This history begins in unorthodox style: an unspecified spot in rural Ireland, where a pair of archaeologists have set up a theodolite. It is 1985 and “holy statues are said to move” – and as the archaeologists cut back the branches of a whitethorn, the landowner remonstrates, telling these callow outsiders to leave well alone, and observing that the fairies must not be provoked.
And now he glances at the nearby 18th-century Big House, muttering that this stolen land will be returned one day soon; and now we are back in 1166, and Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair is riding towards Dublin to be crowned high king; and now we are in the present, with the seminaries empty, the “undead empire across the sea” flailing, and the Irish economy doing – at least for some – nicely.
Unorthodox, and James Hawes’s narrative choices will not be to the taste of some readers: yet this time-travelling opening is instructive. Our attention is drawn to the remorseless accretions of time and the imprint of human endeavours in a small land. We understand that a millennium is really not very much time at all – and that history itself is never dead, but instead breathes all around us and influences our daily lives.
This telling of Irish history is inevitably highly condensed – and yet Hawes’s text manages to be positively spacious, with none of the whistle-stop breathlessness one might have expected.
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Hawes comes to his Irish project fresh from two previous short histories of Germany and England – and, as in these earlier books, he brings a pleasing erudition and depth, plus a crucial note of accessibility: the text is lightened by useful illustrations and maps; and displays an obvious understanding of Ireland’s age-old political and cultural complexities – and of its linguistic character, with respect paid to the profound impact of the Irish language upon the country’s identity and imagination.
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Hawes also hypothesises the form of the near future: an implosion of the United Kingdom, and Irish reunification within a few startling years. Again, such astringent theorising will certainly not please everyone, yet it underscores a sense communicated throughout this impressive book: that context is everything – and that events out in the great world will inevitably shape both our individual lives and our collective story.
