THE GREEN FLAG

by Robert Kee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 1972

The recent efflorescence of Irish radicalism in the phoenix-like rise of the IRA seems to be precipitating a new spate of studies of Ireland's troubled past. It is as though historians, confounded by the present terrors, were searching for solace in a firmer grasp of the ghosts of generations long ago. Even those, like Kee, who refuse to see history as a matter of Irish martyrs and English butchers, find the tenacious ferocity of the Nationalist cause irresistible. In a beautifully sustained narrative Kee explores its motley growth from the 1790's when the United Irishmen, galvanized by tidings from France, ""changed in an instant the politics of Ireland"" to the Civil War of 1922-23 which followed the signing of the Treaty legitimizing Ulster's separatism. To Kee the nationalists' creed, most purely embodied in the Fenians of the 1860's, was produced by the confluence of agrarian radicalism (The Whiteboys, the Defenders, later the Land League) with a reified, romantic Jacobinism which battened on a litany of names (Tone, Emmett, Davis, Lalor, Stephens, Rossa) while developing only the haziest of ideologies. Always ""leaders"" remained unable to rouse followers with one uncoordinated rising after another collapsing in disarray. But the distinguishing feature of The Green Flag is Kee's contention that the peculiarly fraternal and internecine quality of Irish politics defies explanation according to conventional parameters of class, regionalism, or even religious sectarianism. Never has it been a simple case of English versus Celt, Catholic versus Presbyterian, Ulsterman against Dubliner. As a broad survey of Irish development this is somewhat weaker than Beckett's excellent The Making of Modern Ireland (1966) which delved more deeply into economics and the policy makers at Westminster. However, as an impartial charting of the republicans' organizational and mythological achievements, it is superb.

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION