Synopses & Reviews
Remembering the Year of the French is a model of historical achievement, moving deftly between the study of historical events—the failed French invasion of the West of Ireland in 1798—and folkloric representationsof those events. Delving into the folk history found in Ireland’s rich oral traditions, Guy Beiner reveals alternate visions of the Irish past and brings into focus the vernacular histories, folk commemorative practices, and negotiations of memory that have gone largely unnoticed by historians.
Beiner analyzes hundreds of hitherto unstudied historical, literary, and ethnographic sources. Though his focus is on 1798, his work is also a comprehensive study of Irish folk history and grass-roots social memory in Ireland. Investigating how communities in the West of Ireland remembered, well into the mid-twentieth century, an episode in the late eighteenth century, this is a “history from below” that gives serious attention to the perspectives of those who have been previously ignored or discounted. Beiner brilliantly captures the stories, ceremonies, and other popular traditions through which local communities narrated, remembered, and commemorated the past. Demonstrating the unique value of folklore as a historical source, Remembering the Year of the French offers a fresh perspective on collective memory and modern Irish history.
Winner, Wayland Hand Competition for outstanding publication in folklore and history, American Folklore Society
Finalist, award for the best book published about or growing out of public history, National Council on Public History
Winner, Michaelis-Jena Ratcliff Prize for the best study of folklore or folk life in Great Britain and Ireland
“An important and beautifully produced work. Guy Beiner here shows himself to be a historian of unusual talent.”—Marianne Elliott, Times Literary Supplement
“Thoroughly researched and scholarly. . . . Beiner’s work is full of empathy and sympathy for the human remains, memorials, and commemorations of past lives and the multiple ways in which they actually continue to live.”—Stiofán Ó Cadhla, Journal of British Studies
“A major contribution to Irish historiography.”—Maureen Murphy, Irish Literary Supplement
"A remarkable piece of scholarship . . . . Accessible, full of intriguing detail, and eminently teachable.”?—Ray Casman, New Hibernia Review
“The most important monograph on Irish history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to be published in recent years.”—Matthew Kelly, English Historical Review
“A strikingly ambitious work . . . . Elegantly constructed, lucidly written and inspired, and displaying an inexhaustible capacity for research”—Ciarán Brady, History IRELAND
“A closely argued, meticulously detailed and rich analysis . . . . providing such innovative treatment of a wide array of sources, his work will resonate with the concerns of many cultural and historical geographers working on social memory in quite different geographical settings and historical contexts.”—Yvonne Whelan, Journal of Historical Geography
Review
"A brilliant and original contribution not only to Irish history, reconstructing the view from below, but also to the study of social memory.”Peter Burke, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge
Review
"A painstaking and pathbreaking study. . . . Through the lens of 1798 in the West of Ireland, it focuses on the dynamic interface between vernacular and official versions of history."—Kevin Whelan, Keough–Notre Dame Center, Dublin
Review
andldquo;Gibney provides exactly the over-arching examination of the andlsquo;history warsandrsquo; that we have been waiting for and, in the context of the Northern Ireland Peace Process and the recent mass digitization of the 1641 loyalist depositions, it is exceptionally timely.andrdquo;andmdash;David Dickson, Trinity College Dublin
Review
andldquo;This is the best account to date of how continuing English-language disputations concerning the nature of the insurrection that occurred in Ireland in 1641 influenced present politics for three centuries, in three countries and in two continents. Scholars in the U.S. will benefit especially from John Gibney's discussion of how the subject was re-opened in a new environment by Matthew Carey, who was responding in part to the inclusion of the extreme Protestant interpretation of the subject in the Amerian editions of Foxeandrsquo;s Book of Martyrsandrdquo;andmdash;Nicholas Canny, National University of Ireland, Galway
Review
andldquo;Gibneyandrsquo;s work is deeply researched, well documented, and extremely well written.and#160; It will be a valuable resource for lay readers, scholars, and students. Highly recommended.andrdquo;andmdash;
Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
Synopsis
From Rebellion to Riots is a critical analysis of the roots of contemporary violence in one of Indonesia s most ethnically heterogeneous provinces, West Kalimantan. Since the late 1960s, this province has suffered periodic outbreaks of ethnic violence among its Dayak, Malay, Madurese, and ethnic Chinese populations. Citing evidence from his research, internal military documents, and ethnographic accounts, Jamie S. Davidson refutes popular explanations for these flare-ups. The recurrent violence has less to do with a clash of cultures, the ills of New Order-led development, or indigenous marginalization than with the ongoing politicization of ethnic and indigenous identity in the region. Looking at key historical moments, markedly different in their particulars, Davidson reveals the important links between ethnic violence and subnational politics. In one case, army officers in Soeharto s recently established New Order regime encouraged anti-Chinese sentiments. To move against communist-inspired rebellion, they recruited indigenous Dayaks to expunge tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese from interior towns and villages. This counter-insurgent bloodshed inadvertently initiated a series of clashes between Dayaks and Madurese, another migrant community. Driven by an indigenous empowerment movement and efforts by local elites to control benefits provided by decentralization and democratization, these low-intensity riots rose to immense proportions in the late 1990s. From Rebellion to Riots demonstrates that the endemic violence in this vast region is not the inevitable outcome of its ethnic diversity, and reveals that the initial impetus for collective bloodshed is not necessarily the same as the forces that sustain it.
