The activities of left wing Irish republicans have fascinated a significant number of historians of twentieth-century Ireland for decades now. Studies of the topic have added much to our understanding of the impact that the ideas, activists and organisations of the republican left have had on Irish society. Perhaps boredom or frustration with the centrism of mainstream Irish politics has something to do with the number of historians who are drawn to the subject. On the other hand, it is a deeply interesting topic that lends itself well to considering Ireland in a global context and critiquing the notion that Irish society was, and forever shall be, deeply conservative.
John Mulqueen's An alien ideology comes at the subject from an interesting angle, exploring official state perceptions of the republican left during the Cold War. Such a framing of this period of Irish history is refreshingly welcome and challenges the often-insular view of the Troubles period through consideration of the global context. Mulqueen considers the late twentieth-century conflict in Ireland in the appropriate context of semi-permanent international tension, a proliferation of national liberation movements, and the global / local strategic and ideological battlegrounds of east and west. The work, while quite different in its focus, is reminiscent of Emmet O'Connor's Reds and the green: Ireland, Russia and the Communist Internationals, 1919–43 (2004), which explored the impact of the Communist International on Irish left-wing activism.
Mulqueen's study begins in the immediate post-war period, but he also looks back to the 1930s and considers the intricacies of left republican and communist relationships in that earlier period. Unfortunately, the analysis is underdeveloped here and an opportunity to draw from and engage with the detailed work of historians such as O'Connor, Seán Byers, Brian Hanley, myself and others is missed. Byers's 2015 biography of Seán Murray is not cited or included in the bibliography, for instance. Such oversights have an impact on the analysis of the 1950s, as the genesis of left republican and communist organisation in this period is considered almost solely in the framework of Catholic anti-communism, and lacking the necessary complexity in terms of ideology, strategy and Soviet influence.
The book shines in the sections analysing the ideological and tactical ideas of the Official republican movement in the 1970s. Mulqueen has a masterly command of the archival sources as they relate to state security and policy development. He demonstrates ably the impact of international events on Ireland, and shows how policymakers were consistently and keenly aware of global and local events, and how they interacted. For instance, the possibility of a unilateral declaration of independence (U.D.I.) in Northern Ireland was taken seriously by Dublin and London in the mid 1970s. Considering the prospect of a major refugee crisis emerging in a U.D.I. scenario, the Gardaí invoked the experience of south Lebanon, where ‘the tremendous problems created by dispossessed people, such as Palestinians, were aggravated when they were accommodated in large centres’. A policy of maximum dispersal was advocated, lest ‘towns such as Dundalk, Monaghan, Buncrana’ could become ‘shades of the Bogside, Ballymurphy or the Falls’ (p. 163).
There are some issues with the book that detract from its many strengths, however. The actions of Seán Garland are, on occasion (pp 158, 227) afforded editorial incredulity that stands out from the measured tone demonstrated elsewhere. A heavy reliance on state archives gives the book gravitas, but greater use of interview sources could have added an extra dimension to reach a more rounded view of the ‘perceptions’ of the republican left in the period. Brian Hanley and Scott Millar's, The lost revolution: the story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party (2009) is referred to throughout the book, but the large volume of interview data presented in that publication is underutilised.
The dynamic between relating and analysing what emerges from the state archives, and exploring wider perceptions of the republican-left and its impact on Irish society, is problematic. The book's title and the introduction suggest that it is an investigation of the perceptions held by wider Irish society. It only becomes clear that this is not the case in the final paragraph of a sixteen-page introduction, which touches on multiple events from the period and after, including the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979 and the prominent role of Gerry Adams at the funeral of Nelson Mandela in 2013. Despite the initial lack of clarity in how the scope of the book is presented, it stands as a seriously researched, detailed and enlightening study. Mulqueen's use of the archival sources is superb and the Cold War contextual analysis braces the book and situates it well as a significant contribution to the developing historiography of this period of Irish history.
