The Minority Voice: Hubert Butler and Southern Irish
Protestantism, 1900-1991
Robert Tobin
OUP £65
(978-0-19-964156-7)
Church Times Bookshop £58.50 (Use code
CT241 - free postage on UK online orders during August)
THE part played by the Protestant minority in Southern Ireland
has often been challenged by the Roman Catholic majority. But the
so-called Anglo-Irish were, as Yeats described them, "no petty
people"; and Hubert Butler was one of their most distinguished
members.
Rooted in the Irish countryside but widely travelled and
international in outlook, he was an intellectual, a linguist, and
an essayist of fierce independence. "The challenge", he wrote, "is
to be parochial in your emotions but global in your thought."
In his outspoken criticisms of Church and State, he was often
attacked by all sides, but was deeply committed to Ireland's
development as a nation. And, when others of his class left Ireland
at its independence, he stayed put, to help to establish
co-operatives, libraries, Kilkenny's archaeological society, and
forums for debate.
He challenged Ireland to break free from clerical interference.
He criticised Ireland's neutrality during the Second World War, and
helped a group of Jews to travel to Ireland before it became
impossible. He revealed the inexcusable collusion of the RC Church
in Nazi atrocities in Croatia - and was denounced for it by the
Irish RC Church in the famous "Papal Nuncio Incident" in 1952. But
finally, at Butler's centenary gathering in 2000, the Mayor of
Kilkenny acknowledged that he had been right, and offered an
apology for his mistreatment.
Robert Tobin's study of Butler is masterly. With an
Irish-sounding name, and an expert interest in the complexities of
Irish society, Tobin is, in fact, an American, currently Chaplain
of Oriel College, Oxford. He brings Butler's friends and
contemporaries wonderfully to life: Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, Sean
O'Faolain, Eoin "The Pope" O'Mahony - these were iconic Irish
intellectuals, legends in their time. Tobin mixes familiarity with
objectivity, scrupulous scholarship, and a gossip's curiosity. He
tracks Butler's life and wide-ranging writings (mainly essays and
articles, a book on the iconic/mythic origin of saints, and
translations from the Russian).
With copious footnotes and 60 pages of appendices,
bibliographies, and index, The Minority Voice is dense and
rewarding reading.