14th November 2021
Someone must think this is a very clever idea.
If only the United Kingdom government had thought of this before.
An ‘official’ history of Ireland to counter the narratives of the nationalists.
The Victorians could have waved volumes of an official history to silence the complaints of Daniel O’Connell and Charles Parnell.
The 1916 uprising would have been avoided if instead of issuing a proclamation at the Dublin post office, the protestors had gone inside and picked up parcels containing official British histories of Ireland instead.
But: seriously?
What a misconceived notion.
In respect of the troubles, this official history will somehow have explain away how the civil rights of minorities were systemically infringed up to and including the 1970s (and beyond).
And about how torture and inhumane treatment was routinely used by the British state.
It would also need, for example, to explain things like the complicity of the British state in the murder of the Irish lawyer Pat Finucane (on which the British government is still refusing to have a full inquiry)
Uncomfortable things – things the British state is still seeking to avoid getting on the historical record.
The last thing the British state would really want is an objective, evidence-based approach of its conduct during the troubles.
The history of the troubles does need to be recorded – but it will not be done by a British official history.
And on this same basis the history of the terrorists also needs to be recorded – and this will need to be done by those who are not partisans.
No participant in the troubles is going to provide a history that the other participants will accept over and above their own versions.
There is a great deal which the various participants will not want to admit on the record themselves (or even to themselves).
And all this is quite apart from enduring issues of legal liability.
One day, perhaps, there may be a history of the troubles that the various communities and the British and Irish states will accept as a single comprehensive version.
Perhaps.
Perhaps it will be when there is a single comprehensive history of the rest of Britain’s relations with the island of Ireland that is generally accepted.
But that history is still contested – hundreds (if not a thousand) years later.
The better response by the British state to the existence of alternative versions to its own is not to shout over them and to impose an official history but to, well, listen.
To listen to the versions of history that the British state finds so uncomfortable.
And if the British state did listen then…
…that would be something for the history books.
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The faith of the Revolutionary Conservative Party in its own propaganda is truly touching.
But believing your own propaganda does not lead to clear-headed policy-making. If the Vote Leave Conservatives had thought clearly and honestly about Ireland, they might have foreseen some of the problems that the inner-Ireland border would pose for hard Brexit, and acted accordingly.
Instead, we were told by Brexiters that there would be no problems, we would simply revert to the pre-1973 Common Travel Area arrangements. I even remember seeing a comment piece online claiming that Brexit would be such a runaway economic success that the Republic of Ireland would apply to rejoin the UK union. I would sooner expect England to apply to become a state of the Federal Republic of Germany, myself.
In September 2019, James Brokenshire MP said that his best piece of advice to people becoming Northern Ireland Secretary was to “get yourself a history book and read it.”
https://jodatu.wordpress.com/2021/11/11/there-is-no-better-brexit-when-it-comes-to-the-good-friday-agreement-and-northern-ireland/
Thanks for an interesting challenge. Coincidentally in today’s ABC (Australia) there’s an article about the way the Aboriginal/First People were treated when the UK took control and current Australian governments approach including how it’s taught in schools. See https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-13/charles-perkins-oration-tony-mcavoy-truth-treaty/100617576
I remember one of those overview histories of Britain, I think maybe by Trevelyn, where the first paragraph of every section contained some version of the lines ‘generous and farsighted action at this point could have resolved the problems between Britain and Ireland once and for all, but sadly the opposite was done.’
off topic but it remembered me of this little gem from the Bush jr Era
‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’
Nemo judex in causa sua – yet another principle that these shysters seem not to have heard of. This ill-judged initiative is redolent of Gove’s wheeze to send copies of the King James Bible to all English schools. The government’s conceit is that they, as a participant to a conflict, are nonetheless best placed to provide a definitive documentary about it. In truth, none of the participants – neither the Nationalists / Republicans, nor the Unionists / Loyalists, nor the British government – are fit to be trusted with any such endeavour. However, this is doubly true in the case of the current government, few of whom would spring to mind in a roll call of public exemplars of probity. One of the reasons the Good Friday agreement worked was down to the scrupulous impartiality of those people tasked with chairing the wider endeavour, e.g., George Mitchell. Certainly, nobody thought to make such a basic error as having an Irish or British person in charge of that endeavour. Lord Bew, the likely head of this task, is deeply compromised, given his hardline right-wing pro-Union views. Bew, in a paper published by the Policy Exchange, a right-of-centre think tank, urged Theresa May’s successor to make the case for the union consistently and also highlight what he described as the “intellectual weakness” of the case for a united Ireland. He suggested the preservation of the union should be the “absolute priority” of the next British prime minister and the key to it will be finding a way around the backstop.
His views are fine, but he’s extremely partisan. The idea that he is a suitable candidate to chair this endeavour shows that the British government is mush more concerned with narrow propaganda than a genuine historical narrative.
