Biographers at loggerheads - Ryan versus Hart - both books launched this week

by Pat Crerand - ICJ Tue Oct 11, 2005 16:29

Who has already described Hart's book as a 'hatchet job? The artists formally known as BICO, of whom Mr. Lane is one? People trying to make up for 30 years of being Loyalists by appearing to be the greenest shade of nationalism possible? In this parish Hart's book as been described as 'a bit soft on the big fella.'

by Fergus McCann Tue Oct 11, 2005 18:34

Few groups have been as successful in marketing an original product as the, oddly named, BICO. It all started in the late 1960s when Brendan Clifford, an unemployed, Jesuit-trained gravedigger was whiling away the time in the library of Trinity College Dublin. Tiring of waiting in the long queue of clerics desirous of studying Gaelic erotic poetry, Clifford asked to see some of the works of the revered fathers of Irish republicanism, which were in no great demand. Having blown off the dust, he was flabbergasted to discover that these saintly heroes, who he had been told were the Irish equivalents of Garibaldi and Mazzini, were a shower of bigoted, racist, shitbags, who hated England because it had prevented Ireland from establishing its own empire with its own blacks to chain up and flog. The odd man out among this unsavoury crew was Wolfe Tone, a Protestant whose view of the Vatican tallies closely with that of Ian Paisley.

There was consternation on the British Left when Clifford’s findings were published. (The Irish were less bothered as he had not uncovered any closet atheists.) The British groups hastily summoned the managers of their Irish branches to London, and asked if Clifford’s findings were genuine, or were merely paranoid fantasies. The unfortunate Paddies had to confess that they did not know. Never having had the occasion to read any of the heroes writings, they had, unwisely, accepted what the priests had taught them in school. The British groups, which had been keeping charming but feckless Irish intellectuals in Guinness, reacted by cutting off the subsidies, so that the poor buggers were driven to take up school teaching in order to keep body and soul together.

In the ensuing despair desperate action was contemplated, but it was already too late. Clifford’s Jesuit training, ensured that he took photocopies and warned the librarians to look out for British arsonists. The reputation of most Irish "Marxists" has never recovered from Clifford’s revelations, and they are reduced to arguing that it is wrong to consider the opinions of Irish revolutionaries outside their historical context. That is presumably true of Hitler and Attila the Hun.

Clifford’s victory, once quotations were verified, was almost too complete. Other groups had little choice but to adopt neo-Cliffordian positions, but unwilling to serve as a pilot to the Left through the suddenly bewildering currents of Irish politics, he spurned all ecumenical offers and pressed home his attack, calculating that if Left views on Ireland were a fantasy, the same might apply to the rest of their politics. Clifford adopted the working assumption that whatever the Left said on a given issue was wrong and he applied his training by finding examples which would demonstrate truths already established by faith and doctrine. For example: if the Left favours Irish unification, opposes the Common Market and deplores racism, we should adopt the opposite view in each case. Anyone can do that: it is more difficult to argue a case, based on Marx and Lenin, supporting the Common Market, the Orange Order or Thatcher’s immigration policies. The Jesuits have lost the knack of such apologetics since they adopted liberation theology.

Because the conclusion to any of BICO’s arguments can always be predicted by reversing the sign on current Left orthodoxy their writings provide little sense of intellectual discovery, but even friends who do not share Clifford’s intellectual background assure us that the argument is always a pleasure to read. Clifford’s main journal is The Communist, but there are a number of offshoots and Fronts, the most unlikely of which is the Ernest Bevin Society. The logic of this is impeccable: if Bevin hammered the Left for a generation, he must be a misunderstood genius, whose thoughts should be revived. In fact, if Bevin ever had any deep political thoughts, it would take Jacques Cousteau to locate them. Some thought that Clifford would become a guru of the Labour right, but that tendency is so dominated by Nonconformity, Fabianism and pragmatism that they have found him a bit of a puzzle. The discomfort is reciprocated, as Clifford does was not like the remnants of sentimental humanitarianism they still display. The gravedigger has still not found his final political resting place.
Unless Aubane is it.....

by R. Isible Tue Oct 11, 2005 18:56

what? (Thanks for that b.t.w., it gave me a good laugh).

by Roger Rarebit - Anti-Revisionist League of Mallow Tue Oct 11, 2005 19:13

or the Peking Lodge of the Orange Order as they were called.....!

by R.Isible - 1 of Indymedia Ireland Editorial Group - Indymedia Ireland Wed Oct 12, 2005 02:25

details are posted on the Indymedia.ie events calendar at the link below

by Roger Rarebit - Mallow Moscow Watch Wed Oct 12, 2005 13:19

Did any one go to the Hart book launch? Was it public? Anyone read it?

by hist 2 Mon Oct 17, 2005 01:21

"Having blown off the dust, he was flabbergasted to discover that these saintly heroes, who he had been told were the Irish equivalents of Garibaldi and Mazzini, were a shower of bigoted, racist, shitbags, who hated England because it had prevented Ireland from establishing its own empire with its own blacks to chain up and flog."

