The Ruling Trinity Transformed: Negotiating Power and Local Leadership in Ireland
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Provided by the author(s) and NUI Galway in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite the published version when available. Title The ruling trinity transformed: negotiating power and local leadership in Ireland Author(s) Pritchard, Ruth Publication Date 2015-09-21 Item record http://hdl.handle.net/10379/5797 Downloaded 2021-09-28T01:24:42Z Some rights reserved. For more information, please see the item record link above. The Ruling Trinity Transformed: Negotiating Power and Local Leadership in Ireland Ruth Pritchard This thesis is presented to National University of Ireland, Galway for the degree of PhD in the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies 2015 School of Political Science & Sociology Head of School: Dr. Anne Byrne Supervisors: Prof. Chris Curtin and Dr. Tony Varley Table of Contents Page Declaration iii Abstract iv Acknowledgements v Abbreviations vi List of Tables ix List of Figures x Part I: The Ruling Trinity in Context Chapter One The Ruling Trinity Transformed: Negotiating Power and Local 1 Leadership in Ireland – An Overview Chapter Two 28 Locating a Changing Pattern of Local Leadership Part II: The Ruling Trinity in Decline? Chapter Three 73 An Economic Politics of Land and Labour Chapter Four 114 Catholic Culture and Moral Persuasion Chapter Five 158 Political Personalism and Impersonal Governance i Part III: The Ruling Trinity Transformed Chapter Six Negotiating Power and Civil Society Leadership 196 Chapter Seven Conclusions: The Ruling Trinity Transformed 229 Appendices Appendix I 252 Aerial image of O’Leary land holding Appendix II 253 Local Area Plan Map, Blessington Town (2010) Appendix III 254 Typology of Local Leadership Interviews Appendix IV 259 Blessington Town Views Bibliography 262 ii Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in any form for another degree or diploma at any other university of institution of tertiary education. The research herein is entirely my own work. Signature Date iii Abstract This thesis examines power relations in the political, economic and religious spheres in local society in Ireland, so as to assess the contribution being made by a local leadership to a contemporary Irish social power order. The contemporary evidence gathered as part of a case study approach is compared to the configuration of a dominant class leadership extant in the 1970s and associated with a historically privileged Catholic-nationalism described by Chris Eipper (1986). Representing class society as a field of force in his work, Eipper argued that an interdependent ruling bloc at the local and national levels, structured between the economic, religious and political spheres, critically reproduced the ordering logics of an Irish class system (1986, p.3). Based on his local fieldwork in Bantry, Co. Cork, Eipper concluded that in the event of a deconstruction of the ideological and material bases upon which the Irish power system he identified depended, the dominant pattern of leadership would be reshaped, if not dismantled. Two such potential resolutions were an end to the Northern Ireland conflict and an increased co-ordination by the European Union. The research undertaken for this study firstly finds that a transformed local leadership matters, contrasting with hypotheses both of the hegemonic effects of the international economy in Ireland since the late 1980s and of assumptions implying the unimportance of local power dynamics in this context. In Blessington & District, the contemporary pattern of local leadership and power observed is rooted in the continuing social salience of personalistic power relations. Where collective decision-making provided a novel source of social power in local society, I found variable outcomes for the local influence of individual members of the ruling bloc and indeed, changes within the bloc itself. Nonetheless, the structural pattern of leadership altered only as much as was permitted by a translation of these observed changes in a broader lived experience of Irish power relations and that remained culturally valid. In sum, the local version of the ruling bloc successfully reinforced its interests by means of novel forms of governance. Since negotiation via collective action at the local level represented a novel structural arrangement of personal power relations in this case, I concluded that changing material and ideological factors in Ireland have not yet supplanted the dominant Irish social power system prevailing since the post-colonial era, even if they have altered the mode of authority available to a contemporary local leadership. iv Acknowledgements The completion of this study is firstly due the people of Blessington & District, who spoke frankly about the local structures and relations of power that shaped their lives. They offered me an unfettered view of the mechanics of decision-making in civil society and blithely went about their business under close observation. In particular, I would like to thank the membership of the Blessington & District