Myth and the Irish State

Sir, – In his review of my book Myth and the Irish State (April 6th), Prof Diarmuid Ferriter has the better of me when he says I am preoccupied with jargon. "Unhistoricity" – the lack or absence of historical truth – is jargon. Nevertheless, it is jargon indispensable to my analysis of what some Irish historians write.

Your reviewer accuses me of pursuing a "personal vendetta" against other historians and calls me a "conspiracy theorist". He substantiates neither claim, nor the statement "Regan's essays are marred by questionable sources". Irish Historical Studies , Histor y, Journal of British Studies , and the Historical Journal , where many of my book chapters were first published, do not indulge "questionable sources". A responsible newspaper would require a contributor to validate such a statement before reinforcing it in a subheading.

Prof Ferriter undermines himself with careless mistakes. According to him I accuse some historians “of a deliberately selective use of evidence in writing about the history of the revolutionary period [c 1912-25] as a response to the impact of the Northern Ireland Troubles from the late 1960s”. Introducing the book, I write: “It was partly in response to the IRA’s ‘border campaign’ [1956-62] that the new, embryonic foundation-myth began to emerge”. Continuing, the Troubles were “the occasion for a historiographical turn, not its motivating reason.”

Quoting me again, Ferriter writes that “Michael Collins briefly presided over what ‘closely resembled a military dictatorship’ in April 1922’.” Actually, my references to Collins’s dictatorship, a central theme in the book, date to between July and August 1922 during the civil war.

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Ferriter states: “Regan also cites Winston Churchill’s portentous and threatening letters to Michael Collins in April 1922, warning that if Collins did not oust republicans from the Four Courts British force would.” Dated April 12th, 1922, only one such letter from Churchill to Collins is cited in the book. No mention is made in it of the Four Courts occupation, probably because this occupation happened afterwards.

Ferriter accurately reports my view that the late Peter Hart “ignored evidence about the Bandon Valley massacres in April 1922, the killing of 13 Protestant loyalists in west Cork”. However, contrary to Ferriter, I do not assert that Hart ignored a British archival source, the “Record of the Rebellion in Ireland 1920-1 … on the role of [British] army intelligence”. Hart referenced it extensively. Instead, I say Hart selectively quoted from the “Record”, ignoring those sentences contradicting his interpretation of a sectarian massacre.

“Regan sees a deliberate conspiracy,” Ferriter complains, “in the refusal of other historians to refer to a memoir deposited in the UCD archives in 1974 that suggests Collins planned for the IRB to remain active.”

In my discussion nowhere do I describe seeing a “deliberate conspiracy” or a conspiracy of any kind. What I identify is a consensual approach by some historians to specific issues, like Collins’s dictatorship, and the use of sources relating to these. Indeed, Ferriter sees something similar where he writes “numerous scholars felt it vital to define the IRA in 1922 as anti-democratic in order to undermine the Provisional IRA during the Troubles”.

In truth, Ferriter agrees with much of my book. Developed over many years in academic peer-reviewed journals, the force of my argument leaves him little choice. Unable to counter my interpretation, Ferriter therefore denounces me.

Historians are not obliged to submit their research to peer-reviewed journals. In these journals the publication process is arduous, because the evidential bar is set high and precision in using language, alongside evidence, is never optional. If the technical words I use jar on Ferriter partly it is because he has little or no experience of publishing research in journals. More concerned to write and broadcast history for the general public’s consumption, scholarly journals are irrelevant for Ferriter’s purposes.

Reading this letter alongside Ferriter’s review, I suspect your readers will have little difficulty grasping why we need a word like “unhistoricity”. It is indispensable when distinguishing historical research from history written for public consumption that is lacking in historical veracity. As Prof Ferriter partly concedes, not a few historians of the Irish State opted for this latter course. Once liberated from the burden of evidence historians are free to invent anything they wish. Yours, etc,

DR JOHN M REGAN,

Ballaghaderreen,

Co Roscommon