A Reader's Guide to the World of Counter-Cultural Irish Intellectuals
Word count: 3,853 words
Estimated reading time: 15 minutes
Summary: Creeve Rua highlights the thought of Irish thinkers who challenged official Ireland in the 20th century; men whose writings on Irish identity, language, and culture are more pertinent than ever in an age of globalism and hyper-modernity.
This article was originally featured on the Substack ‘Creeve Rua’ and is syndicated with the author’s permission.
Queries and submissions: meonjournal@mailfence.com
1. Introduction: Desmond Fennell (1929-2021) and Eccentric Intellectualism
Main work: Beyond Nationalism: The Struggle Against Provinciality in the Modern World (Ward River Press, 1985)
About 4 years ago, when Ireland’s greatest modern intellectual sailed away with St. Mac Dara ar shlí na fírinne, a great chasm opened in the world of Irish ideas. Older generations — who had lived through An Ghluaiseacht, the EEC debates, The Troubles, etc —knew exactly of the eccentric genius that Irish public discourse had lost. Yet a whole new generation of younger people (students, artists, etc) were only then made aware of a treasure trove of works (pamphlets, personal stories, philosophical discourses, etc) which held the key to understanding the past half-century of Irish intellectual life.
In going forward, I believe this budding generation of Irish intellectuals — originating from discordant backgrounds and perspectives, but united in their commitment to the cause of the revival of Irish intellectual life — cannot allow such gems of Irish cultural theory to be so underappreciated and unheard of among today’s youth.
Hence, I wish to celebrate and highlight the eccentric intellectual greats of modern Irish discourse, who were also criminally underrated among young Gaels at the time of their passing. I say ‘eccentric’ as a stand-in phrase for those figures who prioritised historical curiosity, uniqueness, and intellectual independence over and above the confines of respectable Anglicised opinion. Of course, none of these figures all agree with each other, nor can any be ‘claimed’ by any group or fit into a neat box of ‘isms’ and doctrines.
Before getting started, it is worth briefly listing some figures whom I did not cover, but are no less significant, a sort of honourable mentions: Raymond Crotty (1925-1994), John Moriarty (1938-2007), Kathleen M. Murphy (1879-1963), Tom Barrington (1916-2000), Saun Mauger (1910-2011) and Eoin McKiernan (1915-2004).
2. Móinsíneoir Breandán Ó Doibhlin (1931-2023)
Main work: Aistí Critice agus Cultúir III (Coiscéim, 2009)
Rud ar a dtabharfainn 'cultúr féinspleách' (autonomous culture). Ní raibh sa litríocht ach cuid de sin, cuid den phrógram chun aigne iomlán dhúchasach a bhunú i measc mhuintir na tíre sa dóigh nach mbeadh siad spleách ar éadáil a bhí ag teacht thar toinn isteach chucu ach a bheith ag brath orthu féin. Cineál 'Sinn Féin' sa litríocht a bhí ann, ar bhealach. —‘Breandán Ó Doibhlin ag caint le Antain Mag Shamhráin’, lth. 24.
“Something I would call an 'autonomous culture'. Literature was only a part of that, part of the programme to establish a fully native mindset among the people of the country, so that they would not be dependent on influences coming in from overseas but would rely on themselves. It was a kind of 'Sinn Féin' in literature, in a way.” — ‘Breandán Ó Doibhlin in conversation with Antain Mag Shamhráin’, p. 24.)
First there is Breandán Ó Doibhlin, who was many things; priest, Gaelgeoir, rector of the Irish College in Paris; most importantly, for our purposes, he was one of the most advanced theoreticians of the Gaelic aesthetic and mentality. I say ‘aesthetic’ as Ó Doibhlin prioritised the uniqueness of the Gaelic world-image. Rather than merely critiquing anglicisation, he strove to legitimise Gaelic philosophy as an ‘arm intinn’ (weapon of the mind).