A comprehensive case study . . . . Essential reading for students of the West Kalimantan violence. Dave McRae, Indonesia"
Synopsis
Remembering the Year of the French is a model of historical achievement, moving deftly between the study of historical events—the failed French invasion of the West of Ireland in 1798—and folkloric representations of those events. Delving into the folk history found in Ireland’s archives and rich oral traditions, Guy Beiner reveals alternate visions of the Irish past and brings into focus the vernacular histories, folk commemorative practices, and negotiations of memory that had gone largely unnoticed by historians. Though his focus is 1798, his work is also a comprehensive study of Irish folk history and of grassroots social memory.
“Guy Beiner here shows himself to be a historian of unusual talent.”—Marianne Elliott, Times Literary Supplement
“Accessible, full of intriguing detail, and eminently teachable. . . . Superb, painstaking scholarship that makes lasting contributions to Irish studies and to cultural and historical studies writ large.”—Ray Cashman, New Hibernia Review
“A brilliant and original contribution not only to Irish history . . . but also to the study of social memory.”—Peter Burke, University of Cambridge
Synopsis
Remembering the Year of the French is a model of historical achievement, moving deftly between the study of historical eventsthe failed French invasion of the West of Ireland in 1798and folkloric representationsof those events. Delving into the folk history found in Irelands rich oral traditions, Guy Beiner reveals alternate visions of the Irish past and brings into focus the vernacular histories, folk commemorative practices, and negotiations of memory that have gone largely unnoticed by historians.
Synopsis
In October 1641 a rebellion broke out in Ireland. Dispossessed Irish Catholics rose up against British Protestant settlers whom they held responsible for their plight. This uprising, the first significant sectarian rebellion in Irish history, gave rise to a decade of war that would culminate in the brutal re-conquest of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell. It also set in motion one of the most enduring and acrimonious debates in Irish history.
and#160;and#160; and#160;Was the 1641 rebellion a justified response to dispossession and repression? Or was it an unprovoked attempt at sectarian genocide? John Gibney comprehensively examines three centuries of this debate. The struggle to establish and interpret the facts of the past was also a struggle over the present: if Protestants had been slaughtered by vicious Catholics, this provided an ideal justification for maintaining Protestant privilege. If, on the other hand, Protestant propaganda had inflated a few deaths into a vast and brutal andldquo;massacre,andrdquo; this justification was groundless.
and#160;and#160; and#160;Gibney shows how politicians, historians, and polemicists have represented (and misrepresented) 1641 over the centuries, making a sectarian understanding of Irish history the dominant paradigm in the consciousness of the Irish Protestant and Catholic communities alike.
About the Author
John Gibney earned his doctorate in history at Trinity College Dublin and is author of Ireland and the Popish Plot. A guide for the popular Historical Walking Tours of Dublin offered by Historical Insights Ireland, he is a frequent contributor to History Ireland magazine and scholarly journals. He has been a research fellow at the University of Notre Dame and the National University of Ireland, Galway.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Phonetic Note
Introduction---Recycling the Dustbin of History
To Speak of Ninety-Eight
Part 1---Collecting Memory
1. Oral History and Social Memory
2. Irish Folklore Collections
3. Richard Hayes and Thee Last Invasion of Ireland
4. Ancillary Folk History Sources
Part 2---Folk History
5. History-Telling
6. Practitioners of Folk History
7. Time and Calendar
Part 3---Democratic History
8. Who Were the Men of the West?
9. Multiple Heroes in Folk Historiographies
10. Who Were the Women of the West?
Part 4---Commemorating History
11. Spheres and Mediums of Remembrance
12. Topographies of Folk Commemoration
13. Souvenirs
14. Ceremonies, Monuments, and Negotiations of Memory
15. Mediations of Remembrance
16. Memory and Oblivion
Conclusion---Alternative History
Archaeologies of Social Memory
Epilogue---Commemorative Heritage
Remembrance in the Late Twentieth Century
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index