THE REPUBLIC A JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY AND HISTORICAL DEBATE No 2 Spring/Summer 2001 Editors: Finbar Cullen Aengus Ó Snodaigh Published by the Ireland Institute, 2001 Copyright © The Republic and the contributors, 2001 ISSN 1393 - 9696 Cover design: Robert Ballagh The Republic aims to provide a forum for discussion, debate and analysis of contemporary and historical issues. Irish and international matters across a range of disciplines will be addressed. Republican ideas and principles will shape and inform the contents of the journal. Our aim is to serve a general rather than a specialist readership. The opinions expressed in the articles do not necessarily represent those of the Ireland Institute. Correspondence to: The Editors, The Republic, The Ireland Institute, 27 Pearse Street, Dublin 2 or e-mail [email protected] Cover photograph by Robert Ballagh 1916 Monument at Arbour Hill, Dublin, with Proclamation carved by Michael Biggs Layout and design: Éamon Mag Uidhir Printed by Elo Press, Dublin 3 CONTENTS Editorial 5 Freedom as Citizenship: The Republican Tradition in Political Theory 7 ISEULT HONOHAN Republicanism and Separatism in the Seventeenth Century 25 TOMÁS Ó FIAICH Theobald Wolfe Tone: An Eighteenth-Century Republican and Separatist 38 THOMAS BARTLETT The Culture and History of French Republicanism: Terror or Utopia? 47 JAMES LIVESEY ‘Ireland Her Own’: Radical Movements in Nineteenth-Century Ireland 59 PRISCILLA METSCHER The English Republic 72 DOROTHY THOMPSON From Deference to Citizenship: Irish Republicanism 1870–1923 81 PATRICK MAUME Change and Continuity: Republican Thought Since 1922 92 BRIAN HANLEY ‘The Red-Crested Bird and Black Duck’—a Story of 1802: Historical Materialism, Indigenous People, and the Failed Republic 104 PETER LINEBAUGH Civic-Republican Citizenship and Voluntary Action 126 FERGUS O'FERRALL Debate Republicanism and Nationalism: An Imagined Conflict 138 DALTÚN Ó CEALLAIGH The Contributors 145 4 5 THE COMMON GOOD EDITORIAL Since the 1920s anti-intellectualism has been an unfortunate feature of Irish culture and there has been a neglect, almost hostile at times, of thought and ideas. This has been the case within republicanism, as much as elsewhere, in this period. It is time for us to move forward and begin to construct an environment in which intellectual work is respected and encouraged, and ideas and thinking can flourish. Too often in discourse the words ‘theoretical’ and ‘academic’ are used to silence and disparage. While some academics have brought this upon themselves by élite, obscure or trivial intellectualism, too often, systematic thinking is pushed aside in favour of action that is not informed by theory. The idea that intellectual work, ideas and theory are somehow unimportant or removed from the ‘real world’ is as unhelpful as it is unreasonable. There is something immature or irrational about a society that believes it can dispense with theory and analysis. Contemporary culture increasingly privileges emotion, impulse and gratification over thought and reflection. But if action is not rational, if it is not informed by reason and reflection, how can it be either meaningful or purposeful? Another aspect of the anti-intellectual culture is the lack of real engagement and debate. The idea that we need to listen to the other side of the argument and respect the views of those we disagree with seems alien to us. When we encounter arguments that conflict with our own, denial and dismissal are often the response and name-calling may follow. Yet how can we develop any idea or theory without subjecting it to challenge and counter-argument? Listening only to those we agree with and views which bolster our own leads to stagnation, shallowness and plain wrongness. Modern republicanism owes much to eighteenth-century enlightenment thinking and its culture of reason. Reason, science and rigour demand that we hold only views and opinions that can withstand challenge and contra- diction. We can learn much more from challenge and opposition than from voices of agreement. The comfort and self-justification that comes from being in agreement is poor substitute for critical thinking and self- 6 EDITORIAL examination. Finding arguments to support our own case and refute others, or even admitting that our arguments may not stand up to examination, might be more difficult, but, surely, it is also more rewarding. This issue of The Republic looks at republicanism as a body of ideas about politics and society. The articles include an overview of republican thinking from its earliest roots up to the present; several essays on different periods in the development of republican thinking in Ireland; and articles from the perspective of the English, French and U.S. experience of republicanism. Our contributors were asked to ignore the demands of narrative and concentrate instead on ideas and thinking. In planning the issue and seeking authors, we had a broad idea of the outcome we expected—and, although our guidelines specified a critical approach and a refusal to unquestioningly accept