Well if that is the plan it is even worse than I suspected.
I hear on the Slugger grapevine that it might be John Bew, Paul’s son, who could be driving this. John is in No 10 at present.
Ok then. An ‘Official History’ of the Troubles. This sounds like the sort of bizarre and useless idea that comes in torrents from this government. But what if it really was a trove of all the information held by Government, without restriction? Nothing less would do. Could we see the communications between Stormont and the NI Office in the 1960s as Civil Rights became an issue. What about the offical analysis of the effects of The Plantation on power relations in NI. Could we understand the position of the Government about the policing of NI in the early years. Could we understand the real instructions to the B Specials? How about the full story of deployment of security assets in NI for the duration of the difficulties? How about the minutes of meetings between Willie Whitelaw and the IRA team who went to Downing St in the early 1070s? Gerry Adams was there. Who made the decision about Internment and how was it justified? What contingencies did everyone have if the Ulster Workers’ Strike had got worse and how did it end (I really cannot remember).
This is just a random trickle of memories stimulating questions. – not a comprehensive list. My bet is that Brandon Lewis, given his background, would probably not recognise the questions, much less know how to brief someone to get the answers. I think that this sort of idea is even less useful than denying Sinn Fein the ‘oxygen of publicity’ was. Cheap propaganda unless it really is an Official Comprehensive History. Note, it would also be useful to have a chapter on Common Membership of the EU and relations between the Parties to the Belfast Agreement.
Excellent post. Thank you. A relevant book recommendation for those interested in the UK govt’s historic record of sincerity and integrity in such matters:
The History Thieves by Ian Cobain.
The British propensity for double standards has a long history, longer in Ireland than anywhere outside the UK.
The Cork University Press 2017 “Atlas of the Irish Revolution” would be a good start for Brits like me who want to understand where modern Ireland comes from. looks like the Telegraph never reviewed it though…
I find it really disturbing that the British Government should plan to write the “official” history of the Troubles.
In fact, there is nothing as unscientific and anti-historical as an “official” history. It is a classical move of totalitarian regimes that need to set a fixed, unquestionable, picture to justify their being in power.
On the very contrary, history is by definition a “fluid” subject as new historical sources and records become available to scholars or as existing ones are read under a different light. However dislikeable the current Tory government may be, still I doubt one could call it a totalitarian regime as constitutional safeguards are still available to prevent it from getting to that stage.
Soon after the referendum I shared a drink with an Irish colleague. I have never seen anyone so angry about a political issue, but he was glad to share his anger with a sympathetic listener. He said something I will never forget: ‘You know what the problem is, Monica? The English never remember and the Irish never forget’
No, most unlikely HMG thinks an ‘official history’ will settle anything. Stupid but not that stupid – so why fly this kite now? We are backing off the ‘Article 16’ schtick because we cannot afford to make relations with the EU worse and sane advisers said ‘no’. Possibly the ‘advantages’ of links to the UK are becoming less obvious and it seems an opportune time to make the UK look like a kind benevolent friend. Good luck with that, an idea that will be gone by Friday.
The British Army did do a review of its operations in Northern Ireland:
https://www.vilaweb.cat/media/attach/vwedts/docs/op_banner_analysis_released.pdf
Although it says it’s not intended as a history, it does cover a lot of it. More as a lessons learnt exercise, but fairly objective (it does skip over Bloody Sunday), and might be of interest.
Paul Bew wrote Ireland: the Politics of Enmity 1789 – 2006; it was published in 2008. There is a very long essay by Brendan O’Leary in the Dublin review of Books discussing it, here:
https://drb.ie/articles/a-long-march/
I remember the Pinochet junta publishing the official version of his coup soon after it. Must this government do everything that is expected of authoritarians?
Perhaps the only thing about this announcement is the publication of it. The practice of writing and rewriting by Britain of its own history has been going on since history for the masses became a thing.
I wonder if this “official history” will incline towards Michael Gove’s view published by the Centre for Policy Studies in 2000 (link below: see page 54 and 55) that the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement “poses a threat not just to the Britishness of Northern Ireland but the British way of doing things in law, equality of opportunity, policing and human rights … likely to divide our society, burden the taxpayer and bloat the State”; and that it is “a capitulation to violence”, a “moral stain”, a “humiliation”, and “a denial of our national integrity, in every sense”, and an “indelible mark against” the government that agreed it?
* http://www.finfacts.ie/MichaelGove.pdf
Perhaps, like Johnson’s article on Brexit, Gove wrote a second second version of his pamphlet which trumpeted the Good Friday Agreement as a triumph for peace and justice, and an affirmation of the traditional principles of consent, self-determination and self-governance. Probably not.
The shameless audacity of it! By contrast those of Brandon Lewis’ ilk block any attempt by any BAME person or anyone else even to reconsider the “official” history of slavery as exemplified in certain famous statues. Etc.