Mary E. Daly

Dublin, the deposed capital : a social and economic history, 1860-1914

This is a comprehensive study of the problems which the city of Dublin faced between the famine and World War One. The decline of the citys traditional industries and the rising proportion of casual labourers in the population gave rise to intense poverty which resulted in excessively high death-rates and a housing crisis. These problems were compounded by the migration of the middle-classes to the suburbs where they established autonomous self-governing townships which failed to contribute to city taxes. The alienation of the Protestant middle-class and the growing political dominance by lower middle-class Catholics - many of them slum landlords - who attributed all social and economic ills to the Act of Union, weakened the resolve to tackle the citys major ills. However it seems doubtful whether the problems of the Dublin labouring class could have been resolved within the accepted limitations of state intervention as they existed prior to World war One. The work draws on a wealth of sources to examine topics such as choice of marriage partners, occupational continuity between father and son, the background of tenement families and the corporation tenants, and the role of contemporary charitable institutions - topics hitherto relatively neglected in Irish historical research.

Irish nationality and citizenship since 1922

In the proclamation that was issued on Easter Monday 1916 the provisional government of the Irish Republic undertook to grant ‘equal rights and opportunities to all its citizens’ and to ‘cherish all the children of the nation equally’. It also emphasised that the Republic was ‘oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from a majority in the past’ and referred to the support given to the Republic ‘by her exiled children in America’. The belief that the Irish nation included all inhabitants of the island was a central tenet of Irish nationalism both before and after 1922, and the numerous visits that nationalist leaders have paid to the United States from the time of Parnell and Davitt to the present testify to the importance that has been attached to the Irish overseas. In November 1948, while introducing the second reading of the Republic of Ireland Bill, the Taoiseach, John A. Costello, noted that ‘The Irish at home are only one section of a great race which has spread itself throughout the world, particularly in the great countries of North America and the Pacific.’

An Irish-Ireland for business?: the Control of Manufactures Acts, 1932 and 1934

The Control of Manufactures Acts of 1932 and 1934 were ostensibly designed to ensure that new industries established in the Irish Free State under extensive tariff protection would be Irish-controlled. This legislation has been seen as one of the major implements of Fianna Fail industrial policy — a measure which indicated the party’s commitment to an introspective, self-sufficient Ireland; its partial repeal in 1956 and complete removal the following year has been taken as marking the transition from a protectionist mentality to a more outward industrial orientation.

The Irish Free State/Éire/Republic of Ireland/Ireland: “A Country by Any Other Name”?

I is the name of an island in the North Atlantic. Ireland is also the name of a state, comprising roughly three-quarters of that island, which secured independence from Britain in 1922. This article will explore the different names for the Irish state and their political implications. Article 4 of the Irish Constitution, adopted in 1937, says that the name of the state is “Eire, or in the English language Ireland.” This was regarded in Britain and Northern Ireland (the part of the island that remained within the United Kingdom) as exercising a claim over the entire island. This interpretation was supported by Article 2 of the Irish Constitution, adopted in 1937, which stated that “the national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas.” Article 3, however, qualified this claim: “Pending the re-integration of the national territory, and without prejudice to the right of the Parliament and Government established by this Constitution to exercise jurisdiction over the whole of that territory, the laws enacted by that parliament shall have the like area and extent of applications as the laws of Saorstat Eireann and the like extra-territorial effect.” Britain did not use the term “Ireland” in any official document until the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, which included an undertaking by the Irish government to delete Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution. The dispute over nomenclature was by no means a one-sided matter. The Irish government had similar qualms about referring to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland because this title was seen as conferring official recognition on

Marriage, Fertility and Women’s Lives in Twentieth‐Century Ireland (c. 1900–c. 1970)

By the 1930s the marriage rate in Ireland was the lowest in what we would now term the developed world, but family size was among the highest. Yet while much has been written about Ireland’s low marriage rate and late age of marriage and the impact on the lives of women and men, much less attention has been devoted to marital fertility. The article begins with a brief description of marital fertility, by occupation, religion and social class, and how these variables changed during the period under study. It then examines the available evidence regarding family limitation in twentieth‐century Ireland before considering the impact of large family size on health, poverty and economic welfare, the burden that it imposed on parents, and on older siblings, and its consequential influence on the marriage rate and age of marriage. It goes on to discuss the reluctance on the part of the Irish state or the Irish Catholic Church to address the consequences of large families. This appears to have been a taboo subject: it attracted little attention in the debate over children’s allowances, and it proved to be the most divisive topic addressed (or rather not addressed) by the Commission on Emigration (1948–54). The final topic addressed is what the slow decline in family size, and the slow adoption of family limitation within marriage might indicate about the relationship between Irish husbands and wives. Although this article draws on quite an extensive range of evidence, many parts of the analysis are necessarily speculative, raising more questions than are answered.

