In the Irish Times, Micheál Martin reviews a biography of his predecessor Eamon de Valera --
While Ireland plays only a small role in his research, Gerwarth’s work is a clarion call to Irish historians to understand how many factors we look at as particularly Irish are actually representative of much wider forces.
The final, and surprising, concern with McCullagh’s valuable book is that it fails to convince on why so many chose to support de Valera and his parties. It is impossible to understand de Valera without accepting that he was incredibly successful in persuading people who had previously opposed him, and who were exposed to substantial propaganda directed against him, to switch their support to him. A simple illustration of this is that in 1923, the republican side, led by de Valera, received 280,000 votes and nine years later Fianna Fáil, led by de Valera, received 560,000 votes. This was achieved with zero access to patronage and in the face of the aggressive hostility of the majority of the media.
Notice what Martin does here. He goes straight from arguing that events in the Irish independence era need to be seen in a European context, while Fianna Fail's election success in 1932 needs to be seen as a uniquely De Valera achievement.
And what was that mysterious event that caused the FF vote to surge between 1922 (and 1927) and 1932? A little global disturbance called "The Great Depression." Look at FF's election literature from 1932. Dev had a newspaper (the Irish Press, established with his American money) and an economic crash. It would have been difficult not to get elected.
While Ireland plays only a small role in his research, Gerwarth’s work is a clarion call to Irish historians to understand how many factors we look at as particularly Irish are actually representative of much wider forces.
The final, and surprising, concern with McCullagh’s valuable book is that it fails to convince on why so many chose to support de Valera and his parties. It is impossible to understand de Valera without accepting that he was incredibly successful in persuading people who had previously opposed him, and who were exposed to substantial propaganda directed against him, to switch their support to him. A simple illustration of this is that in 1923, the republican side, led by de Valera, received 280,000 votes and nine years later Fianna Fáil, led by de Valera, received 560,000 votes. This was achieved with zero access to patronage and in the face of the aggressive hostility of the majority of the media.
Notice what Martin does here. He goes straight from arguing that events in the Irish independence era need to be seen in a European context, while Fianna Fail's election success in 1932 needs to be seen as a uniquely De Valera achievement.
And what was that mysterious event that caused the FF vote to surge between 1922 (and 1927) and 1932? A little global disturbance called "The Great Depression." Look at FF's election literature from 1932. Dev had a newspaper (the Irish Press, established with his American money) and an economic crash. It would have been difficult not to get elected.
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