Product Description

Between the years of the mid thirties through to 1960, independent Ireland suffered from economic stagnation, and also went through a period of intense cultural and psychological repression. While external circumstances account for much of the stagnation - especially the depression of the thirties and the Second World War - Preventing the Future argues that the situation was aggravated by internal circumstances. The key domestic factor was the failure to extend higher and technical education and training to larger sections of the population. This derived from political stalemates in a small country which derived in turn from the power of the Catholic Church, the strength of the small-farm community, the ideological wish to preserve an older society and, later, gerontocratic tendencies in the political elites and in society as a whole. While economic growth did accelerate after 1960, the political stand-off over mass education resulted in large numbers of young people being denied preparation for life in the modern world and, arguably, denied Ireland a sufficient supply of trained labour and educated citizens. Ireland's Celtic Tiger of the nineties was in great part driven by a new and highly educated and technically trained workforce. The political stalemates of the forties and fifties delayed the initial, incomplete take-off until the sixties and resulted in the Tiger arriving nearly a generation later than it might have.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6879983 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 278 pages

About the Author
Tom Garvin is professor of Politics at University College Dublin. His books include The Evolution of Irish Nationalist Politics (1981), Nationalist Revolutionaries in Ireland (1987) and 1922: the Birth of Irish Democracy (1996). He is also the author of many articles and chapters on Irish and comparative politics. He is an alumnus of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington D.C., and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. He has taught at the University of Georgia, Colgate University and Mount Holyoke College.

Customer Reviews

How I stopped worrying and started to love Fianna Fail (II)


The first volume in this series is, famously, John Waters' "Jiving at the Crossroads" . In both cases, people who should know better praise the lunatic economic (Garvin) and socioeconomic (Waters) policies that drove Ireland into the ditch multiple times.

We should expect little better from Waters; however, Garvin is a respected historian. To read him inveigh against projects like Celtic studies while praising the neoliberalism of the past 15 years is disturbing. Practically every single economic thesis in this book has been revealed as absurd by the recent economic crash and its disproportionate effect on Ireland's sandcastle economy.

So what happened? I review this book at much greater length in my forthcoming "Ireland: A colony once again?". In the meantime, a little speculation; Garvin has found his senior University post in Dublin so unbearable under its new academic corporatist/neoliberal president that he moved to Boston. Is this book an attempt to explain to himself what went wrong with his career in its home straight?

Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 4u Meitheamh (san tSin 35 Bealtaine) 2009

Separation of Church & State
A lesson from history for any citizen thinking of the benefit of a 'value' based state or Rule by the `Righteous and Virtuous'.
If you were expecting an analysis of policies since 1922 - to 1992 (with 1987-Economic & Socially -1997 Disability Act as the turning points- the restart of the Irish Enlightenment) you would be sadly mistaken.
Instead the author presents us with his bitter, turgid view of sociology and part history/economics.
It contains many errors - in particular on the Gaelic language, transparent bias and is limited in depth. It focuses on recent and (almost forgotten) clerical domination of the state (Toland's 'tyranny of priestcraft').
A shame the author did not read writers (Irishmen - Toland, Hutchinson & O'Connor) who influenced Thomas Jefferson on the need to separate church and state.
Francis Hutchinson (buried in Dublin - off Henry st) was also tutor to Adam Smith in Glasgow University.
Sadly it does not provide us with the evolution from Protectionism, to Import Substitution to fully blown Market driven Entrepreneurial dynamism.

However there are some gems or nuggets hidden within the spleen of this bitter tract.
That would need to detail how a principle key to Ireland's success was Education, the role of Semi-state bodies, Social Partnership, Economic Stability and the European Union.
Education was switched to focus on developing Human Capital and skills. Semi-State enterprises were used to develop technical, managerial skills, core industries, strategic gaps to ensure full economic benefits were obtained
This helped develop a culture industrial discipline, hands on technical capacity and entrepreneurship in the in the young state.
A 'Social Partnership' was put in place in the 1980's, where all parties (Employers, Trade Unions, Voluntary bodies and State) could reach consensus to the primary objectives of policies being developed for the benefit of all rather that to particular sectional interests.
There is a passing reference to Mancur Olsons and his Nobel winning theses of the consequences of pandering to sectional interests.

STRATEGIC SOCIO-ECONOMIC GAPS:-
On St. Patricks day 1948, offices for Aer Linte (airlines) were due to open with set down rights to several US cities via 5 transatlantic airplanes (Lockheed Constellations obtained on generous terms from the USA).
However there was a change in government, which then sold them off to BOAC.Travel and transatlantic flights did not resume until 1958.
In 1958 the IEI (Inst of Engineers of Ireland) figures were a total of 2,000 engineers with 1400 employed by the state and local authorities. In 1996 there were 8,000 engineers with a population 25% larger, more than 400% increase.
Northern Ireland with a population half of the south spent double that of the Republic on education.
Infant mortality was 150% of the UK & 200% of the USA.
The ration of priest to population had gone from 1:1376 in 1871 to 1:558 in 1961. Even though the Catholic population had declined by 23% the number of priests had increased by 87%.
DeValera's vision of development would had have led to a similar Malthuasian nightmare as in Haiti and Rwanda (see Diamonds 'Collapse')



THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE:-
With the legalisation of the Catholic church in Ireland (1795) a Flemish Jansenist (Calvinist) interpretation of Catholicism was founded
At that time English was spoken mainly in Belfast, Dublin and Cork. Gaelic was the dominant language in the country.
Anglophile urban Catholics (Archbishop Troy) obtained an annual 8,000 grant (from England) and established Maynooth priest training in 1801 (Keogh & O'Cadhain-P19).
A sizable émigré clerical contingent of anti republicans (from France 1789) influenced both Maynooth and the Irish hierarchies campaigned against the United Irishmen (Keogh).
By the 1830's Catholic clerics controlled the National School system. By the 1851 census, OCadhain (page44) states that Gaelic was wiped out in all major towns, cities and large tracts of land, like chalk from a blackboard.
A cultural genocide still being orchestrated to this day in Latin America.


WAS IRELAND DEIST/UNITARIAN BEFORE St PATRICK:-
Pythagoras helped develop one of the first 'Knowledge Economies' (530BC), after journeys to Magi in Babylon & Brahmans of India.
An exchange of knowledge took place between the Celtic Druid Abaris (Isle of Skye) and Pythagoras in Athens (Toland & Himerius).
However it was Socrates (399BC) who was put to death, for questioning/corrupting the youth with questions as -
'How will a statue of ivory and gold save you & why believe so easily the things told to you by priests'.

After the Nicean Athanasian council(~335CE) Archbishop Arius, clerics and followers were `anathematised' & banished, you turn right and you get the Prophet Isa in Arabic & Islam (Eeysa in Persia).
Less than 3 songs on Iosa (Jesus) survive today in Gaelic from the Celtic Christian.
'Iosa', 'Isa' mirror Amheric (the official language of Ethiopia & the oldest Christian church in the world-see also Quinn below).
It is speculated that a form of Unitarian Christian worship existed before St. Patrick arrived (~433CE) and hence the symbolism of the Trinitarian Shamrock (Toland & Dr. Kennedy refer to over 300 books being burned in Ireland by St. Patrick).
After the split with Orthodox eastern church ~1054CE the Normans were given papal permission ('bull') to invade Ireland (1172CE) and bring the Celtic Christians under the yoke of Rome.
The purge of Celtic Christianity was achieved finally with the establishment of the Augustinians in Armagh in 1202. England (with the Germanic Saxons) had previously submitted to the Benedictine order based in Westminster.



THE CORRUPTION OF DEMOCRATIC RULE:
The author documents example of the contempt the Roman Hierarchy had for democratic rule, laws and citizens rights.
The knights of Columbanus and Opus Dei flouted the Official Secrets Act within the Civil Service acting as a parallel structure above the laws of the land.
Catholics were forbidden to attend Protestant services (even in the event of a funeral or a friend, neighbor or relative).
Sending a child to a non-Catholic school was punishable by excommunication. From 1944 (until his dismissal) Archibishiop McQuaid) forbid Catholics to enroll/attend Trinity College Dublin (TCD).
He even tried to prevent young women from emigrating to 'pagan England' by attempting to deny them passports (illegal under the law of the state).
Vaginal tampons were banned along with most sex education. He got teachers and civil servants dismissed from their jobs.
As the conflict with the newly educated youth and liberal sections of society escalated his 'spiritual terrorism' came to an end. Wahabi McQuaid was forcibly removed by the Vatican in 1972.
The government files of 1977 record exchanges between Rome's Archbishop Casaroli and taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald, who 'alerted' the Vatican that a United Ireland would NEED to be PLURALISTIC and that SOME review of the hierarchies attitude to church and state relations MIGHT be required.
This is a lesson of history true for the middle east and the USA in terms of the fundamentalist agenda and difficulty of removing them later after the mistake is recognised.




'Tone-inné agus inniu' by ÓCadhain [Coisceim&www.cic.ie - in Gaelic] ASIN:B0000COWNZ;
'History of the Druids by Toland 0766192849; Francis Hutchenson by Brown 1851826378;
Nature of the State of Ireland by Arthur O'Connor 1901866122;
Collapse by Jared Diamond 0143036556; 'The Atlantean Irish' by Quinn 1843510243;
The French Disease by Daire Keogh ISBN:1851821325;
The Arian Controversy, 318-381 by Hanson 080103146X;
Lost Christianities by Ehrman,ISBN0195182499;
An Tiomnadh Nuadh-(Bilingual)0901518271; Salm Vol.1 ASIN: B0002LUAFW;
Church Oraganisation in Ireland Ad650-1000 by Etchingham0953759806,; The Sources of Early History in Ireland by Kenny 1851821155,
Ireland and the Celtic Church by Stokes 0548204640;
Women in a Celtic Church by Harrington 0198208235, Archetypal Heresy:Arianism through the Centuries by Wiles 0199245916;
House of Wisdom by Lyons 0747594007;

Preventing the Future
I enjoyed this book until it became clear that blaming the Church for everything is not much different from blaming the English for our faults. I would have been more impressed by a listing of corrupt political doings than the boring newspaper accounts of priestly sins. I seems odd that politicians/gunmen who once defied the British Empire were cowed by parish priests. It is always tempting to bite the hand that fed one.