Brian Maye's review of my book Birth of a Republic on November 11th was surprising and amusing - such perverse verbal contortions are rare in a respected journal. But this was not a critique. Rather an exercise in prejudice and spleen.
I won't respond to Mr Maye's distortions, misrepresentations and misstatements of fact - a lot in quite a short article - at that level. But I have a responsibility to draw attention to these falsehoods.
In order to damn it, Mr Maye took points in Birth of a Republic out of context (sometimes quoting only single words), elaborated on these improperly, misrepresenting what I wrote, and claimed that his resulting distortions were mine. A particular example relates to a statement of mine in the context (1886-1920) of the gradual development of the idea of partition for this country on a sectarian basis. I wrote:
"The argument that a modest local majority, a minority of the total, has rights of autonomy and of self-determination based on sectarian grounds in an ancient and established nation, is so fallacious as to need no further comment". Mr Maye contorts this into: "In other words the unionist minority must accept (be made to accept?) the will of the majority", (throwing in an utter non-sequitur concerning the Civil War). Pluralism, Mr Maye, is a foundation stone of democracy.
He states: "a fundamental but dubious assumption underlies this book . . . " Yet the book is a narrative of the republican thrust, sans assumptions, dubious or otherwise. He makes the claim that "Eoin Neeson denigrates the constitutional and elevates the physical force efforts of the 19th century". If Mr Maye had read the book he would be aware of the falseness of that statement. Mr Maye goes on to announce that: "Mr Neeson completely distorts what happened in 1917", but it is he who is guilty not just of distortion, but of misrepresentation too.
The reason (which Mr Maye ignores) for Birth of a Republic is to provide a narrative, sequential account of the "republican thrust" from the first extraordinary impact of that "new" political dynamic on the people of this country in the last quarter of the 18th century, its persistence and its consequences, to 1923. It is not anything else and for Mr Maye to rubbish it for not being something else is futile and idiotic.
Mr Maye's approach (no less than his failure to understand a clear statement) may be judged from the following; I wrote: "Constitutional progress and reverses notwithstanding, it is all but incontrovertible that after 1798 and 1803 the only form of independence which would have been both acceptable to, and enduring for, a majority of the Irish people was a republic". (It did not seem necessary to include the emphasis in the original.) That is a statement open to challenge, but not distortion.
What Mr Maye, ignoring the Young Irelanders, the entire Fenian movement from mid-19th century onwards, the self-evident voice of republicanism that was manifest throughout, and the clear purpose of the book, says is: "The history of Irish nationalism from 1800 to 1922, when neither of the major movements, Repeal or Home Rule, was republican, contradicts this."
Birth of a Republic is not a history of Home Rule or of the Repeal movement, though constitutionalism is given proper recognition throughout. For instance: "It is to the credit of the Irish professional and middle-classes throughout the 19th century that . . . they remained supporters of constitutional nationalism . . . All the concessions won in the 19th century were, without exception . . . achieved by the constitutionalists" (p 50); "By the end of the 19th century it seemed as if some form of constitutional Home Rule within the union was most likely to prevail" (p 4).
It seems that Mr Maye holds the credulous view that people could not be both Home Rulers (Repealers) and republicans; that these were fast, rigid, mutually exclusive and unchanging commitments. This notion is astonishing in a biographer of Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Fein. If there was substance in such a ridiculous idea the Sinn Fein movement, with support from right across the political spectrum, could not have succeeded.
One can respect justified criticism, however harsh. There can be no respect for sustained distortion and misrepresentation such as Mr Maye's. To be fair to Mr Maye, his views and attitude are presumably known. One must assume that in selecting him to review this particular book it was entirely predictable that the result would be as it was.
One wishes to be as courteous, generous and encouraging as possible and it may be that Mr Maye will yet learn to comment with more detachment and less spleen.
He is evidently one of those pedantic people who genuinely believes that because he thinks something is right, it is. Clearly he would, if he could, change the fundamental facts, the building blocks, of history and distort them into something closer to some theory of his own.
That is not history. If it were, like Macauley, I would cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history.
Contradicting other authorities, Mr Maye states, categorically, that Griffith did not support de Valera's decision not to lead the delegation to London (1921). The question of Griffith's support, or not, at that time is an interesting footnote, hardly vital. But Mr Maye makes a meal of it. He does not say which of the several cabinet meetings at which this was discussed he refers to and I am disinclined to accept his unadorned word alone on this point - or, indeed, on any other.
As is clearly acknowledged in it, Birth of a Republic was, of course, edited by a professional editor.
Nought out of 10, Mr Maye.