|
|
 |
You are > Home > The Fethard Enquiry
|
Thursday, March 04, 2010
The Fethard Enquiry
IT IS not with appetite that I review today a vital and necessary work on the infamous Fethard on Sea boycott.
It took place in 1957 so a reader would want to be at the very least 60 to remember it dimly and sixty five at least to remember the turmoil, the bitterness, religious, political, ethical.
Like a volcano, the hatreds following the Cromwellian lootings in 1650 spluttered and flamed from time to time and then progressed to major bloody warfare, evictions, riotous agitation and crowd protests in 1793, 1798, the 1880s, on and on, to 1957.
In 1957 a most unusual thing happened as all married people will understand (I don’t think). A furious row broke out between husband Sean Cloney, a decent Christian and his wife Sheila, another decent Christian, both strong and outstanding characters.
To a writer, CNN reporter or investigator from Outer Mongolia or the upper regions of an Amazon River tributary, who had no knowledge of Europe, let alone The Hook, the fallout or collateral damage from that dispute in a home would be mind-stultifying, amazing, explanation defying. That, of course, is a gross over simplification.
At the time of this pathetic public relations debacle for the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Free Presbyterian Church, the young Ian Paisley and his acolytes, Knights and Freemasons, there was a call for a national enquiry, judicial or otherwise.
It never happened, but such an enquiry would have required the services of objective and unconnected historians of the calibre of Professors Diarmaid Ferriter and Roy Foster, anthropologists, naval and military experts, Church historians such as Professor P.J. Corish and Canon Patrick Comerford of Christchurch, plus two specialist psychiatrists.
The question for such an enquiry would not have been about the row between husband and wife based on whether their golden child should for example go to the Brothers in The Boker, C.B.S., Wexford or to St. Iberius’ in Davitt Road, Wexford. It would have to be about the fall out, the ghastly local, national and international choreography that followed. Apart from the individuals who brought disgrace on themselves, their Churches, their own sectarian, racial cancers and politics, there were bigger questions.
The Origins
This was no ordinary row’s aftermath.
An impartial judicial enquiry would be hard put to decide whether the fanned prairie fire was, IN ORIGIN, of English-Irish ethnic hatred; of theological origins, post-Protestant reformation practice, the Cromwellian uprootings, scars, the replacement of the old Norman Redmond aristocrats by racist foreigners or, lest we forget, the vital strategic importance to British naval supremacy in the North Atlantic of Waterford Harbour; the viciousness of landlord or their agents on confiscated lands; or the rushes of boiling blood to the heads of the clergy and bishops.
Above all, new younger readers must remember that year. It was 1957.
It was a totally different world. Pope John the Twenty Third had not yet been elected to heal religious bitterness.
There were anti-partition campaigns, armed raids across the six-county border with nationalist, unionist, religious and political herrenvolk bigotry thriving.
Remember also that the Hook peninsula was a special case, unlike say, Shelmalier.
Tim Fanning, the author of the book under review, son of Professor Ronan Fanning, Modern History U.C.D., has had a privileged training in producing this work, ‘The FethardonSea Boycott’.
He, his father and family spent their annual summer holidays in one half of Dungulph Castle, with Sean and Sheila Cloney and the Cloney children in the other.
The beautiful place and its gorgeous environment, bays, coast, village, abbeys and churches was their playground.
They knew everybody.
Idyllic is the word. No sense of anything untoward interfered with the summer aromas.
One would have wished fervently to have been present at the Cloney Fanning chats over the fire.
One night, apropos nothing in particular, the professor of modern history queried of Sean, “Have you any idea who was the man down here involved in that boycott nonsense?” “I do,” the resident scion of the Cloney replied, “It was me.”
Fanning’s Fethard boycott
I plucked my way through Tim Fanning’s introduction and first chapter. It was clear that I was in a minefield and there were some factors and nuances which I would not have written, or written differently.
I am not going to comment further beyond saying that young Fanning’s research and sources have turned up matters I never heard of along with sensational quotes from that stern Norman prelate, Staunton.
There were places where new material quoted here would have raised hair on the heads of all 2010 Irish readers.
One could draw up a list of the fools who bullishly created a mega disaster in Christian promotion and relations.
One of them a byword in arrogance, Bishop Browne of Galway, threw petrol on the flames before a packed congregation in Rowe Street Church defending and promoting boycott as ‘an expression of Faith’.
I was there listening. His adviser, a distinguished barrister, Patrick Kilroy (later a director of Philip Pierces, Wexford) saw his script before the ceremony and strongly disagreed with him. “It must not be said.”
It was useless to remonstrate. Galway went right ahead promoting a local affair boycott which was none of his business whatsoever.
It ended up in Dáil Éireann with a strident rebuke from the Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera. Paddy Kilroy, a highly-valued national consultant, resigned immediately.
There will be more to be said. Here and there there are pockets of omissions but Tim Fanning has made a massive job of hoovering in dark and bright corners.
Until a better comes along, this is the definitive work. His research successor, he or she, will have to stand on Fanning’s shoulders.
The Fethard-on-Sea Boycott by Tim Fanning (Collins Press, Dublin) paperback, illustrated, 234 pages with sources and index. Price €14.99.
Main News Page
Previous Page
|
|
|
|