By translating the works of high-European philosophy into Gaeilge, such as Pascal and La Rochefoucauld, he demonstrated the path forward for a modern, intellectually elite, and spiritually futurist Gaeldom. In this, he advanced the Europeanising of Irish-language writing into a literature d'idèes:
Measaimse, b'fhéidir go bhfuil dul amú orm, gur cuid eile sin den aigne Angla-Shacsanach atá forleathan sa tír seo. Ghlacfadh lucht Fraincise nó Gearmáinise nó Iodáilise gan cheist gurb é bunús na litríochta idéithe-smaointe gurb é sin is cuspóir don litríocht; ciall éigin a bhaint as an saol daonna, as an choinníoll daonna a bhfuil muid beo ann. Sin é bun agus barr na litríochta. Ní caitheamh aimsire í ná cineal interior decoration don intinn. Tá an saol an-ghairid agus má tá tú ag iarraidh carpets and curtains a dhéanamh don aigne tá sé chomh maith agat éirí as.—Ibid, 45.
“I think — though perhaps I am mistaken — that this is another aspect of the Anglo-Saxon mindset that is widespread in this country. Speakers of French, German, or Italian would unquestioningly accept that the very basis of a literature of ideas — that the purpose of literature is to extract some meaning from human life, from the human condition in which we live. That is the root and summit of literature. It is not a pastime or a kind of interior decoration for the mind. Life is very short, and if you want to make carpets and curtains for the mind, you might as well give up.” —ibid, p.45
This philosophical and theoretical school of writing is particularly necessary when one bears in mind the chaotic state of affairs that we are currently tumbling into in hypermodernity. After decades of alienating globalisation, as well the dislocation of the digital and internet revolutions, culminating today in generative AI, we are struck by a world without roots, coherency, and comprehensible language. In short, it is ag titim as a chéile. Nowhere is a rootedness in one’s own ancestral language, in the intellectual, and aesthetic expansion of its modes of expression, more needed than now:
“tá sé le brath ins an chaoi a bhfuil na múnlaí ealaíne ag titim as a chéile ins an phéintéireacht, sa cheol, sa litríocht féin. Is léiriú iad sin ar fad ó thús na haoise seo ar an dóigh a bhfuil na seanmhúnlaí polaitiúla ag titim as a chéile…ach tiocfaidh an pointe agus tá sé ag teacht anghar dúinn anois go mbeidh muid fágtha gan tacaíocht ar bith, gan sólás ar bith, gan compord intinne ar bith, gan socracht ar bith. Ag an phointe sin silim féin go dtitfidh sé, mar a thit cheana féin go minic, ar an ealaín, ar an chreideamh, ar na buninstitiúidí daonna, aghaidh a thabhairt ar na fadhbanna sin agus seans éigin maireachtála a thabhairt don ghnáthdhuine aonair.”—Ibid, 49.
“It can be seen in the way artistic forms are unravelling — in painting, in music, in literature itself. All of these are manifestations, from the dawn of this century, of how the old political models are crumbling… But a moment will arrive — and it is now perilously close — when we will be left without any support, any solace, any mental comfort, any stability at all. At that point, I believe the task will fall — as it has so often before — to art, to faith, to the fundamental human institutions: to face these crises and offer some possibility of survival to the ordinary, solitary individual.” —Ibid, 49.
For Ó Doibhlin, this chaos and alienation of the modern world is not reason to shy away into ghettoisation. Instead, it is all the more reason to embrace our role, particularly as Gaels, as leading the path for a neoclassical, revitalised European culture. For him, the creation of a distinct Irish-Ireland artistic class could help anam úr a chur san Eoraip:
nach féidir aghaidh a thabhairt i gceart ar fheiniméan atá chomh forleathan sin, a bhfuil mórán na comharthaí sóirt céanna ag roinnt leis i dtíortha éagsúla na Mór-roinne, ní féidir sin muna ndéantar acmhainní na nEaglaisí Críostaithe go léir a chomheagrú, rud a éilíonn comhoibriú éacúmanach fad-téarmach. D'fhéadfadh an Eoraip titim siar sa chompord, sa féinspéis agus sa leithleas; mura bhfuil sí lena hanam a chailliúint, braitheann sé sin ar Chríostaithe chomh maith. Nífoláir dóibh anam úr a chur san Eoraip agus coinsias úr a ghaibhniú di.—‘Áras na hEorpa, Bunsraith Chríostí’, lth. 168.
