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Irish Times
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Telling the Truth Is Dangerous: A history of Robert Dudley Edwards
Telling the Truth Is Dangerous: How Robert Dudley Edwards Changed Irish History Forever Author : Neasa MacErlean ISBN-13 : 978-1839529177 Publisher : Tartaruga Books Guideline Price : €17.50 In the 1986 Dáil debate that led to the establishment of the National Archives of Ireland, taoiseach Garret FitzGerald singled out University College Dublin professor emeritus Robert Dudley Edwards, who, he said, 'has never ceased to press me to have this legislation enacted'. Edwards had spent more than 50 years 'planning and fighting for' the establishment of the archives, and he died on June 5th, 1988, four days after FitzGerald's National Archives Act came into force to preserve and make publicly available millions of State documents from pre- and post-independence Ireland. 'Dudley's life mission was complete,' his granddaughter writes in this densely detailed and exhaustively sourced and annotated biography. As professor of modern Irish history at UCD from 1944 to 1979 Edwards also established the UCD Archive Department (which houses the papers of Michael Collins, Éamon de Valera, William T Cosgrave, Eoin MacNeill, Kevin Barry, pre-1922 Sinn Féin and others) and he was 'the original proposer and main mover' of the Bureau of Military History, which records the reminiscences of veterans of the 1913-1923 conflicts. He also helped establish the Irish Historical Studies journal and the Irish Historical Society, forged strong links with international historians and wrote (often anonymously or pseudonymously) for the Irish Press, Sunday Press, Sunday Independent and the Leader. READ MORE The eldest son of a Co Clare-born, London-trained nurse and an English Midlands schoolmaster turned civil servant, Edwards was six years old when his parents sheltered him in their home on Dartmouth Square in Dublin, within earshot of the British assault on the 1916 rebels in the Royal College of Surgeons on St Stephen's Green. He was aged 13 when the State records in the Four Courts burned to cinders in the assault that began the Civil War on June 30th, 1922. Teetotal in early adulthood, his later alcoholism affected his family life and public behaviour. Further family sadness and dysfunction followed with eldest daughter Mary's descent into derangement, suicide attempts, involuntary hospital admissions and near-filicidal attacks on her daughter Neasa, who refers to herself in the third person throughout. This is an essential book for anybody interested in history, historiography, or independent Ireland's first century.
Irish Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Film director Neil Jordan and the Éamon de Valera connection
'I'll never be forgiven for that. I don't really care', film director Neil Jordan told the Guardian newspaper last summer, referring to his depiction of former president and taoiseach Éamon de Valera in his 1996 film 'Michael Collins'. Jordan's insouciance about his portrayal of Ireland's third president echoes his verdict in his memoir, Amnesiac, also published last year. 'Did de Valera have a hand in Collins's death?', he asks. 'Probably not, but he could have prevented it. Did he have a nervous breakdown in the aftermath? I believe so, absolutely. And we all had to live inside it', he added. Disparaging de Valera had been a feature of Jordan's work, predating the Michael Collins film by 20 years and going back half-a-century to his first book, published a few months after de Valera's death in summer 1975. Night in Tunisia, Jordan's debut short story collection, ends with a story set mostly in a cafe on Dublin's O'Connell Street on the day of de Valera's State funeral 50 years ago this year. The street has been cleared of all vehicular traffic to make way for the procession of the funeral cortege to Glasnevin Cemetery. Inside the cafe a man in his mid-twenties is talking to a former lover, an older woman. She says that she and everyone of her generation was 'taught to idolise' de Valera, but the young man, named Neil, views the passing cortege as that of 'an animal dying' – 'an animal that was huge, murderous, contradictory'. READ MORE Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize, Night in Tunisia was followed by Jordan's first novel, The Past, which was critically acclaimed in Ireland, Britain and the United States. It is also peppered with unflattering references to de Valera. 'That man who would stamp his unlikely profile on the history of this place as surely as South American dictators stick theirs on coins and postage stamps', a central character recalls. The novel is set in the years after the War of Independence and its first mention of de Valera, on the fourth page, is about his destruction of Dublin's Custom House and its ancient records in a fire that burned for three days. Éamon de Valera, who died, aged 92, on August 29th, 1975, was the dominant Irish politician of Jordan's childhood, teens and student days. He was elected successively to every Dáil from the first (1919-1921) to the 16th (1957-1959), serving as taoiseach six times and as President of the Executive Council (Prime Minister) three times. He then served two consecutive terms as president of Ireland from 1959 to 1973. He was president of Ireland when Jordan graduated from UCD with a history degree in 1972. 'This strange figure, from Bruree in Co Limerick by way of Spain and New York, with his predilection for mathematics, Gaelic games and Catholicism', was Jordan's description of de Valera in his memoir. The schoolboy Jordan attended a de Valera rally at the GPO and he walked along O'Connell Street in Dublin on the day of de Valera's State funeral, September 2, 1975. It was in de Valera's national daily newspaper, the Irish Press, that Jordan's first published short story, On Coming Home, appeared in September 1974, a few months before de Valera's death. Jordan had four further stories published on the newspaper's New Irish Writing Page over the next two years. He won an award at the Berlin Film Festival in 1998 for his adaptation of Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy, in which the Irish Press is mentioned. Jordan was shooting the Michael Collins film on the streets of Dublin when the Irish Press and its Sunday and evening sister papers ceased publication in May 1995, 30 years ago this summer. He supported the journalists following the closure and he said that the Irish Press had been an important outlet for him and writers of his generation. The Collins film ends with a screenshot of de Valera's reported 1966 acknowledgment that 'history will record the greatness of Collins and it will be recorded at my expense'. But the two main political parties that grew out of the Collins/de Valera split over the Anglo Irish Treaty, and the ensuing Civil War in which Collins was shot dead, now share power in the Dáil. And Jordan has hailed how 21st century Ireland differs from the previous century. Praising Sally Rooney's novels in The Irish Times last year, he said: 'There's not a hint of de Valera's nonsense to be seen there'.
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on attracting scientists to Ireland: the fight is on for mobile talent
The Cabinet has approved a plan to entice US academics disillusioned with the Trump administration to Ireland. There is nothing particularly novel about the proposal. During the second World War the then taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, established the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies which succeeded in attracting a number of high-profile academics escaping the Nazi regime, most notably Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger. In more recent times Science Foundation Ireland , which was folded into Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland – last year, ran programmes aimed at attracting international researchers in strategically important areas and their teams to Ireland. The latest initiative is best seen as a reboot of this ongoing effort in the context of the opportunity afforded by the US president's assault on elite universities, certain academic disciplines and general hostility towards migrants and free expression. Ireland is not the only state to see the opportunity. Other European countries have set out their stalls in recent months. And money will talk in the coming competition for mobile talent. The bill for moving a leading researcher and their team across the Atlantic and setting them up can run to millions of euro. France has already earmarked €13 million for this purpose and the United Kingdom has set aside £50 million. Spain has a €45 million war chest. READ MORE No figure has been put by James Lawless, the Minster for Higher Education, on the budget for the Irish campaign. He presumably has his eye on some of the €500 million that the European Commission has set aside to 'make Europe a magnet for researchers'. Equally there are few details about how it will work, other than that the exchequer will co-fund salaries with the universities. Ireland is a little late to the party and risks being outgunned, but opportunities clearly exist in leveraging existing relationships and targeting promising researchers, including some further down the food chain. Assuming, that is, that President Trump doesn't change direction.
