John Devoy

Golway, Terry. IRISH REBEL: John Devoy & America's Fight For Ireland's Freedom. St. Martin's Press 1998. 371p. ills. notes, bibliog. index. $26.95 ISBN 0-312-18118-3

This is a well-written, well-researched, and calm account of the life, and of the activities, of John Devoy (1842-1928). For 70 of his 86 years, Devoy was the best of the organizers of support among the Irish in America for the independence of Ireland; and the clearest of thinkers about it. Mr. Golway writes his way cool-headedly through a period about which it is difficult not to arouse strong feelings. He avoids the temptations to express opinions, or to digress into dilations historical and sociological and psychological which are the stuff of college seminars, but not of good biographies. Biography being the only true history, and good biographies rare, this book is an excellent addition to the few good accounts of that unhappy period.
John Devoy was born near Dublin into the middle of the battle for independence, just as the potato blight and the ensuing famine loomed. His father, William, had already started a family, a responsibility which took his attention and his energies. But there was undoubtedly that in him which served as a model for his son. John did not hesitate to attack physically his teachers when he found them to have acted unjustly. He had that mark of all worthwhile young men: the blind rage for justice. It was fed by the unjustice he saw all about him; it continued to be stoked during his long life by the continuing unjustice. It got him early into jail. ("Henry, why are you in jail?" asked Emerson of Thoreau. "Waldo, why are you not?" he replied, question for question).
Released from imprisonment, Devoy came to the U.S. to continue his battle. Mr. Golway's account of his life during these long years is excellent. For Devoy, the matter was a purely political matter. Give the Irish in Ireland their independence to allow them determine their own politics. He insisted on this. The Irish in America had become American; Irish American, but American. Devoy quickly spotted this development of our human interests and concerns. In our day, the various groups of descendants, if they have any gumption and respect for their forebears, show their concern for the land of their parents and ancestors. But their lives are here.

The finest of English 20th Century historians remarked that man has an equal passion for social order and for social justice: for law and for equity. Their conflict is our human lot. Order we all need. We can't be changing the traffic laws every other day, nor long do without breakfast every morning. Nor will we long survive without the equity of sharing. It is against our nature. For Devoy equity was the burning passion. But he came to recognize the need for order and organization lest the passion consume the man. He was not inspired, nor much moved, by theories of "Ancient Irish Glory", or made-up accounts of the doings of bearded Druids two millennia earlier. In simply describing Devoy's life and doings, and allowing his writings to speak for themselves, Mr. Golway ignores these academic Gaelicisms and the aesthetic fogs of the "Celtic Revival". And Mr. Golway stays away from considering the yet unrecorded role of the Church which had sustained the Irish through several crushing centuries. And which is now easily dismissed. As the fine Irish saying has it: "You've worked for me, mother, all your life; now it's time to work for yourself". Whether you like the clergy or not (and even the clergy doesn't like the clergy), there's a great debt there.
(He has still not brushed off a few patches from the college habit of weaving term papers: the stitched-together prose which is offered as "thought". Thus, he refers to Cardinal Cullen's "cool contempt" when the body of Terence McManus was paraded through Dublin. The phrase has a pretty sound to it. But who was the recorder? The cardinal (it was he who found the formulation of the dogma of infallibility) had to work in an unsettled situation: "The Irish" as a great historian observed "make good monks and nuns and soldiers; but socially they are as quarrelsome as dogs").
Devoy insisted that Americans were American; that they must work within the laws and the habits of this country. And it was, indeed, by doing so that the greatest effect was achieved. The English oligarchy had not yet recognized - perhaps it does not still - that the center of power had shifted irreversibly to a land with a wealth of natural resources, and the possibilities of their development, hitherto unknown to mankind. How well the inhabitants of that country, and their succeeding generations would cope with the richness was another matter. John Devoy's great contribution to the country of his birth was at the same time a great contribution to the country of his adoption. The latter must find its own way. But as it does this, it must not forget its obligations to its past. Nor, in gratitude for the riches which with the land is endowed, its obligations to justice in the world. Devoy's principle was simple enough: leave be the country - of Ireland or of the U.S. - to decide for itself how it would go.

It is the problem in Ireland today. Devoy was not happy with the 1921 settlement, but recognized it, from long experience with the smile of a Saxon, as the best that could be had. He continued against De Valera and De Valera's IRA rebellion. He was against forcing the six counties into union. Let a vote be taken; let it be an honest vote. Then accept the results. The history of the Irish on the ground has yet to be written. There's no interesting history in accounts of the doings of the comfortable. One rich man is pretty much like another, the servant of his wealth. How the Irish managed to hold out through centuries of persecution, of contempt (still unbridled) for their poverty, of disdain for the bravery of their women, and of hatred of their religion, is one of the wonders of our history. The story will only be written in the manner chosen by Mr. Golway: allow the man to speak for himself. John Devoy has much to tell us. He was honorable, and courageous in his persistence. Mr. Golway does not speculate nor opinionize on these matters. He has dug into the archives. He has read the newspapers and the real memoirs, ignoring the over-chewed cud of academic seminars. His writing gives hope yet that our literature will survive the swamps of tertiary education. A good subject has been well treated.