You mean Brendan Clifford is Peter Hart?
Or he knows where Hart's Mysterious Sources (which Prove that the Black and Tans were as innocent as babes compared with the Depraved Natives) lie?

by Nighthawk Mon Oct 17, 2005 06:14

In the seventies the BICO were also popularly known as the "British and Irish Communist Orangemen".
They have since vanished below the waves, occasionally bobbing up on Indymedia Ireland before again sinking back into oblivion, where they belong.

by Fergus McCann - Bhoys against BICO Wed Oct 19, 2005 18:47

Yes, actually, Clifford did provide the inspiration for much of the revisionist history writing of the 1970s/80s; people like Bew, Patterson, Girvan etc all read and supported BICO's stuff. The level of abuse directed at republican/nationalist and even catholic versions of history by BICO was astounding; 'altar hugging gombeens' etc. Peter Hart wouldn't get a look in with the likes of Lane, and the two Cliffords. In their view protestant Ulster was the most progressive place on earth and the UWC strike the greatest expression of working class solidarity EVER! nationalists were moaning pampered reactionaries. Then sometime in the 1990s a conversion not seen since paul went to damascus occured and the rest as they say is history....

by hist 2 Thu Oct 20, 2005 23:47

But you would appear to agree with them in their previous incarnation.

by Cathal Brew Mon May 01, 2006 02:38

and Lane and Clifford and co, that's disturbing reading as they are now associating themselves with anti-revisionist research. Any ideas as to what they're up to exactly?

by Tut tut Sat Jun 10, 2006 05:10

Plagiarism of a dead person's work, at that.

http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Sectariana/Pub.html (scroll down).

by Starkadder Sat Jul 21, 2007 15:26

There's discussions about the rather unpleasant B&ICO sect and its equally dubious succesors,
the Aubane Historical Society and the Irish Political Review Group, at these blogs:

http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/

and also:

http://splinteredsunrise.wordpress.com/2007/07/09/the-s...tape/

As mentioned, another offshoot of the B&ICO was the Ernest Bevin Society, an "Old Labour" group who I seem to remember as being anti-nuclear disarmanent and anti-animal rights.
John Lloyd, the infamous NS editor, was a member of B&ICO after being in the Communist Party.
Thirty or twenty years ago the B&ICO members would have been cheering Hart till their throats were sore.
How times change......

by Frank Sat Jul 21, 2007 22:08

See:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/81785&comment_limit=0&c...02036

There is a serious attempt going on to disrupt what Jack Lane is writing, probably all from the same person going into ancient (at this stage) threads and reviving them with sophisticated troll like comments and web links. This person could start their own thread on their pet issue - nothing wrong with the subject per se. The fact that they do not means this is a troll attack.

by Saul - no organisation Mon Jul 23, 2007 05:26

I remember the early 1970s when B&ICO and Conor Cruise O'Brien were the only people flogging a two nations theory, with from the wings of Irish intellectua life some ethnic discussion and an accompanying federal Ireland solution by individualist thinker Desmond Fennell. BICO literature also carried admiring articles on the political thought of Joe Stalin, a well-known Russian ex-seminarian and strict opponent of liberal penal reform. Sometime since then the surviving BICO people travelled along the road to Damascus, where they encountered an epiphany incident. In recent years The Irish Political Review has carried researched articles on Gaelic poetry of the 16th-17th centuries, allelullia. And Desmond Fennell has written articles for it on the revision of Irish and European history. The Damascus road attracts curious travellers and is full of fascinating surprises. Pity I won't be able to travel it until the present Lebanon bother subsides.

by Starkadder Mon Jul 23, 2007 15:49

I simply found the links to the two blogs and posted them up because I thought
Indymedia viewers would find them interesting. I know nothing about any "troll attack",although I don't care for the Aubane group at all.

As regards to the whole "revisionist" controversy, in one sense the simplistic 1950s view of virtuous
Irish Catholics and vicious English Protestants needed to be challenged-and people like Joe Lee and Dermot Keogh, for instance, did that.But people like Hart and Dudley Edwards seem to have gone to the other extreme and are simply making apologies for British imperialism, in Ireland and elsewhere.

BTW, has anyone read RDE's laughable defences of the crook Conrad Black?

by Peter Mon Jul 23, 2007 21:19

What "simplistic 1950s view of virtuous Irish Catholics and vicious English Protestants"? Where was such a view expressed. Sounds to me like the type of caricature that the revisionists set up, merely in order to 'expose' it - the kind of thing that Roy Foster will generate pages excoriating, in his snooty magisterial manner.

The poster above is naive in the extreme if he or she thinks Irish historical revisionism is represented merely by the wittering of RDE and the effusions of Peter Hart. He is merely the symptom of a much larger problem. What about Richard English's 'Irish Freedom', winner of the 2006 Ewart Biggs prize (under the personal gift of Roy Foster), as prominently promoted by the Irish Times. The history departments of the Irish universities are replete with historians who are effectively apologists for the days of the Raj.

One esteemed professor instructs his charges to go out and find evidence of sectarianism, when researching Irish republicanism.

Go away and do your homework.

There's more to revisionism than this portrait of mutual self-regard (click it to read it)

by David Mon Jul 23, 2007 23:22

The URL for the History Ireland debate between Peter Hart, Meda Ryan and others is now at:

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/80362

(URL on poster does not work anymore.)

Address for History Ireland debate has changed - now at address below

As well as Meda Ryan's Tom Barry biography, John Borgonovo's account of the intelligence war in Cork City undermines Hart's careless conclusions

by Starkadder Thu Jul 26, 2007 10:14

"The history departments of the Irish universities are replete with historians who are effectively apologists for the days of the Raj.
One esteemed professor instructs his charges to go out and find evidence of sectarianism, when researching Irish republicanism. "

Can you name any more of these revisionist historians? It is a very serious charge to accuse
the history departments of Ireland's universities as having an instituitionalized bias in favour of British rule. Edwards, Hart and Foster aren't enough to constitute a such a bias.
This allegation needs to be substantiated in detail.
(Does the unnamed "esteemed professor", for instance, also ask for evidence of sectarianism when
researching unionism?If he does, then he is being objective.IF not, he is certainly biased).