Tóibín, who receives £30,000 (€33,491), defeated the 2009 Man Booker winner Hilary Mantel and her popular and populist novel Wolf Hall . He has also emulated his countryman Sebastian Barry, who won last year en route to winning the overall Costa Book of the Year. The result confirms a pattern by which Costa, formerly the Whitbread, revises the Booker.

Surprisingly, however, the most contentious Booker shortlist omission, William Trevor’s Love and Summer , did not featured on the Costa shortlist.

Liam McIlvanney in the London Review of Books has a decent synopsis of the plot. You can pick up both the Toibin and the Trevor books from the literature section Slugger’s growing bookshop at Amazon... What was your best read of the year?

Starting many decades in the past, Ross takes the reader on a tour, introducing us to Irish banking culture while lining up an historical ruler that invites the reader to draw a line across the broad sweep of history to the present day. As we approach modern times we are introduced to the personalities - at each of the banks and building societies, in the government and at the ‘regulators’. Along the way, we meet young upstarts (including Ken Bates one-time chairman of Chelsea FC), outsiders and pretenders to the throne.

We learn of corruption and cover up, of tax evasion, of overcharging, of whistleblowers and of expansion and raw ambition - the story told in terms of the characters involved. The Bankers really does provide a detailed historical narrative that shows the progression of pre-Celtic Tiger Irish Banking practices that led to the culture of pressure, personality & stroke that lit the credit bubble.

He gives us lots of info on the personalities involved - Seanie Fitzpatrick and his lieutenants at Anglo, the overlap in management style with Michael Fingleton at Irish Nationwide. Both men brought their organisations from humble beginnings to the cusp of greatness and Ross describes in riveting detail the process that led to it’s unraveling. He sheds light on the bankers’ relationship with government - while the builders often made direct donations, the bankers in modern times preferred to operate through the lobby groups they funded (according to Ross the bankers were the largest backers of IBEC).

Of particular importance, he shows that the institutions of the state that had a duty to regulate the banks (the financial regulator and the central bank) had instead built up cosy relationships with them. Not a single banker had been fined by the regulator until well into this crisis, and historically the regulator appeared on occasion to regard it’s role as being that of chief bank defender.

Ross describes an incident involving Eugene McErlean a whistleblower on overcharging at AIB. McErlean had been their internal auditor. Ross says they got on well, despite that “The fifty year old Roman Catholic from Belfast, educated at St. Malachy’s and with a law degree from Queen’s, was not a natural soul mate for a TCD Prod.” When McErlean gave court evidence that he had warned the Central Bank of overcharging at AIB (who themselves did nothing) - the regulator went on the attack - McErlean was confused! Lax regulation contributed to the bubble, but also permitted a series of dodgy dealings during the crisis (e.g. banks making loans to other banks to make their deposit base appear higher),  unfortunately for us taxpayers, the bill is in the post.

The book gets progressively better as the story approaches the climax. Ross builds on solid foundations, starting off by focusing on the history & development of Irish banking culture and the personalities involved helps the reader understand the complexities and challenges faced by Brian Lenihan in later chapters as, wet behind the ears, he struggles to get to grips with the crisis and the bankers themselves. It’s an important book, because it is structured in such away that it is easy to cross-reference it with the prescriptions, for the prevention of future crises, provided by experts across the globe.

It facilitates us in assessing the likelihood of success or failure of government efforts in that task. As Ross makes clear, the Fianna Fail government was not as powerful as the Bankers and the permanent government, the mandarins at the Department of Finance, combined. Risk expert Nassim Nicholas Taleb suggests that “People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus…

Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.”. As such it is important that those who created the problem be replaced by those far removed from it. As Ross tells of Lenihan’s early victories in battle, it is easy for the reader to cheer on our Cú Chulainn in his epic quest, taking pleasure as he collect scalps. But outright victory was not to be, the battle turned, the Bankers bloodied but not beaten managed to mount a formidable defence. While heads rolled, there was to be no purge that would, of itself, force a change of culture in the Irish banks.

While Taleb argues that we need to prevent the “socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains”, we learn that there too our intrepid hero did not succeed. Ross’ book provides as it’s subtext by far the best explanation for NAMA and as to why every single bank was saved. To paraphrase Taleb - In France in the 1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In Ireland in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.

