The Irish: A Photohistory

Citation

Byers, M. (2003), "The Irish: A Photohistory", Library Review, Vol. 52 No. 9, pp. 465-466. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530310501545

Previous experience has shown that only a very small number of the books in this genre which boldly assert their qualification as pictorial histories, ever come close to living up to these aspirations. The vast majority of “photohistories” have come unstuck because of their inability to produce a successful symmetry between the “history” in question and the photographs employed as aids to enlightenment of the history. All too often the balance is skewed in favour of either an interesting (but ultimately dry) retelling of the history in question, with lengthy and detailed textual content that provides insufficient (or even worse inappropriate) use of pictorial evidence. The opposite is also true, many “photohistories” have been little more than albums of associated historical photographs, lacking informative contextual commentary that all too often leaves the reader with only a basic understanding of the story behind the images.

The successful examples within the photohistory genre achieve something that is greater than the sum of their intellectual and pictorial parts. These examples, the foremost of which is Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns The Civil War: An Illustrated History (Ward et al., 1991), achieve a kind of contextual symmetry, in which the intellectual content informs the visual and more importantly, the visual content informs and illuminates the intellectual. This book by photographic historian Sean Sexton and Irish academic Christine Kinealy has these rare qualities in abundance. Kinealy's narrative is scholarly and authoritative and given the obvious constraints on the degree and depth of analysis that can be provided in a book in which the focus is on the presentation of historical photographs, the reader is provided throughout with a detailed and balanced historical examination of the events which shaped Ireland's past. Never at any point during the reading of this book did it feel like Kinealy's appraisal of Irish history was just mere textual appendage to Sexton's choice of photographs and remarkably for a book that documents the turbulent history of Ireland between the years 1840 and 1940, Kinealy's narrative is largely devoid of sentimentality and posturing.

The book itself is divided into four sections, the first of which documents the fortunes of the Anglo‐Irish gentry whose ownership and control of the land afforded them wealth and status and almost complete economic and political control of the country until the first decades of the twentieth century. Sexton's choice of photographs that complement this section ably assist the reader in understanding something of the confidence and self‐assurance of this elite social group in addition to capturing something of the arrogance which was to lead their downfall. The second chapter documents the poverty and struggle of the rural Irish from the “Great Hunger” in 1840 through to the 1920s and 1930s when the positive effects of thirty years of land redistribution policies were beginning to show real economic benefits for those Irish who farmed the land. It is the photographs in this section, taken in the fields and villages of rural Ireland, that prove the most captivating and haunting of the entire book. The stark contrast between the embattled faces of the rural peasantry and the haughty stances of their economic masters in chapter two is unambiguous and helps to convey to the reader a sense of the poverty, distress and hardship suffered by the rural Irish in a way which can only be alluded to by words alone.

The focus in chapter three is on the Irish struggle for nationhood from the Home Rule debate in the late nineteenth century through to the Easter Uprising of 1916 and the Irish Civil war of 1922‐1923. The book deals with the history of this period in an exact manner affording parity to the history of all sides involved in the violent struggles for political control of Ireland in this period. Significant events are recorded and key details provided but one still feels somehow historically undernourished by the lack of detail and significant historical analysis in this chapter. That said it has to be recognised that an impressionistic retelling of history is sometimes difficult to avoid in books of this genre and for those who demand a more detailed and analytical interpretation of Irish history there are other books more suited to satisfying their intellectual curiosity. Sexton's choice of photographs in this chapter, as with all good photographic collections of conflict, capture the many and varied faces of war. The photographs convey not only a sense of the violence, destruction and despair of the troubles in Ireland but they also show something of the pride, innocence and ordinariness of the men, on all sides, who fought and died during these years.

The final chapter deals with Ireland's drive towards modernity and highlights the important role the railways, textiles and shipbuilding occupied in the economy of Ireland in this period. The photographs that accompany this section are simple and uncomplicated. Many are reminiscent of nineteenth‐century picture postcard images. However this is not a fault because therein lies their beauty ‐ these photographs portray the ordinary men and women of Ireland at work, play and in worship, and vividly capture a forgotten era of industry and activity away from the political ills of this period.

In total, this book is an excellent work of history, subdued in parts but concisely written by an author with a genuine passion for the history of Ireland. The photo‐historian Sean Sexton also displays this passion in abundance. This is apparent by his ability to choose photographs that not only complement but also manage to enhance this assessment of Irish history and I strongly suspect that even the most battle‐hardened students of Irish history will find this book a wonderful reading experience.