Forum for granting me full access to their meetings from late 2009 to mid-2012. I am so grateful to the many friends and colleagues who lent their personal support to an extraordinary degree during the lengthy study period and to Margaret, Lorna and Ruth, especially. Deiric Ó Broin at the Dublin Institute of Technology gave a crucial ‘hand up’ just when it was needed and was a generous colleague throughout. Angela Sice at the Whitaker Institute, NUI, Galway provided material support at an important juncture. The study received financial support under the national Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI, Cycle 4) and also by means of a write-up bursary awarded by NUI, Galway. For their love and patience, I dedicate this thesis to my mother, my sister, my partner and in particular, to my son, who grew up with this study and whose monumental eye rolling at key points kept me sane or at least, made me laugh, which is the same thing. Writing on the relations and structures of power is a formidable, if rewarding, task. I owe Chris Eipper a huge debt in following in his wake, nearly 40 years after his original and still highly relevant research was completed. His insights offered me a reliable towline I could return to when, as frequently happened, I swam too far out of my depth. Finally, I want to thank my supervisors Chris Curtin and Tony Varley for their intellectual rigour, whose professional task was to always ask ‘why?’ And for making light of the journey, which personal commitment insisted ‘why not?’ Ruth Pritchard September 2015 v Abbreviations BAD Blessington Area Development BCC Blessington & District Community Council B&DF Blessington & District Forum BEA Baltinglass Electoral Area BWG Blessington Women’s Group CAP Common Agricultural Policy CE Community Employment (Scheme) Co. County CRH Cement Roadstone Holdings CSO Central Statistics Office EC European Commission ECB European Central Bank ED Electoral Division EEC European Economic Community ESRI Economic and Social Research Institute vi EU European Union FDI Foreign Direct Investment FF Fianna Fáil FG Fine Gael GAA Gaelic Athletics Association GP Green Party HSE Health Services Executive IDA Industrial Development Authority IFSC International Financial Services Centre IMF International Monetary Fund ITGWU Irish Transport and General Workers Union LAP Local Area Plan LEA Local Electoral Area LEADER Liaisons entre Actions de Developpement de l’Economie Rurale PNER Programme for National Economic Recovery OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PwC PricewaterhouseCoopers Ireland vii SF Sinn Féin SPC Strategic Policy Committee T.D. Teachta Dála VEC Vocational Education Committee WCC Wicklow County Council WWDA West Wicklow Development Association viii List of Tables Table 2.1 Population in study territory by Electoral Division and land area (2011) Table 3.1 Composition of net domestic product (NDP) at current factor prices, reference years 1947, 1971, 1992 and 2009. Table 4.1 Comparison of broad religious affiliation, the State, Co. Wicklow and Blessington & District (2011) Table 5.1 Comparison of per cent share of first preference votes gained by local elected representatives in the Baltinglass Electoral Area (1991 – 2009) Table 5.2 Governance memberships of local elected representatives in the BEA (2012) Table 6.1 Most frequently discussed B&DF agenda items (October 2009 – June 2010) Table 6.2 Highest ranked positive aspects of community life in Blessington & District (2010) ix List of Figures Figure 2.1 Socio-economic situation of Blessington Town Figure 2.2 Map showing locations of Kilbride ED, Blessington ED, Lackan ED and Burgage ED Figure 2.3 Demographic change in case study territory (1911 – 2011) Figure 2.4 Comparative socio-economic profile – Wicklow, Dublin and Study Territory (1981) Figure 2.5 Urbanisation in Blessington & District (1981 – 2011) Figure 3.1 Change in percentage of labour force in main industries by type of main industry, Dublin, Wicklow, study territory (1986 – 2011) Figure 3.2 Change in proportion of ‘unskilled manual’ labour as per cent of overall population in study territory (1986 – 2011) Figure 3.3 Population of study territory by social class (1986) Figure 3.4 Population of study territory by social class (2011) Figure 4.2 Catholic affiliation as a proportion of the population in study territory electoral divisions, County Wicklow and the State, 2002 – 2011 (per cent) Figure 6.1 Proportionate representation of Blessington & District Forum agenda items by sphere of influence (per cent) x Figure 6.2 Proportionate representation of Blessington & District Forum agenda items by type (per cent) Figure 6.3 Frequency of decision taken by Blessington & District Forum by type of decision (per cent) Figure 6.4 Local perceptions of nominated leadership in Blessington & District (per cent) xi PART I: The Ruling Trinity in Context Chapter 1 The Ruling Trinity Transformed: Negotiating Power and Local Leadership in Ireland - An Overview 1.1 Introduction The most fundamental rationale for a study of leadership and power asserts that what counts as power and being powerful matters (Lukes, 2005a).