And, again, from continuing contributor to the volumes, Robert Macfarlane, as noted here.

Archipelago: (k p l g), def. 1 “Any sea or sheet of water, studded with many isles.” We live, though this is easily forgotten, on an island group of exceptional intricacy. Together, the territories conventionally called England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales comprise over 5,500 islands, studding and separating the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. And between them, the languages of this archipelago muster dozens of words for “island”, depending on size, profile, and water-context (fresh or salt; running or still; marine, estuarine or riverine). Listed, these words form a poem of paraphones: skerrie, skellig, sgeir, eyot, eilean, islet, inis, ynys, inch, isle, ailsa, ellan, oilean.

My own first memories of the GAA was in trailing after my father to an string of county matches including the last time Antrim played at an Ulster final (at Casement Park when they were also soundly beaten by Cavan), and some club matches at grounds where sometimes it was far from obvious where the pitch began and ended. Sometimes in places (when the foreign games ban was still in places) where the soccer posts had to have extensions attached)... In my soccer/cricket/rugby mad father’s case it was the sport that mattered.

In fact the GAA is a simple but efficient bureaucratic organisation whose early history was often a lot more complex in its relationship to those foreign codes it once outlawed than is obvious at firs glance, as an excellent series of essays The Gaelic Athletic Association, 1884-2009 from the Irish Academic Press outlines in some considerable detail…

I have to confess that when I first got the book I ripped straight to Chapter Six, The GAA in Ulster… before calmly going back to the beginning and reading patiently the whole way through… But, according toe David Hassan, Senior Lecturer at University of Ulster, it seems that there was a deal of support from Unionist circles right at the very beginning, which he argues was pretty much killed off when the Irish Republican Brotherhood effectively took control of the 1887 annual Congress after the tempestuous Michael Cusack was dismissed from his post as secretary.

There were no Ulster delegates (much of the early development seems to have taken place in Monaghan, Cavan and Fermanagh), but the Association received 150 letters protesting the take over from clubs across Ulster… The turbulence only drew to close with the formation of the Ulster Council of the GAA in March 1903… In fact right through the book you get a sense of several sets of creative tensions inside the organisation that in combination create the compelling force it has become in Irish society, both north and south.
In Northern Ireland, particularly after partitition. Hassan:

...the GAA in the north came to fulfil a range of fucntion for the people on the ground. Firstly, GAA Clubs existed as a repository of meaning for those interested in Gaelic games and keen to promote a sense of Irish nationalism. In a state where the very idea of expressing an Irish identity was problematic for some,  the GAA provided a relatively safe haven around which like minded nationalists could cohere.

Secondly it is clear that the GAA was first and foremost an important, possibly the most important, cultural outlet for the nationalist community of Northern Ireland. Whilst it was undoubtedly politicall when it needed to be, for the most part it was - and still is - an organisation that affords considerable pleasure, pride and identity with all things Irish for its patrons.

Ultimately the GAA in Northern Ireland fulfilled an important counter hegemonic function for northern nationalists in the absense of any alternative outlet for them to protest their long-standing subjugation.

However he goes on to note the irony in how UK taxpayer’s money have gone into bolstering and improving the fortunes of Ulster Football in particular, both at club and county level through aid from Sport Northern Ireland. Support which Hassan notes “has allowed GAA grounds in Northern Ireland to develop at such a rate that they have become the envy of others throughout the rest of the island.” Anyone who knew the Holywood club in the 60s and 70s (then known as the Thomas Russells, now St Pauls) will remember the ‘plate-contoured’ pitch regularly brought under control by the good offices of the local Cricket club (not to mention arithmetically challenged referees), will understand the huge contrast with a modern pitch and facilities, and undreamed of successes on the pitch…

Hassan goes on to recount attacks on GAA clubs, the occupation of the Crossmaglen Club by the British army, and murder of prominent members of the Association throughout the Troubles…  In some respects though after a few references in the first part of the Ulster chapter, there is little sense of how the GAA is perceived beyond its core community…  There is no mention of the Darren Graham incident, or to the fact that amongst the few Protestant players there are in Northern Ireland tend to filter out long before reaching senior levels in the game…

This is probably the only disappointing aspect of the chapter’s treatment of Ulster, particularly given the powerful analysis by Gearoid O Tuathaigh in the book’s closing chapter, The GAA as a force in Irish Society: An Overview on the challenges facing both the organisation and wider Irish society in the future…

More of that tomorrow….