“How can one properly confront a phenomenon so widespread — one that shares so many of the same tell-tale signs across the diverse nations of the Continent — unless all the resources of the Christian Churches are coordinated? This demands long-term ecumenical cooperation. Europe could retreat into comfort, self-interest, and isolation; but if she is not to lose her soul, that depends on Christians as well. They must breathe fresh life into Europe and forge a new conscience for her.” —Áras na hEorpa, Bunsraith Chríostí’, p. 168)
3. Rev Dr Brendan Bradshaw (1937-2017)
Main work: ‘And So Began the Irish Nation’: Nationality, National Consciousness and Nationalism in Pre-modern Ireland (Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2015)
“Tacitly ignoring the positive evidence they focus attention instead on the countervailing pull of dynastic particularism and on the trans-national thrust of Gaelic and Anglo-Irish cultural influences. One way or another, it is clear that the revisionists have responded to the anachronistic projection of a Nationalist ideology into the immemorial past by extruding the play of national consciousness from all but the modern period. In doing so, they have simply inverted the anachronism.” —‘And so Began…’, p. 45.
Then there is Brendan Bradshaw, a Marist priest who articulated the most comprehensive alternative to the dominant ‘Revisionist’ school of Irish nationalist historiography. Building on the research of Marc Caball and others, Bradshaw demonstrated the long-suppressed, millennium-spanning, Irish nationalist world of ideas. Moving beyond the liberal anti-nationalism of our crypto-Unionist intelligentsia — as well as the pseudo-history of Dev-era sentimentalists — Bradshaw, instead, built the framework for a post-revisionist revolution. Nowhere will the reader find a more elucidating introduction to the Irish national consciousness.
His work exposes those who sought to downgrade our national tragedies, particularly An Gorta Mór, pointing out: “Between the 1930s and the 1980s the Irish academic profession saw fit to address this episode on only one occasion”. This is the crisis of value-free Irish history, the revisionists neutralised and suppressed the real trauma of collective consciousness:
“seared as the record is by successive waves of conquest and colonisation, by bloody wars and uprisings, by traumatic social dislocation, by lethal racial antagonisms and indeed by its own nineteenth-century version of a holocaust. It is here, in responding to the interpretative challenge posed by the catastrophic dimensions of Irish history, that the sins of omission of the value-free school are to be observed.” —Ibid, p. 38.
As exemplified by our rebel tradition, the Gael relishes in the heroic endurance against invasion, decadence, and the corruption of time. Oftentimes, the national recognition of peculiar lack of sovereignty led to radical developments in our ethnic consciousness. The Elizabethan invasions for instance had already inspired an explicit ethnogenesis of the Irish nation in Bardic writing:
“However, Hugh’s duanaire also reflects in some measure the disintegration of the medieval political structure under pressure of Crown policy, and the efforts of certain of the bards to address themselves to the contemporary crisis. There is evidence of widening, horizons, of the first stages of development of a national political consciousness, and of the creation of an image of the Gaelic dynast as a national rebel leader.” —Ibid, p. 211.
Bradshaw merely expands on this in more detail elsewhere, positively identifying the essentialist ideology of early Irish ethnic consciousness, or nationalism:
“In classical bardic verse these two concepts – that of the leader of the nation as árd rí (high king) or as spouse of Ireland, and that of the war of the Gael against the Gall (foreign invader) – are found subsumed in an ideology concerned primarily with the sept and the locality. They function simply as poetic conceits, exploited to flatter the patron, neither intended nor taken seriously. Nevertheless, in the menacing atmosphere of the 1570s, with conquest and colonisation pushing steadily forward, it seems clear that such ideas, addressed to a dynast hostile to the government, were being translated from the realm of poetic fancy to that of political ideology.” —Ibid.
4. Tomás Mac Síomóin (1938-2022)
Main work: The Broken Harp, Identity and Language in Modern Ireland (Nuascéalta Teoranta, 2014)
I gcás na hÉireann tá faitíos orm...bíonn leisce orm, aidhm a bhaint as bhfocal Éireann. Mar tá faitíos orm go bhfuil Éireann imithe, agus cibé atá againn, go díreach, ar thalamh na hÉireann ag an bpointe seo ná athris Mheiriceá agus ar Shasana, meascáin don domhan Angla-Mheiriceánach.—Tomás Mac Síomóin.wmv, 2010.
“In Ireland’s case, I’m afraid... I hesitate to use the word “Ireland.” Because I fear that Ireland is gone, and what we have now, right here on Irish soil, is merely an imitation of America and England—a hybrid of the Anglo-American world.”
