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Global in his thought

by
17 August 2012

Caroline Bowder enjoys the life of an Irish intellectual

COURTESY OF THE HUBERT BUTLER LITERARY ESTATE

Independent: Hubert Butler at maidenhall, Co. Kilkenny, 1987

Independent: Hubert Butler at maidenhall, Co. Kilkenny, 1987

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.

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