BOOK REVIEW | 2016: A New Proclamation for a New Generation, by Gerard O’Neill

Looking at the Proclamation

WORLD BY STORM
‘World by Storm’ is the moderator for the left-wing blog Cedar Lounge Revolution http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com

g WORLD BY STORM
‘World by Storm’ is the moderator for the
left-wing blog Cedar Lounge Revolution
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com

THE title of this book in a way encapsulates what is an accessible, thoughtful and often interesting read which positions the Proclamation within a broader historical narrative and attempts to rework it - or offer new elements for consideration of it - for the contemporary period. However, it also sums up some of the problematic aspects for those of us who regard ourselves as Left republicans.
In form it takes the reader through different passages of the 1916 Proclamation and counterposes them with suggestions for a new text. The hook is clever and there is a continual impulse to skip to the concluding section where the documents are laid out side by side. But to do so will result in a degree of disappointment for many. The new text is arguably less specific than the original - albeit with some modish twists. “Gallant allies in Europe” is reworked as “by our fellow citizens in the European Union”.
Given the provenance of the author perhaps this should be no surprise. O’Neill is a founder of Amárach Research, a market research agency whose findings are scattered throughout the text, and avowedly a Euro-enthusiast and a strong believer in economic liberalism. This results in some genuinely odd moments, as for example where (page 52) O’Neill appears to implicitly argue that the ‘freedom’ sought in 1916 is perhaps equivalent to ‘economic freedoms’ in this century.
Crucially, one does not quite sense fully from this work what 1916 or Pearse and Connolly represented, or more importantly saw themselves as representing.
The author is himself originally from the North but in the text there appears to be a certain detachment from what the reality of competing national identities actually means in political and cultural terms and although there is a reasonably good discussion of sovereignty in the 21st century the conclusions seem to tilt towards subsidiarity within the context of the EU.
At best, the book appears to park the issue of partition and implicitly trust to a convergence through economic processes alone. This may be a neat inversion of the arguments of those who have sought a unity of the working class as the prerequisite for progress but in a period of economic dislocation it appears optimistic - at best.
There is also, given the disastrous economic events of the past decade, a curious optimism as to the efficacy of the market although he makes a clever attempt to reposition cronyism as being in the context of a state that has historically been pro-business (or sectors of same) rather than pro-market. This though begs the question why other states with even more emphasis on economically liberal approaches such as the United States and Britain have fared particularly poorly in the current crisis, whereas more social democratically inclined states have weathered the storm somewhat better.
One further problem is that as he engages with issue after issue (for example the importance of educational opportunity, which he rightly considers key to a successful societal approach), the detail begins to dry up. He’s strongly in favour but how that might tangibly be implemented is never discussed.

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In terms of specific suggestions this is perhaps where the difficulties implicit in such an exercise become more apparent. To take as a representative example:

Ours is a fortunate generation of Irish people, one of only a few to have lived in a free and sovereign nation. Through the labour and vision of past generations, we now enjoy the rights that they asserted.
Mindful of this inheritance, and also of the responsibility that every generation has to protect and pass on our freedom to the next generation, we hereby proudly re-proclaim the Irish Republic as a sovereign independent state.
We pledge, through the lives we lead, to warrant the faith put in us by past generations and to ensure Ireland’s esteem among the free nations of the world.

It is possible to argue that jettisoning the reference to “Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the last three hundred years they have asserted it in arms” removes power from the Proclamation. And does the excision of the word “welfare”, obviously not meant in the more contemporary usage but still a powerfully evocative term, improve upon the original?
There are some interesting points. O’Neill rightly notes the use of the phrase “The Republic... declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation...’, a formula that echoes the United States Declaration of Independence.
O’Neill also proposes the following:

Ireland has led the world in its demands for equal rights for all men and women in the cause of its freedom. We can be proud of our achievements in enabling Irishwomen and Irishmen to play their part in a flourishing Republic.

And yet one wonders about the historical accuracy of such a statement.
Moreover there is the question of how other areas are dealt with. There is nothing concerning the problems that we face either on this island or globally.
There is no mention of partition in the reworked document.
Climate change is ignored.
While he gives some time in the book to the issue of changing social relationships, particularly those enabled by the internet, there is no sense of that reflected in the document.
It is important to note that the Proclamation has no official standing, that, at best, rather like the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil, it is a foundation document but one with essentially rhetorical power.
The text of the original is far from nebulous and there is a strong argument that it could and should be transposed into the Constitution, or perhaps a reworked Constitution, but to rework the Proclamation seems in some ways diversionary. The original, bar a number of very specific elements, remains coherent and consistent enough to stand on its own terms. And that raises the question as to whether there truly is a necessity to refashion it for the 21st century.
One might argue that the fundamental work is necessary on the Constitution, particularly as regards facilitating and enabling future structures on the island as a whole.
All that said, as a means of working through where we have come from and where we may be going, this book presents us with a sense of direction that might otherwise be lacking. Indeed, in some ways this book may, for better and for worse, be much closer to the way the meaning of 1916 will be presented and represented at its centennial anniversary by Official Ireland and how the Proclamation will be appropriated, in parts far removed from those who wrote it originally. In that respect, perhaps this is a book republicans of all shades should read.

• 2016 A New Proclamation for a New Generation, by Gerard O’Neill (Mercier Press). Price €13.49.