Dr Colum Kenny launches new book ‘Myths and Lies of “The Irish Revolution”’
Professor Emeritus at DCU Dr Colum Kenny has launched his new book, Myths and Lies of “The Irish Revolution” at an event in Hodges Figgis bookshop in Dublin city centre with writer and investigative journalist Mick Clifford.
This book challenges the myth that some kind of definitive Irish ‘revolution’ occurred between 1910 and 1922.
In the new book, Dr Kenny argues that popular ideas about what happened during the struggle for independence and about prominent participants in it gives us a false idea of how this state was created and has left citizens with a sense of failure rather than triumph concerning what was actually achieved.
Myths and Lies of the “Irish Revolution” is the final volume in a suite of five related books written by Dr Kenny in the past decade, two of which are fresh character studies of key figures, Arthur Griffith and Éamon de Valera, and two of which are accounts of key events: the treaty negotiations of late 1921 that were aimed at ending the War of Independence and the bitter Civil War of 1922–3.
The book is intended for historians and general readers who are willing to challenge their preconceptions and sources when it comes to understanding Ireland’s past and to planning for the future of the island.
Speaking about the book, and its context, Dr Kenny said;
"Love of where one’s from, like love of one’s family, is common and even natural. But both may be equally baffling. That has never stopped people from trying to understand their background. And rightly so. For, as the saying has it, if we don’t learn from the past we may be condemned to repeat it. There are warning signs of possible future troubles in Ireland. One is the growing volume of demands for a referendum on Irish unity. This is intended to force the pace, with too little understanding of what either a referendum on unity or unity itself may actually mean in practice. But the calls for change also highlight a long absence of imagination and planning on the part of this state when it comes to relations between cultures within Ireland.
“We must not drift into old patterns of thought and old ideas and old moods. Myths and lies about what happened when the state was founded a century ago are dangerous now. They will set us apart on this island rather than strengthen us all. Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine. Nach é sin an rud? We live under the shadow of each other. I do not expect readers to agree with my conclusions in all thirty-two sections of this book. But I do ask those who disagree with me to base their disagreement on carefully referenced sources. My book is intended to make people think again about the state’s emergence and its future."
