Writers
have an important task in every epoch. As the
journalist Maggie O' Kane recently observed, if
writing is not about producing change then writers
may as well become sports reporters rather than
face the dangers that subversive writing brings.
Even where such writing fails to persuade or provoke
and becomes little other than a historical artefact
its very existence in years to come will have
prevented the powerful and the control freaks
from monopolising the historical record. Future
analysts will at least be able to say 'Not all
of humanity surrendered its creative intellect
- there were some who did not believe the nonsense
and spin of the day and dissented from it'.
The intellect of Irish writers has never been
in doubt, apart from in the convoluted minds of
those English endowed with a self-created superiority
complex. Thomas McLoughlin underlines this point
so well in Contesting Voices which through an
examination of six writers - Molyneaux, Swift,
O'Connor, Burke, Edgeworth and Tone - illustrates
the existence of a body of writing which the author
feels is unsurpassed in any of England's other
colonies. The point is underlined by the assertion
that Achebe published his first novel only two
years before Nigeria's independence and Ngugi
one year after Kenya's own experience.
Concentrating on the eighteenth century McLoughlin
seeks to show that the Irish, while internally
pluralistic, nevertheless possessed a certain
monolithic character when it came to stressing
just how different the Irish were from the view
the English had of them. But this difference,
rather than reinforce the belief that something
other than total unity means a situation of being
divided and conquered, actually served to challenge
the English colonial view that the Irish were
unchanging. Pluralism - rather than being, as
Harry Donaghy wittingly observes, a form of pneumonia
- constituted a rhetorical strategy of protest
and resistance. It created, particularly in the
work of O'Connor, a hybridity over essentialism.
It is in producing such hybridity that the indispensable
democratic function of writers in all societies
is underlined. A culture that places a premium
on hybridity serves to prevent people being easily
led. Recent Rwandan history demonstrates only
too horrifically that a people easily led are
a people that may easily commit atrocity. In the
age of leadership spin the protection and valuing
of political dissent which writers can perform
so well is an indispensable safeguard.
The author seeks to examine post-colonial writing
which immediately leads the reader to think in
terms of Dorothy MacArdle and writers of that
epoch. However, McLoughlin quickly illustrates
that the term 'post' also means behind. Consequently,
the investigative strategy of the writer is to
find what lies behind the façade of the hegemonic
English writing. 'Post-colonial' also is taken
to mean post-the beginning of colonialism rather
than post-the demise of the phenomenon. In our
day McLoughlin would be investigating the subculture
which lurks alongside but behind rather than beneath
the official culture. The author's examination
of the manner in which a counter-text comes to
constitute a rhetorical power base from which
to resist the imagery of the coloniser is a lesson
that has universality to it. It is as much Foucauldian
as it is anti-colonial.
Through his examination of Burke, McLoughlin is
able to trace the resistance culture that existed
amongst many Irish and points out that Burke serves
as a reminder that it was not until Tone came
along that Irish protest took on the character
of demanding independence form Britain. This suggests
that the culture of Irish protest against English
injustice has a longer history than Irish opposition
to British involvement in Ireland per se. Provisional
republicanism, if it felt so inclined to trace
its historical roots beyond 1969, might with justification
look there rather than to Pearse and 1916.
So many of the writers examined by McLoughlin
- Molyneaux and Swift for example, were silent
about the political aspirations of Irish Catholics.
There concerns were Protestant Ireland. Swift's
is probably the most interesting given that his
rhetorical strategy had at its centre ridicule.
Contrasting this approach with that of Molyneaux,
McLoughlin speaks of 'a shift from the gentleness
of reconciliation to the savagery of abuse'. Despite
Swift's deep engagement in bold confrontational
protest against the English he always conceived
freedom in a manner determined by the English.
Tone, was entirely different. Championing the
cause of Catholics he situated himself on the
margins rather than at the centre and saw things
English as the cause of Ireland's problems. If
he were alive today his dismissal of the Executive
as an administration of boobies and blockheads
would have led to him facing the accusation of
being a rejectionist. Somehow, I doubt if he would
care.
Contesting Ireland: Irish Voices against England
in the Eighteenth Century. By Thomas McLoughlin.
Published by Four Courts Press. Price HB £39.95
- PB £17.50