established versions, we did expect a somewhat simple vindication of republicanism and our idealistic view of it. Fortunately, the authors took us at our word and the result is a collection of essays that are challenging and provocative. The reader of this issue is going to be challenged in many of the ways we have talked about. No reader is going to agree with all of the articles; very few are going to agree with everything in any one of them. Some readers are going to be angered by some of the interpretations and arguments. Others will reach for the easy term of abuse and dismiss, without further thought, that which challenges their preconceptions. The editors are more than happy with these articles, irrespective of our personal views and beliefs. We are certain that much can be gained from careful reading and consideration of the arguments and opinions presented. Reading with reason and thought, we can confirm and adapt those of our ideas we find supported, jettison ideas which no longer stand up, and incorporate new ideas into our thinking. This is the intelligent, republican approach. It is time to put anti-intellectualism behind us, and for ideas and theory to flourish in Ireland. 7 Freedom as Citizenship: The Republican Tradition in Political Theory ISEULT HONOHAN Introduction What it means to be a republican is a contested matter. In Ireland, republi- canism may be associated with physical force separatism and cultural nationalism, as well as a certain revolutionary austerity and authoritar- ianism. These partly reflect its genesis in eighteenth-century republican movements, which included revolutionaries as diverse as Jefferson and Robespierre; its growth in the age of European nationalism; and its expression in a constitution influenced by a hierarchical religious idiom. But republican ideas have broader foundations and a longer history than any of these. In this article I survey the central ideas of republican political theory in some of their diverse historical expressions, and outline some of their contemporary claims to attention. These suggest that republicanism speaks also to our current perplexities in the Ireland of the Celtic Tiger, judicial tribunals, immigration and increasing cultural diversity. Republican ideas have a denser meaning than simply the form of government in which power rests with the people instead of a monarch. It should be said that there are almost as many hues of republican thought as there are of liberalism, socialism or conservatism. But all republican arguments seem to spring from a sense of the ineluctable interdependence of human beings, whose survival and flourishing depends on the kinds of social frameworks they inhabit, and who have common, as well as separate and conflicting, interests. The political question with which republicans are concerned is what kind of freedom is possible in the light of this interdependence, and how it may be realised. Freedom is understood as a political achievement, not a natural possession of individuals. It is inherently fragile, and requires not only a strong legal framework, but also the civic engagement of citizens, who can come to recognise and act to sustain those interests they share with others. But common interests are easier to overlook and therefore more vulnerable than individual interests; this gives rise to corruption, the key republican 8 ISEULT HONOHAN problem. Freedom requires political equality and rests on two dimensions of active citizenship—civic virtue and political participation. Citizenship entails responsibilities as well as rights; self-governing citizens achieve the chance to exercise some collective direction over their lives, rather than complete self-sufficiency. There is a coherent, though not always continuous, tradition of political thought, often referred to as ‘civic republicanism’, that stretches back to roots in ancient Greece and Rome, and reached its fullest expression between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, when it influenced both American and French revolutionaries. After a period of relative eclipse in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the clash of liberalism and socialism dominated the field of political ideas, it is once more the subject of lively debate among political theorists today. Ancient antecedents: Aristotle and Cicero The republican tradition has clear antecedents in the classical world of Greece and Rome. While the Athenian polis, or city-state, of the fifth to third centuries BC is usually identified as the cradle of democracy, certain key features of republican thinking also crystallised first there1. Citizens— native-Athenian adult males, irrespective of wealth—formed a self-governing body. In contrast to slaves or the subjects of a monarch, who were both subject to the will of a master, self-ruling citizens were free. Their freedom was exemplified in their equal right to speak in the assembly and serve in office, and their equality before the law. In principle, in the polis matters were settled by discussion and decision of all the citizens, not by force.