Robert Scally's book is the product of detailed research into the wiping out of the Irish village or "townland" of Ballykilcline in County Roscommon around the time of the great famine of the mid 19th century in Ireland and the forced emigration of its people to the Liverpool area of Lancashire and to the United States and Canada.
The book starts with a description of the British imposed land ownership system in Ireland at the time, the landlords' financial difficulties which led to their desire to clear the land of their troublesome tenants by assisting them on their way, made easier by the famine.
But the book presents an incomplete picture because of Scally's failure to consider context and history.
Even the title is misleading. "Hidden Ireland", presumably meaning the remnant of the Gaelic culture which still stubbornly remained in the culture and language of the townland people and particularly in their attitude about use and ownership of land, had been receding in defeat for many years. Starting in 1607 with the defeat of the great northern leaders, O'Neill and O'Donnell and the "Flight of the Earls", the slow removal of native Irish leaders and the seizure of land by the colonizers, the Penal Laws of 1695 effectively proscribing the Catholic religion, and the Act of Union in 1800 after the United Irishman rebellion of 1798 were all aimed at destroying the Gaelic, Catholic, Irish nation. In fact they were never completely successful, and certainly the effort did not end with the leveling of Ballykilcline although it was a part of a low point for the Irish nation.
The Irish people were never fully subjugated; nor were the peasants the docile, cultureless ignoramuses painted by Scally, poor though they may have been. It was these very peasant people who supported Daniel O'Connell, the Catholic "Liberator" in his mass rallies in 1823, the more radical Fenians in 1860, Michael Davitt's National Land League in 1879 and the Sinn Fein movement founded in 1905 which finally won victory in elections for the Irish Dail and ultimately Ireland's freedom from Britain. "Hidden Ireland" has in many ways never disappeared and has emerged in our times, wounded but victorious, perhaps in a slightly different form.
History is an unfolding tapestry, not a snapshot of a limited period. It is this which gives Scally's dismal portrait its dark and false color. If one does not understand the traditional Irish view of land ownership and cooperative use and its conflict with the English "metes and bounds" system which the conquerors saw as normal one cannot understand the views of the townland people. The old Gaelic and Brehon legal system of course did give way in our times. Another example of Scally's puzzlement is that he doesn't seem to realize that the Irish people saw the National School system brought by the English, in spite of its advanced, modern benefits, as part of the English plan to destroy their national culture and language and for that reason it was never fully accepted.
The famine, the overwhelming catastrophe which struck the Irish people at the time of this narrative appears in the book only as backgound even though Scally's excellent footnotes tell that he was well aware of the facts and the impact of British laissez faire economic policies on the victims. He seems more interested in legal pleadings about unpaid rents.
And his attitude toward the local Catholic clergy approaches downright ignorant hostility. As virtually the only educated people in the Irish community when they defended their people against perceived injustices he joins the English Protestant view of them as hot-headed trouble makers, a description not supportd by their actual words quoted in the book.
The latter parts of the book about conditions in the Liverpool area are the best part in my view. There is less about the immigrants to the United States which is surprising and more could have been said about Canada where the many Canadians showed great compassion for the suffering of the famine immigrants at Grosse Isle.
I regret to have dwelt on what I see as the defects in this otherwise excellent book but I feel that it's lack of historical context presents an incomplete picture. I recommend it for its general subject matter however.
ISBN-13:
978-0195106596
ISBN-10:
0195106598
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