From the Irish Times archive

“By yer man James Joyce isn’t it?” About a fellow called Leopold Bloom it all takes place on the June 16th in the year of Our Lord 1904 called Bloomsday after and his wife Molly Bloom or was it Nora Barnacle unusual name wonder where she was from you never know where people wash up Trieste wasn’t it or Zurich he died in did you see the ferry company is using him in those new ads and there’s a pub in Paris named after him Glory be to God €8 for a pint of Guinness they charged and who does he think he is David Norris never stops he’d give you a pain in the how come he’s in the Senate can’t open the paper without seeing him dressed like an Edwardian dandy there he is now crossing O’Connell Bridge over Anna Livia flowing down to scrotumtightening sea a puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet will you look at the cut of him wonder where he got that straw boater you’d think he was off to the Henley regatta probably on his way up to Trinity he should stop on the way and buy a bar of lemon soap wash his mouth out Darling he called one of the Fianna Fáil senators the other week Jim Walsh it was must have got the shock of his life the Upper House has gone to blazes darling did you ever hear the like in all your born days isn’t it a pity he didn’t say it to Eoghan Harris ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls didn’t he do an awful lot of huffing and puffing defending Bertie who had a point about the tribunal being based on some old law dating back to the rule of perfidious Albion another thing to add to the list of British Beatitudes beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs, battleships, buggery and bishops D’Olier Street looking scruffy wouldn’t you miss The Irish Times clock best paper by long chalks for a small ad on up to Grafton street gay with housed awnings isn’t it hard to get used to Brown Thomas being on the other side of the street lovely windows cascades of ribbons flimsy China silks a tilted urn poured from its mouth a flood of bloodhued poplin oh those were the days my friends now it’s all Your MS two-seventy for a cup of black coffee in The Bailey talk about the rip-off Republic good man yerself Eddie Hobbs wonder will Cowen be any good an Offaly rover he has a lot of experience still look what’s happening to Gordon Brown and won’t the recession be a right shock for the jeunesse dorée tighten your Gucci belts as Charlie would have put it oh they’ll have their wings clipped all right Davy Byrne’s looks very busy they must get sick and tired of people coming in looking for a Gorgonzola cheese sandwich pungent mustard the feety savour of green cheese and a glass of Burgundy there was an Italian in there last week and the Lithuanian barman didn’t have a clue what the fellow was on about Vilnius he said isn’t that in the Baltics fancy wanting to come here wouldn’t you think they’d prefer somewhere warm glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed crushing in the winepress grapes of Burgundy sun’s heat it is there’s that TD from Tipperary Mr Mansergh Minister for the Arts if you don’t mind like the cat who got the cream Martin Cullen must be bucking blue mouldy for want of that pint can you give us a good one for the Gold Cup he must know a thing or two living near Coolmore never put anything on a horse he says ruined many a man the same horses moral pub isn’t it great the way Fianna Fáil is such a broad church all the same where were we at all at all better not forget the shopping will you look at the time and she said will you get kidneys and a nice bit of liver she said will you get those for me heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

“To me, the most important aspect of the development of the Ulster Scots identity is that it would take (unionism) out of the internationally damaging context of religious division, into one which is not only understandable, but is even fashionably in harmony with the zeitgeist of today’s European Union.”

That strikes me as a hard sell in a space where most political parties, nationalist as well as unionist are pretty Eurosceptic… In fact the only party of the ‘big four’ that is in anyway Euro-friendly doesn’t look like it’s going to get a seat… yet the book does sound like a rattling good yarn for those of us just old enough to remember politics before 1972…

Of course, what we know of similar disputed points of history in our own backyard is that they persist as battlelines today. Thus Israeli blogger bataween notes:

Shabi’s claim that ‘Mizrahi ethnic music is banned from public playlists’ strains credulity when Mizrahi artistes like Sarit Haddad, David Broza, Dana International, Avinoam Nini and Ofra Haza are all thoroughly mainstream. Chaqshooka, falafel and mujadera are staples of Israeli food. Mizrahim have reached the highest echelons of political life. Most importantly, intermarriage is running at 25 percent. More and more Israelis are the product of mixed marriages. If this trend continues there will be no such thing as a Mizrahi or an Ashkenazi in the Israeli melting pot.

