Clair Wills

As an event, the Second World War was impossible to escape. Though many countries sought to distance themselves from the fighting, nearly all were affected to one degree or another by the global conflagration. One of those was Eire, the nation that had only recently wrested itself from the British empire but now found itself facing the conflict by its proximity to Great Britain. Though the politics and the policies of Ireland during the war have been the subject of numerous books, Clair Wills has written something different, a “cultural history” which examines the impact of the “Emergency” (the name the Irish government gave to the situation) upon Irish life.

Wills begins by setting the scene with a portrait of Ireland in the 1930s. With it, she underscores just how rural and primitive much of Ireland was, and the growing contrast between the “traditional” Ireland of poor farms and the “modern” Ireland of towns and cities. It was in this context that Ireland was grappling with modernity on its own terms, with much of the resistance dictated by the influence of the Catholic church and attitudes of its adherents. Ireland was also only just beginning to emerge from the shadow of British rule, developing its own identity as a nation and dealing with such legacies as the remnants of the Irish Republican Army.

All of this underscores just how unprepared Ireland was to deal with the emerging war on the European continent. Wills reminds readers that Ireland’s stance was no different from that of other small European countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark, none of whom had the resources (let alone the desire) to be drawn into a large-scale conflict. Yet unlike these other countries, Ireland enjoyed the luxury of geography afforded them as an island nation and the indirect protection of British arms. Such protection could not shield them completely from the war, however. Bodies of sailors from sunken ships washed up along the southern coast, the result of fighting in the Atlantic which curtailed Ireland’s trade with the outside world and forced the rationing of numerous commodities. Propaganda filled the airwaves, as both sides sought to nudge Ireland to their side, counteracting the government’s strenuous effort for “balance” that belied any moral judgment of the conflict.

Throughout this account, Wills uses the lives and stories of writers to shine a light on how individuals reacted to the conflict. What emerges is a country in the conflict but not of it, a haven for many people (including soldiers who would head south from wartime Northern Ireland for relaxation without the fear of the nightly blitz) and a land encased in a cocoon of denial to others. She also looks at the motivations of the thousands of Irishmen and Irishwomen who crossed over to join the conflict, and the concerns of the thousands who were caught up in it against their will. While somewhat repetitive in the later chapters, Wills describes all of this with great insight into the effects of the Emergency upon both the Irish people and their efforts to define themselves as a new nation in the world, making it a book well worth reading.… (més)

Much as the Alamo does for Texas, the neo-classical General Post Office in Dublin serves today as a symbol of a people’s struggle for independence. On Easter Monday, 1916, the building was among those seized by a band of armed men, who then proclaimed the creation of an Irish republic in front of its stone columns and turned it into a headquarters for the subsequent battle against government forces. Though gutted in the fighting, the GPO was rebuilt, and in the years that followed the building became the backdrop for commemorations of the struggle for Irish independence. The GPO and its role in memorializing the Rising is the subject of Clair Wills’ short study, which explains how the building came to assume such a central role in the Irish national consciousness.

Wills begins by recounting the role of the GPO in the Easter Rising. She explains the importance of the building to the people of the time, noting that the pervasive presence of the Post Office throughout Ireland and the imposing grandeur of the building itself contributed to its attractiveness as a target for the rebels. She goes on to recount the key events of the Rising that took place inside; though she fits them within the context of events as they developed, she keeps her focus here squarely on the GPO and the surrounding streets, ignoring the details of events at such places as Boland’s Mill and Jacob’s Biscuit Factory. With the end of the Rising Wills moves on to describe its immediate aftermath, noting that the event was quickly relegated to the background for most people giving the ongoing drama of the First World War. Yet artists and writers were already beginning the process of memorializing the Rising, and their paintings and poems contributed to the establishment of the role of the building as the stage for the central drama of the event.

Recognizing its growing symbolism, the authorities went to considerable lengths to prevent the building from being used as a stage for demonstrations against British rule during the War of Independence. But with independence the GPO became the scene of struggle once more – only this time it became part of the larger political struggle over the meaning of independence. By the 1930s, the GPO began to play a new role as well, as it served as a symbol to remind the post-independence generation of the sacrifices made. This usage reached a peak with the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 1966, after which the parades and rhetoric were downplayed so as to avoid efforts by Sinn Fein to associate the Rising with the ongoing Troubles in Northern Ireland. Wills concludes by describing the ongoing importance of the GPO to Irish identity today, one evident by the plans to remodel the site in preparation for the centennial of the Rising in 2016.

Wills’s book provides a thoughtful examination of the GPO and its role as a symbol of Irish history. Her abilities as a literary scholar are on fine display, as she analyzes the works that are part of this process with insight and clarity. Her success in this regard makes her book a valuable study not just of the GPO or of the memorialization of the Rising, but of the construction of historical symbols and the role that they play in the development of national identity, one that can be read for pleasure as well as enlightenment.… (més)