On a more pessimistic note, there is the anti-colonialist thought of Tomás Mac Síomóin. As a Gaelgeoir activist, political radical, and literary stylist — one would be forgiven for believing Dubin-born Mac Síomóin offers the least systematic contribution on this list. When one bears in mind his expertise in biochemistry, his emphasis on the genetic invasiveness of anglicisation, as a sort of psychological alienation, becomes a lot more grounded. While some writers attempt to build a positive Gaelicist vision, and others critique the errors of individual anglicised Irish people and groups, Mac Síomóin reorients our focus on the invisible matrix of our colonial legacy. In his view, everything from our political subservience under global neoliberalism to our constant curse of rootless emigration stems from an internalised oikophobia.
Without confronting this psychological crisis, we may never build a nation once again. To move beyond prior failed attempts at nation-building, we must acknowledge the deep historic roots of our intellectual replacement:
“The catastrophic Irish military defeat at Kinsale in 1603, and the subsequent emigration to the continent of its civic and military leaders, initiated the gradual incorporation – aided by several genocidal interludes – throughout more than three succeeding centuries, of the Irish nation into English cultural and administrative practise. Such a process, plus its fundamental economic aspect, is referred to as total cultural colonisation.” —‘The Broken Harp’.
Of course, neither was this merely intellectual; Mac Síomóin emphasises the congruity between colonialisms war on the native spirit, as well as the native soil. Destruction of the oak forests and the ‘vanquished ancestral universe’ is totally replaced in our minds. It is replaced with the ‘referential universe of the coloniser’, wherein our language and mystical bond with the ecology of the island are removed in one fell swoop:
“Public use of the Irish language was penalised, except where practical considerations made its complete elimination impossible; it was all but completely eliminated from administrative affairs at a time when the native Irish population knew no other language. Poets and popular entertainers were hunted down and their works and musical instruments, when discovered, were destroyed.” —Ibid.
This psychological capture can still be seen today, yet in even more pervasive, subtle ways. The soft-power of Anglo-American consumerism, such as the dissolution of the mind via brainrot and anti-cultural slop, is one of the biggest threats to the preservation or resurrection of Gaelic Ireland today. In an era of mass-AI, pre-programmed algorithms, and base societal degradation, never has the embrace of ár dteanga agus ár gcultúr dúchais been a more revolutionary act:
“How many Irish children, even Irish-speaking ones, know a tenth as much (to be hopelessly optimistic) about the Fianna and Red Branch heroes of traditional Gaelic mythology, Fionn Mac Cumhail and Cúchulain as they do about The Simpsons, Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob Squarepants, etc., and the world of Disney?…Ireland is not unique in this respect [in its susceptibility to] the global reach of neo-liberalism.” —Ibid.
5. An tAth. Tomás Ó Fiaich (1923-1990)
Main work: Seanchas Ard Mhacha (n/a)
“The question of the spiritual unity of Ireland is in an altogether different category. The fact is that the vast majority of people in Ireland still look upon themselves as 'Irish men' and 'Irish women' and see no contradiction between this framework of thought and acceptance of the political division of the country. The 'spiritual' unity of Ireland is seen as something which underlies the existing political divisions which has nothing to do with them.” —‘Primacy of the Irish Church’, p. 22.
Finally, there is easily the most famous of the list, Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich. While certainly not under-appreciated in his own time like most of the thinkers on the list (stemming from his role in the Church as well in the Hunger Strike negotiations), I still believe he is an essential inclusion. Unlike the other figures, who all have their own specicfic heretical area of divergence from modern Ireland (literary Gaelicism, nationalist historiography, anti-globalism, etc) — Ó Fiaich is the ultimate, authoritative voice of total dissent. He was at once an arch-Catholic, while also a Gaelgeoir, Nationalist, Republican, traditionalist, folklorist and defender of all that he saw as rooted in the local Irish soul — as well as a proponent of the re-evangelisation of Europe and the world.