Gerald Jacobs in Telegraph says of Shabi that:

She builds a compelling case, based on the experiences of family and friends, for the benefits once enjoyed by Jews in Iraq, as against the bleak, “official” Zionist version. Her forebears, she insists, did not weep “by the rivers of Babylon, as they remembered Zion”. They danced.

Not quite on the subject, but closely related, is this gripping conversation between Howard Jacobson and AB Yehoshua in Standpoint Magazine…

Time magazine reviewed the [US aimed] book in January

Howard’s book is a withering critique not of lawyers, but of us: a nation paralyzed by fear, unwilling to assume responsibility, both overly reliant on authority and distrustful of it. Law is wielded as a weapon of intimidation rather than as an instrument of protection..

Sound familiar?

By Douglas Hamilton

This is a hugely important book, not just for Sinn Féin, but also for what the author calls the left republican project more generally in Ireland (those parties and movements in Ireland that have, to differing degrees, mixed nationalism and socialism). As someone who worked for Sinn Féin as a policy advisor for a number of years in the 1990s, I know only too well how difficult it is to raise constructive comment, never mind criticism of the party, in an open way.

That Eoin Ó Broin, as a long-time activist, and at times councillor and full-time official of the party, has done this is of particular significance. Sinn Féin has long suffered from a lack of open and critical internal debate, its members preferring to accept the tablets of stone handed down from the leadership. In the past this was arguably necessary given the nature and context of the struggle that Sinn Féin was pursuing.

However, in the aftermath of the Belfast Agreement and the more stable and less conflictive situation that has ensued, especially in the north of Ireland, this is no longer acceptable.

As an activist within Sinn Féin, Eoin Ó Broin has always offered a refreshingly constructive, novel, intelligent and highly enthusiastic approach to left republican politics both in Ireland and abroad.

It’s therefore no surprise to find him articulating his ideas so openly and so well. This book is the first of its kind to engage in a supportive but critical way with the past, present and future of left republicanism and Sinn Féin in particular. Moreover, this engagement is presented in a scholarly (almost in the highly structured framework of a PhD thesis) but highly readable manner.

The author presents a range of deeply searching questions about the left republican project in the past, present and future. In particular:

- what does such a politics represent;
- why has it not become hegemonic;
- what are its current strengths and weaknesses;
- how is it situated internationally;
- what issues has it ignored or misunderstood;
- importantly, what mistakes has it made;
- what does it have to say about actual policies – social, economic, cultural, institutional, international, etc.;
- how are policy and strategy formulated and developed;
- how have strategy and policies changed;
- how have ideology, policies, form and practice interacted; and
- what have been the outcomes and impacts, especially when measured against stated objectives.

In other words, a full and comprehensive evaluation of left republicanism is presented – where it’s been, where it is now and where it might be going - seriously deep, difficult and uncomfortable questions with far from easy answers.

A useful historical context is used, looking critically and in detail at the four key ideological stages through which left republicanism has travelled from:

- James Connolly and the formation of the Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP) in 1896 (the earlier origins of left republicanism such as the United Irishmen, Young Ireland and the Fenians are also usefully discussed);
- the reorganisation of Sinn Féin from the 1950s onwards, characterised by social conservatism and a narrow political nationalism;
- the period in the 1960s when Sinn Féin was modernised and it re-engaged with more radical Marxist-oriented politics; and finally
- the period since the formation in 1970 of Provisional Sinn Féin, in particular the period from the early 1980s to the present when Gerry Adams became president of the party, a period which saw the party try and combine the traditional republican goals of reunification with a redefinition of the party’s socialism.

The author reappraises in a critical way much of the academic (both pro-nationalist and revisionist) and other literature that has tried to explain and understand what is referred to as left republican interventions. These include a detailed discussion of James Connolly, the Republican Congress, Clann na Poblachta, Official Sinn Féin, the Workers’ Party and Democratic Left. In each case an evaluation is presented looking at how these left republican interventions worked out according to the questions posed above:

- the different contexts within which left republican politics developed;
- the changing nature of ideology and policy;
- the form of organisation and strategy followed, including the use of armed struggle, electoral politics and civil action, and the problems arising from their interaction;
- the issues excluded or misunderstood, in particular class, nation, unionism and gender; and most importantly
- why all the interventions have failed to become hegemonic.

