-
Subject Index A-B
-
Subject Index C-F
-
Subject Index G-K
-
Subject Index L-O
-
Subject Index P-Z
Email: info@searcs-web.com
Searc's Web Guide to 20th Century Ireland - Aodh de Blácam (1890-1951)
|
|
Email: info@searcs-web.com Searc's Web Guide to 20th Century Ireland - Aodh de Blácam (1890-1951) |
|
Aodh de Blácam was born in London of Irish parents. In 1915 he moved to Ireland and became
a journalist with the Enniscorthy Echo. In 1919 he published Towards the Republic and was
arrested by the Black and Tans but released soon afterwards. In 1921 de Blácam published
What Sinn Féin Stands For. He supported the Republicans during the Civil War and was
interned by the Free State in 1922.
In 1924 he became a staff journalist with The Irish Times and wrote a popular column
for The Irish Press under the pseudonym 'Roddy the Rover'. In 1929 de Blácam published
The Story
of Colmcille and Gaelic Literature Surveyed, the latter of which was the standard
introduction to the subject for many decades. De Blácam also published The Life of Wolfe
Tone (1935); The Black North (1938) and a three act play about
Joseph Plunkett entitled
Golden Priest (1943).
In 1947 de Blácam was elected to the National Executive of the Fianna Fáil party but he
resigned
to joined Clan na Poblachta founded by
Sean MacBride. In 1948 De Blácam stood as a
Clan na Poblactha candidate in County Louth but was not elected. This extract is from de Blácam's article 'Nationality in Economics', first published in
Irish Monthly Vol. XLVI, October, 1918.©
One of the first problems usually dealt with in text-books of economics and sociology, is the 'definition of a nation', and this is a problem the solution to which Ireland might be expected, from her peculiar history, to render some valuable contribution. When a writer attempts an historical generalization, the degree of his success is conditioned by the breadth of the experience from which he draws his premises, and the Irish people, who live with the problems of nationality continually before them - who have debated the national concept in every aspect, economic, cultural, historical, political - have surely a wider experience from which to define nationality than have the citizens of more triumphant states... Is it too fantastical a proposal to suggest that the phenomenon of nationality rises from the need of the intellect for a definite field of satisfaction such as the soul finds in the church, the social instincts in the family, and the bodily necessities in the state? Without the church, man cannot possess that knowledge or employment of the spiritual for which his nature yearns. Without the state; that is without the division of labour set up by organised economic life, he cannot rise above the grossest conditions of material existence. Without the family the child cannot be given due education and protection, nor can the adults enjoy the comforts of companionship and domestic life. And as the family co-operates for the comfort of its members, the state for the material uplifting and defence of its constituents, and the church for the spiritual progress of its communion, so, according, to the opinion which we propound, the Nation exists to co-operate for the mental enrichment and assistance of the individual. For such a definition of nationality there would seem to be some actual psychological justification. Thought is considered by some to be impossible without the institution of language; and it is at least undeniable that without language intellectual expansion is impossible. But language cannot exist without a plurality of minds; it requires a community... Granted the necessity of a community to the intellectual life of the individual, nationality will be completely defined when the need for a plurality of such communities is demonstrated. Now the nation is supported by the individual. But the individual cannot support a world. 'To act on a world is for those above it, not of it.' said Thomas Davis, summarising his case against cosmopolitanism. Were the world suddenly forced to adopt a single language the limitations of individuals would shortly frustrate this apparent abolition of nationality... Where Irish compatriots can entertain one another with an intellectual banquet of racy allusions and warm memories, the internationalist would need to discourse on first principles as dull as geometric theorems. The nation stands between the individual and humanity, therefore, in order to give depth and intensity to his mental life. For the maximum enjoyment of the individual, and the maximum benefit to the world, this division of humanity into concentrative bodies would appear to be vitally necessary. 'Cultivons notre jardin' [cultivate our garden] is as fitting a motto for the nationalist cause. The limits of a true nation are marked by the range of the individual's familiar thought. Where a family cuts itself from mental communication with outsiders, its intellectual life grows illiberal, stale, philistine. Where, on the other hand, a nation seeks to forget its intensive life and allows a foreign press, with foreign allusions, to provide its mental food, there is a homelessness, a loose inefficiency in its mental processes; art and sincere original thought dry up... Irish nationality in the past appears to have been based on this conception. While the political unit which protected the individual's economic needs was a local stateship; the unity of Ireland was always regarded as a unity of cultural interests. The national intellectual life, expressing its richness in the elaboration of the national tongue was the bond of union between the many races that dwelt between the three waves. This sweetly liberal conception gave the nation a more powerful engine of absorption and resiliency than any harsh political dogma could have offered. Therefore continuity of language is necessary to the full development of national life. The people that changes its language looses its continuity of thought and communion with the mental work of its dead, for if our conception be just, the language is the deposit of all national achievement: the memory which is essential to effective thought. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008 |
|
|