As the former Archbishop of Armagh, and spiritual leader of Ireland, I believe Ó Fiaich was and still is the voice of the united Irish consciousness, of Gaelic ethnicism. He saw these ethnic linkages as deeply embedded in the folklore, placenames, and local history — particularly within his native Ard Mhacha:
an comhbhá nádúrtha le gaolta agus le comharsanaigh-agus uair ar bith dar bhuail na Tóraithe bob ar na Plandóirí nua, bhí sásamh éigin i gcroíthe Gael. Bhunaigh Réamon Ó hAnluain traidisiún na dTóraithe go láidir i nDeisceart Ard Mhacha agus mhair sé i ndiaidh a bháis…Faoin am sin ní raibh bóthar ar bith in Éirinn a ba bhaolaí, dar le turasóirí, ná 'Bealach mór na bhFeadh' idir Dún Dealgan agus Ard Mhacha.—‘Filíocht Uladh mar Fhoinse don Stair Shóisialta san 18ú hAois’, lth. 87.
“The natural sympathy for kin and neighbours — and whenever the Tories outmanoeuvred the new Planters, there was a certain satisfaction in Gaelic hearts. Réamon Ó hAnluain firmly established the Tory tradition in south Armagh, and it endured long after his death… By that time, according to travellers, there was no road in Ireland more dangerous than the ‘Great Road of the Fews’ between Dundalk and Armagh.”
He saw something auspicious in the splintering of his native county; as simultaneously part of the occupied ‘British’ state, while obviously the most intensly Irish (and Gaelic) of all counties; perhaps Catholics from Crois Mhic Lionnáin and other border towns are best positioned as prophets of a new Ireland. In a similar sense, he saw his Choláiste Naoimh Phádraig i Maigh Nuad as a metaphysically vital power-centre for a re-invigorated Gaelic Catholicism:
“O'Growney stood at the head of a new generation who spoke incessantly of the Irish leabhar and the Cullacht and the Sprid, who said the Coróin Mhuire nightly, put their names in Irish on the class-pieces and flocked to Croke Park, when they could, on All Ireland day. In unforeseen ways they turned the inherited college of a British colony into the national seminary-cum-university of a free Ireland…Let there be no mistake about it - St Patrick's College continues as Ireland's national seminary.” —‘The Maynooth Appeal’, p. 552.
Finally then, I think it bears quoting Ó Fiaich on ár noidhreacht Eorpach and the destiny of the Gael in shaping the future of European Catholic millennium. We saved civilisation once before, we can do it again, through our wisdom, conscience, and intellect:
D'fhéadfadh sé sinn a dheifriú chun cuid mhór d'ár n-oidhreacht a chaitheamh uainn, chun a bheith níos Eorpaí, mar dhea; nó d'fhéadfadh sé sinn a mhisniú chun lánseilbh a ghlacadh ar an oidhreacht Eorpach a bhí againn riamh anall. Níl lucht léinn na hEorpa dall ar an pháirt a bhí ag Éireannaigh i mbun aontacht na Mór-roinne cheana in aimsir Charlemagne. Má ligimid don pháirt den Eorpachas atá faoinár smacht féin bás a fháil, mura mbíonn ár saibhreas féin i gcúrsaí cultúrtha againn le bronnadh ar an Eoraip, ní Eire amháin a bheas thíos leis; beidh an Mhór-roinn go hiomlán níos boichte dá dheasca.—Léacht i mBaile Átha Cliath i mí na Samhna, 1988.
“It could hurry us into discarding much of our own heritage, to become more European, as it were; or it could embolden us to take full possession of the European heritage we have always held. Europe’s scholars are not blind to the role the Irish played in shaping the Continent’s unity long ago, in the age of Charlemagne. If we allow the portion of European identity under our stewardship to perish — if we fail to offer our own cultural wealth to Europe — it will not be Ireland alone that suffers; the entire Continent will be poorer for it.” —Lecture in Dublin, November 1988)
Conclusion
I wish to inspire our youth, upon reading this, to take it upon themselves to embrace and thank the great Irish intellectual voices who are still around today. We should all be sending letters, purchasing books directly and promoting the thought of Irish radicals and eccentrics — not cranks and quacks — who too dared to de-Anglicise their minds. Put another way: one must ask his or herself why does Fennell not have a Vicipéid page? Why is there no introductory resource to the work of Brendan Bradshaw on the internet (other than a yearly blurb by Gript)? Why has there not been a biography on Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich in 35 years since his death? It is simply because we have not taken it upon ourselves do it yet.