This a completely novel approach in Irish political study and the author throws up some fascinating analysis and conclusions.

In a major chapter the author takes the reader through the period which has witnessed the most success in terms of left republican politics, namely the history of Sinn Féin since 1970. This discussion examines the civil rights movement, the hunger strikes, the shift to electoralism, the peace process, the aftermath of the Belfast Agreement, the IRA’s decision to cease military operations, and the deep impact of Gerry Adams and other leaders on all aspects of Sinn Féin activity over the past 30-40 years. This section again examines critically and in detail what took place during this historic period, using the analytical framework referred to above. Some difficult and uncomfortable answers are offered, with the author avoiding easy platitudes and rhetoric.

In the final chapter, the author correctly argues that left republicanism has experienced an ongoing and as yet unfinished attempt to reconcile the competing ideological, organisational, and strategic requirements of nationalism and socialism. From Connolly to Adams this relationship has been problematic and frequently a source of tension.

Revisionists have always argued that the history of left republicanism has been one of failure in terms of achieving its aims of a united Ireland and the development of a truly socialist society.

The cause of this failure they have argued is the consequence of an ideological incompatibility between nationalism and socialism. Not surprisingly, the author disagrees, arguing correctly in my opinion that ideological articulations are never fixed or closed, but subject to the forces of history and the influences of human agency, which are always open to revision.
As the author states, however, this doesn’t mean that the revisionist critique should be completely dismissed, as it typically has been to date by left republicans, but that it should be accepted that it poses important questions and reveals uncomfortable truths which demand a response. This critique, the author argues, should be used as a starting point in trying to find out why left republican history has been marked by failure.

Drawing on the writings of a less well-known 20th century left republican, George Gilmore, the author then goes on to argue that the politics of contemporary Sinn Féin are in large part based on a return to the writings of Liam Mellows and Peadar O’Donnell, the idea that the national should be prioritised over the social.

The ideological formulations of Mellows and O’Donnell, he argues, coincided with the political needs of the post-1970 conflict in the north of Ireland and offered a more accessible point of entry into the world of social and economic radicalism than did Connolly and Marx. With the onset of the peace process Sinn Féin had little time, space or inclination to engage in the broader global debate on the failures and futures of the left.

This meant that Sinn Féin’s socialism during the 1980s was rhetorical and declaratory rather than based on a serious critique of capitalism, whether in Ireland, Europe or more globally. Economic alternatives were therefore poorly understood and only loosely connected to actual lived experiences.

Perhaps ironically, as the party experienced a period of unprecedented political and electoral growth from the mid-1990s, there was little reason to question the ideological or strategic base of its project. However, with political stability now more embedded in the north and economic crisis deepening in the south, such an approach is clearly insufficient, as was highlighted by the party’s relatively poor performance in the 2007 southern general election.

The author argues that Sinn Féin, for the first time in its highly varied history, must depart from its ideological and strategic roots and articulate a left republicanism that integrates as equals both nationalism and socialism.

In conclusion, the author usefully presents what he calls eight theses on the future of Sinn Féin, those key issues which he believes the party needs to pursue:

1. The development of a deeper and more critical understanding of current and future contexts.
2. The ideological articulation of a left republicanism that fully integrates national and socio-economic aspects.
3. The introduction of a more decentralised and horizontal party structure.
4. A change from the strategic logic of reform pursued during the peace process to a new approach based on confrontation, revolution and transformation.
5. The acquisition of state power, not through a centre-right coalition, but by developing alliances with Labour, the Greens and other radical parts of civil society.
6. The development of a strategy upon which activists can build reunification from the ground up.
7. The full insertion of Sinn Féin into the global debate about what it means to be socialist in the 20th century.
8. The need for the party to take a much broader and more intense role in international affairs, learning from and contributing to positive developments elsewhere.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it as at this point that much of the real debate will begin, especially for those actively involved in left republicanism, and those who are active in or give electoral support to Sinn Féin. I see two interrelated problems in what he proposes.

First, because of the historical context Sinn Féin and other left republican interventions have necessarily had to operate within a partitioned Ireland. This has clearly created serious strategic problems for a party that has the reunification of the country as its principal aim.