Sixties Ireland : reshaping the economy, state and society, 1957-1973

This is a provocative new history of Ireland during the long 1960s which exposes the myths of Ireland’s modernisation. Mary Daly questions traditional interpretations which see these years as a time of prosperity when Irish society – led by a handful of key modernisers – abandoned many of its traditional values in its search of economic growth. Setting developments in Ireland in a wider European context, she shows instead that claims for the economic transformation of Ireland are hugely questionable: Ireland remained one of the poorest countries in Western Europe until the end of the twentieth century. Contentious debates in later years over contraception, divorce and national identity demonstrated continuities with the past that long survived the 1960s. Ranging from Ireland’s economic rebirth in the 1950s to its entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, this is a comprehensive reinterpretation of a critical period in Irish history with clear parallels for Ireland today.

THE FORMATION OF AN IRISH NATIONALIST ELITE? RECRUITMENT TO THE IRISH CIVIL SERVICE IN THE DECADES PRIOR TO INDEPENDENCE, 1870–1920

The shift towards competitive examinations within the public service in nineteenth century Ireland must be viewed against the background of Irelands colonial status and the thrust for national independence. Although the introduction of competitive examinations undoubtedly increased Catholic and nationalist access to government positions, the transition was limited by inequalities of access in the Irish educational system and by the Northcote‐Trevelyan civil service structure with its emphasis on an elite first division. The latter was a source of considerable resentment to many second division Irish civil servants. As a result, while political independence in 1922 resulted in considerable continuity of personnel and procedure from the British‐controlled civil service, there was a substantially greater emphasis on promotion from within the lower ranks of the civil service and a consequential division between the civil service elite of the new Irish state and the university sector.

Historians and the Famine: a beleaguered species?

Christine Kinealy has claimed that ‘more has been written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Great Famine than was written in the whole period since 1850’. This is probably true. Anniversaries of major historical events now give rise to commemorative events ranging from scholarly conferences to the unveiling of memorial plaques, even to pop concerts. There appears to be a premium on being first in the field, and a corresponding waning of interest as attention shifts to the next anniversary. Harvard University organised its conference marking the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1988. The summer of 1847 was taken as the cutoff point for the Irish government’s official commemoration of the Famine, in order to make way for the bicentenary of 1798, despite the fact that a majority of famine victims probably died after that date. Commemorating historical events boosts book sales, and publishers appear eager to respond to popular demand. Unfortunately the interest may prove too short-lived to afford time for major research, and many of the resulting books either recycle existing material or give the appearance of being in need of further work.

The Economic Ideals of Irish Nationalism: Frugal Comfort or Lavish Austerity?

As I have discussed the matter with Government oYcials, I Wnd everyone most friendly and receptive to suggestions, but little action seems to follow. I have been impressed in some instances by the lightness of concern about it, in other instances by the expressed hopelessness as to Ireland’s ability to do anything about it, and in still other instances by the apparent feeling that it is not Ireland’s problem but that it must be solved by action entirely outside of Ireland. Some appear to feel that something is going to happen to take care of it. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that Ireland is not facing up this problem.

Ireland and the Irish in Interwar England

party government: Wyburn-Powell closes with the prophecy that ‘during the [2010] coalition there is little incentive for defection between the partner parties. However, at the end of coalitions, as was borne out after the Lloyd George coalition, there may well be a cross-flow of personnel . . . ’ (p. 196). As well as its originality of method and the comprehensiveness of its detail (it offers a feast of anecdote to the parliamentary train-spotter), Wyburn-Powell’s study, as its subtitle promises, is a genuinely inter-party affair, telling the reader almost as much about Labour and the Conservatives as about its nominal main subject. In fact, apart from occasional passages in which the trees of individual (though fascinating) cases temporarily obscure the wood of historiography, the main vulnerability of the book is its neglect of the Liberal Party as a causal factor in the events described: the outward defections are ‘not a result of the failure of Liberalism, but of a breakdown of the Liberal organism’ (p. 194), a distinction which is easier to draw at some points in the story than others: the Party’s support of Labour in the 1920s and the perception of a ‘drift to the right’ in the 1950s were motivations for departure which reflected genuine, if not insurmountable, ideological dilemmas for the Liberals worthy of recognition. Clegg’s fulfilment of the prediction of a nil defection rate during the coalition strengthens Wyburn-Powell’s case that the third party is a serious substantial force in British politics; the period after 2015 will demonstrate this book’s second contention that effective leadership is vital to guaranteeing its fortunes.