JAMES Joyce, Eamon de Valera, WB Yeats, Maud Gonne and JM Synge are just some of the high-profile names who feature in The Handbook of the Irish Revival.
The book gives a fascinating and accessible account of The Irish Revival (1891 to 1922), a time of intense cultural and political debate that takes us up to the formation of the Irish Free State.
The 500-page tome is edited by academics PJ Mathews and Declan Kiberd and their aim with the Handbook was to “reflect the rebirth of civic action in Ireland after the devastating Famine and the political implosion which followed the Parnell era”.
They have assiduously collated well-known writings, speeches, manifestos, poems and book extracts from names both familiar and lesser-known. So while there are pages devoted to Douglas Hyde, Patrick Pearse, Arthur Griffith, Augusta Gregory and Sean O’Casey, they are juxtaposed with contributions from lesser-known voices from the era, among them Mary Colum, Stopford A Brooke, John Eglinton and Helena Molony.
Importantly, the book covers the diverging array of opinions and debates of the time, taking in issues such as political sovereignty, female suffrage, the rights of the working classes, unionism, republicanism and pacifism.
Some of the pieces by household names, though, were either out of print, uncollected or difficult to access by the general public, so the book does a sterling job on piecing the period together.
It is divided into thematic sections, including `language revival', `movements and manifestos', `theatre', 'religion', `the natural world', `women and citizenship', `militarism/modernism' and `after the revolution'.
Co-editor PJ Mathews explains how the book came together.
“Myself and Declan have often talked about how this was such an amazing period and our students always respond very well to the ideas and the essays from that time,” says the UCD lecturer.
“Writings by the usual suspects – Yeats, Synge, Connolly, Pearse and so on – are widely available but a lot of it was dispersed all over the place and we lamented the fact that a lot of the material from less famous names wasn’t.
“We thought it would be a good idea to try and gather up some of the major currents of thought of that period. We both went into an intensive mode of reading and various names just suggested themselves. Mary Colum is great, because her book Life and the Dream really captures something of the energy, excitement and ideas of the period.”
One of the key texts in the book is Douglas Hyde’s 1892 speech `The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland’.
“I think that really sets the tone. The message is that Ireland had kind of lost the ability to generate its own innovation,” says Mathews. “It was constantly looking elsewhere as a centre and Hyde picks out the contradiction that Irish people on one hand profess to hate all things British but on the other hand they imitate them when they get the chance. So he diagnoses a real state of paralysis, one which writers like Joyce later picked up on.”
It is amusing to note that Joyce’s first story was published in The Irish Homestead, alongside the weekly prices for manure. “It was published in what Joyce refers to as 'the pigs’ paper’,” says Mathews.
The Irish Homestead was edited by George Russell, another recurring name in The Handbook and a man Mathews refers to as “a good Ulsterman”; Russell was born in Lurgan but was brought up in Dublin and went to art school with WB Yeats.
“Russell was amazing. He was a poet and a mystic and then cycled around the country setting up cooperative movements and organising farmers too. When you look into it, there’s a high proportion of Ulster writers, intellectuals and activists involved in the Revival – people like Alice Milligan, George Russell, Roger Casement, James Cousins and Eoin McNeill.
“There’s a huge Ulster dimension to all of this. I think Belfast and Ulster has a legitimate claim to be considered as an alternative node of revivalist activity.”
Casement was born in Dublin but grew up in Co Antrim, Milligan was from Omagh, Eoin McNeill was from Co Antrim and playwright James Cousins was a Belfast man. The book looks at the Ulster Literary Theatre, Ulster’s Solemn League and Covenant, while the 1916 Rising looms large.
The editors note that the “the 1916 Rising may seem almost inevitable to a reader of some of these writings but it took not just most of the authorities, but even some of its progenitors, by surprise.”
“If you look at The Irish Review, which was full of poetry, at one point you get the manifesto for the Irish Volunteers in the middle of it, which is kind of weird. It’s as if during that period that people began a sentence in one tone and finished it in a very different one. You have people who are involved in theatre and suddenly they’re doing military manoeuvres; it’s almost like 'from footlights to footsoldiers’.
“It was this 'fast-forward’ moment that catapults people out of the cultural domain and more into the militant one. We have a piece by Dubliner Joe Keegan, who is not in any way a household name. [His contribution] is a window into an iconic moment from an unknown participant and seeing some of the moments from the perspective from below rather than from on high.”
“I think it’s important to put this book out now because next year there will obviously be a lot of talk about 1916 and the GPO; I think it’s important for people to engage with the reasons and the ideas that might have driven people into the GPO – or made people critics of those who went into the GPO.”
He hails what was, without question, “a supremely articulate generation”.
“It really is extraordinary. You only really get this kind of thing once every 1,000 years or something. You had this emergence of an extraordinary number of literary geniuses and innovative activists who were feeding off each other.”
The Handbook is the first publication by Abbey Theatre Press and was launched at the Abbey, with President Michael D Higgins (who writes an afterword in the book) giving a speech.
“He really does take the arts seriously, at a time when the humanities and the arts are under severe pressure,” says Mathews of President Higgins. “It’s good to have someone in the Aras who takes it seriously.”
On a not-so-serious note, The Handbook found itself just behind the new Fifty Shades of Gray title in the book charts on its release.
“It’ll take some catching up to catch up to EL James. There’s probably a bit of masochism in this book but not as much as in Fifty Shades,” laughs Mathews.
The Handbook of the Irish Revival is out not, published by Abbey Theatre Press.