At a practical level Sinn Féin as the only all-Ireland party has had to organise, function and develop in two quite different states. States that have separate (though clearly related) histories and quite distinct political, economic, social, institutional and cultural contexts and problems.

This has meant that Sinn Féin has had to operate effectively as two, if not three, parties at the same time – at the level of the north, the south and the island as a whole. This has created huge tensions in terms of policy implementation and development and organisational effectiveness.

In my time as a Sinn Féin policy advisor I frequently found it difficult to respond effectively when you were having to deal with two very specific political contexts north and south, and one more general ideological context at the all-Ireland level. On occasion the author refers to this problem at least indirectly, but I felt he could have been more explicit.

Moreover, as a policy advisor it was never clear to me how the actual path to reunification was to be realised. Few party documents have spelt this out convincingly and effectively. For me it often felt like I was working in a strategic vacuum, not knowing how my advice, whether in the party as a whole or in the northern Assembly, was contributing to the ultimate aim of reunification.

The continuing actuality of partition as a key problem in a broad strategic, policy and organisational sense, therefore, seems to be understated in the book.

Second, the author argues that Sinn Féin has to shift to a more confrontational, transformational and even revolutionary approach. I could not agree more, but just how likely or even possible is this?

Again from my personal experience working inside Sinn Féin I came across many activists, the author himself being perhaps the best example, who had clear political leanings towards this more radical socialist stance. However, I rarely found a positive reception to such ideas at a higher level within the leadership, apart from in a very general and rather superficial sense. Indeed, on occasion I encountered barely concealed hostility.

As the author argues, this can be explained, if not justified, by the specific political context of the 1980s and 1990s when political stability was the principal objective rather than radical economic and social transformation.

However, unfortunately I still hold serious reservations that such a fundamental strategic and political shift is in fact possible however desirable. The author’s ideological explanation of the socio-economic conservatism of Sinn Féin in the last two decades (an emphasis on Mellows and O’Donnell rather than Connolly and Marx, as referred to above) may be true, but I can’t help think it reads more like an overly academic, ex-post explanation than a true reflection of what actually happened.

In other words, while I share the author’s desire to create a more radicalised socialist oriented party, at the risk of being overly negative I have far more difficulty seeing its realisation through Sinn Féin. I hope I’m wrong in this regard.

Whatever my reservations, Eoin Ó Broin has produced a brave and hugely challenging and demanding book, one which deserves a wide readership and serious debate both inside and outside Sinn Féin. For those of us who share the author’s ideals and hopes, we can only thank him for his stimulating and truly worthwhile book.

4 March 2009
Madrid

The book isn’t a history of the IRA or an exhaustive examination of the provisional movement. Rather, it comprises a central thesis, which McDonald fleshes out over 200 odd pages. It is a compelling, and tidily presented, argument. Although its contents might seem somewhat obvious to those who have watched Sinn Féin’s metamorphosis, they benefit from being laid down in sequential, if rather atomised, fashion.

In my own view, the polemic is less compelling than the facts he peppers the beginning of the book from the movement’s own commemoration to it’s own dead, Tirghra, not least his estimation that only 36 volunteers were killed by the various factions of loyalist paramilitaries - who chose to terrorise the Catholic population by murdering innocents instead - whilst 266 were killed in ‘bungled operations. “Less than 12 where deliberately killed and targeted by loyalist paramilitaries. Moreover, only 40 per cent of IRA casualties were a result of confrontations with their main enemy - the British Army.

Figures which challenge to a large extent the idea that British used Loyalist paramilitaries to target leading IRA figure, in the way that is often suggested. Unlike the socialist government of Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, who used the Grupo Antiterrorista de Liberacion (GAL), a ragbag mixture of hired killers, police assassins and intelligence agents to kill and kidnap.

McDonald also highlights leading figures on the British left, not least Ken Livingston, who in an interview with Olivia O’Leary for Magill Magazine that he’d withdraw the troops with just ten days notice:

“Red Ken clearly had no fears that in that ten-day period the Loyalists would be any trouble. In fact he tellsO’Leary that he would be prepared to stay in west Belfast for the duration of the British pull out.

“The Protestant terrorists wouldn’t get involved in a civil war. They would know that the international forces would stop them. The very balance of terror between the two sides would stop such a war and the Irish could all get down to working out a constitution, a new deal, which Protestants would be quick to have a say in”.

