205
2. Brian, Girvan, Beyond Revisionism? Some Recent Contributions to the Study of Modern
Ireland, Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.94-107
3. Nancy, Curtain, Varieties of Irishness: Historical Revisionism, Irish Style, Cambridge
University Press, 1996, pp.195-212
4. Desmond, Fennell, Against Revisionism rep in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting Irish History, (IAP
1994), PP.184-189
5. M. A. G., Tuathaigh, Irish Historical Revisionism: State of the Art or Ideological Project rep
in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting Irish History, (IAP 1994), pp.308-322
6. Robert, Perry, Revising Irish History: The Northern Ireland conflict and the war of ideas,
Journal of European Studies, Dec.2010, Vol.40, Issue 4, p.330


16
M.A.G., Tuathaigh, Irish Historical Revisionism: State of the Art or Ideological Project rep in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting
Irish History, (IAP 1994), P.322