Martin Maguire

Ireland’s Czar: Gladstonian government and the Lord Lieutenancies of the Red Earl Spencer, 1868–86

which tend to be unreflective on the problems of the past. In fact, it could be convincingly argued that the history of Irish psychiatry is exceptionally well developed, especially when compared to other aspects of Irish medical history. As Brennan’s introduction itself acknowledges, critical research that engages with broader literature on medical professionalisation and the socio-cultural dimensions of historical diagnoses is vast, as evidenced by the work of a number of historians including Oonagh Walsh, Pauline Prior, Elizabeth Malcolm and Catherine Cox. If Brennan’s agenda is to challenge presumptions that the Irish had a deep-rooted psycho-biological propensity to go mad, then it would have been useful to outline precisely who believes in this Irish predisposition to insanity, if anyone. Throughout his book, Brennan persistently re-asserts that the idea that the Irish are mentally fragile is unsustainable, but provides no evidence that research has been undertaken which supports this view. Nor are historical claims on the matter fully described or contextualised. Brennan essentially sets out to provide a counter-argument to a claim that no historian seems to have seriously raised. This is a shame. Irish Insanity is a missed opportunity to pit sociological and biological determinist arguments against one another in an interesting, more meaningful, fashion. Could it have been the case that physical and psychological trauma did in fact manifest in mental illness in a country that experienced the culling of its population during the Famine, mass emigration, widespread unemployment and deep socio-political tumult? Perhaps not, but surely the biological and psychosocial fallout of Irish historical experiences needs to be at least mentioned and, preferably, carefully considered? Medical researchers constantly highlight close links between job loss and mental decline, emigration and psychological disorder and civil conflict and mental distress. The idea that an “epidemic” of mental illness once occurred in Ireland is certainly exaggerated, but can we really altogether discard the idea that the Irish might have been vulnerable to mental disorder with no reflection whatsoever? By refraining from engaging with the elusive alternative perspectives which he claims to be challenging, Brennan fails to cement his point that the idea of a biomedical epidemic of insanity is illusory. Irish Insanity is disappointingly sparse. The vastness of the questions raised cannot be adequately dealt with in 121 pages of text (excluding appendices and bibliographies), much of which is taken up with remarkably long quotes and graphs of varying quality. The content of the chapters drifts sporadically; themes and methodological insights are introduced with little signposting to guide readers; arguments occasionally contradict one another; information is included which bears limited relevance to the main thesis. Irish Insanity addresses an interesting question but ultimately engages with well-covered themes and arguments.

Gladstone and the Irish civil service

The question as to why Gladstone was determined on offering a rather minor piece of administrative reform, home rule for Ireland, as a major new departure for the Union has generated a daunting volume of debate.1 The answers to this question have offered a spectrum of interpretation on Gladstone’s 1886 ‘conversion’ to home rule that ranges from a haphazard and opportunistic calculation of advantage to the intentional development of a moral purpose in government. The former interpretation has emphasised the factious nature of the Liberal Party, its vulnerability to faddism and Gladstone’s anxieties around the growing influence of Chamberlain. In this high politics school of interpretation, private ambition — the need to isolate rivals, dominate the party and climb the greasy pole of Westminster — is sufficient explanation, and public utterances and Irish realities can be safely ignored. A. B. Cooke and John Vincent may be taken as the paradigm of this school of interpretation.2 Vincent finessed this somewhat with his 1977 Raleigh Lecture, in which he suggested that Gladstone was indeed convinced on home rule, but only as the lesser evil, with further repression as the greater evil. Gladstone, stirred by an irrational passion for a country about which he knew little, jumped tracks and went from a procrastinating and reluctant home ruler to an enthusiast, although Vincent still explained this as a manoeuvre to outflank both Chamberlain and Hartington.

The civil service and the revolution in Ireland, 1912-38: 'Shaking the blood-stained hand of Mr Collins'.

A history of the Irish civil service and its response to revolutionary changes in the State, based on previously unused sources, that challenges previous views of administrative continuity.

Churches and Symbolic Power in the Irish Landscape

Abstract The history of churches in Ireland has been treated primarily as an analysis of built artefacts. Architectural historians have discussed the phases in the development of styles and analysed the evolution of particular ecclesiastical structures, treating any individual church as a more or less representative or perfect example of a genre. The discourse has been primarily aesthetic and disembodied from place and landscape. This article seeks to place churches in the Irish landscape and to understand them as part of the landscape of belief and as contested symbols of power and authority. The article discusses how churches have been and continue to be used to assert ownership of the landscape and to control the interpretation of place, from the era of the early Christian communities to todays campaigners who use churches as symbols of endangered heritage.

Review: Local Government in Nineteenth Century IrelandCrossmanVirginia, Local Government in Nineteenth Century Ireland (Belfast: The Institute of Irish Studies/Ulster Society of Irish Historical Studies, 1994. Pp. 115. £4.95.)

career to the European crisis of the landed aristocracy, and the presentiments of doom which occasionally affected him are reminiscent of a contemporary East PrussianJunker contemplating Poles and Russians. The book draws on an amazing range of estate records, high political archives and literary sources, but there are omissions. The novelist Shan Bullock, Saundersons younger contemporary, gives a probing account of his youthful memories of the Erne estate in AfterSix!y Years (Bullocks father was lord Ernes steward). This reinforces Dr. Jacksons discussion of the relationship between Big House and local community (the Ernes were Saundersons immediate neighbours, and close associates in politics and yachting--the loughside gentrys substitute for foxhunting). Dr. Jackson is also not entirely correct in presenting Somerset as the last Saunderson to live on the estate. In the late 1940s Somersets son Alexander established a summer residence there, though he was never a permanent resident and left altogether because of the 1950s IRA border campaign. Castle Saunderson is now a ruin.