This is a book whose own self declared mission is not to chart a future for Republicanism but to set some records straight on the past. It remains to be seen whether that tradition has a future on the island as whole, or whether it is to confined to the Defenderist tradition of Northern Ireland. By and large according to McDonald, the IRA’s struggle for national self determination rarely raised itself above an at times fairly squalid sectarian war with it’s neighbours.

If the book lacks a certain generosity in its analysis, that may be explained in some degree by the Movement’s own lack of generosity to anyone beyond its own Republican Pale. And it is tough on what David Aaronovich terms the self-exculpatory mythology required to keep an armed struggle going in such unlikely circumstance over such an extended period of time.

He quotes Mary Alice Clancy reflecting on her thesis on the US State Department’s role in Northern Ireland under Bush:

“They were interested in how the British not only infiltrated the IRA but also shaped policy; how they promoted and encouraged those emerging bin the movement that were more realistic, the ones who realised they could not win the war. I think it is the central lession they, the US State Departmern officials I spoke to, believed they could draw for Iraq.”

And yet, out of that struggle, for good or ill, Sinn Fein has emerged the dominant political strain within Northern Irish nationalism, which notwithstanding last year’s disasterous showing in the Dail election, still retains ambitions of breakout of the leftist ghetto that previous projects like the Workers Party and Clann na Poblachta abjectly failed to do. It’s long term success or failure may depend on the impact of the kind of analytic work carried by Eoin O’Broin’s Sinn Fein and the Politics of Left Republicanism (Irish Left Republicanism). In which respect, it’s another book that’s both welcome and long overdue.

However, McDonald sets himself the more limited task of taking up Orwell’s imperative (via Johnny) “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”

Big Lang Danner Book Launch 2008

A Wheen o Fowk - A Mans A Man Fae A That

A Wheen o Fowk - Gallowa Hills

Giving his account of the vital negotiations preceding the DUP/Sinn Fein deal that saw the Rev Ian Paisley installed as First Minister, Mr Ahern tells Frank Millar:

“Paisley could never have made the move he made unless there was an acceptance that policing was going to work. And the Shinners could never have made the decision unless there was an acceptance of the devolution of policing. That was the quid pro quo, which is hugely important.”

With that issue left for new First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness to resolve, Mr Ahern, in an interview recorded after he left office in May, emphasised his belief in a prior understanding between the two sides. “Just remember on that point, because I did that bit of the negotiations myself with Ian and with Gerry Adams,” he told the author, “and it was the quid pro quo”. 

When asked if he feared Sinn Fein might be tempted to “flex muscle” and set an early “test” for the new Robinson leadership over issues like the devolution of policing and justice powers, Mr Ahern said he thought not, while repeating that “Sinn Fein had a cast iron guarantee that 1st May (2008) was the deadline’ for achieving it. 

The chapter ‘Ireland at Peace’ continues: “(Millar) Cast iron? (Ahern) ‘It was absolutely crystal clear from the British Government and from everybody else.’ But from the DUP? ‘Everybody that would move… I mean there’s no doubt May was the date.’ Yet the DUP has consistently said it never signed up for May 2008? ‘Yeah, well, I mean listen,’ says Mr Ahern, clearly unimpressed with any protestations to the contrary now: ‘The devolution of policing from May was part of the deal in my view. OK, you can say that the governments didn’t extract that from everyone in writing but it was what the two governments agreed and everybody else agreed.” 

In its heyday, from 1860 to 1930, this was a littoral whose vigour and sophistication generated great writers, humming trade routes, radical political movements, and world-changing industrial innovations. But this floating commonwealth was not, or not easily, directable from the metropolitan “core” of London and the Home Counties. One of Harvie’s intriguing arguments is that the capital’s semi-landed political elites used the enterprising prole-and-bourgeois energies of West Britain for war and profit, but was surprised when a variety of nationalisms (Welsh, Scottish and of course Irish) emerged from those areas - nationalisms which questioned, until this day, the assumed benefits of Union and Empire.

The above video is a NASA animation of Cassini’s approach to Saturn’s moon Titan revealing the suspected layering.

Here’s a previous post on Kubrick’s, and Clarke’s, 2001: A Space Odyssey - “My god, it’s full of stars”

And a repeat of this video in tribute.  Enjoy.

Adds Another detailed biography here.

And another interesting post here