“The Story of the Irish Race”, by Seumas MacManus

 

736 pages, Chartwell Books, ISBN-13: 978-0785836414

The Story of the Irish Race was first written by über-Irishman Seumas MacManus back in 1922 and has been reprinted several times since then (my copy, which I circled for months at my local 2^nd & Charles before taking the literary plunge, is from 2018). James MacManus (Seumas is just so much more Irish, dontchaknow) was an Irish author, dramatist and poet who spent a great deal of his life reinterpreting Irish folktales for 20^th Century readers. In this way he became a modern-day seanchaí, a storyteller of the ancient oral tradition of the Irish and Celtic peoples and, so, most of the early part of this book – which constitutes some 29 of the 81 chapters of the whole – are a recording of the ancient myths and tales the Irish people have told one another around their peat fires for millennia – and NOT a proper history of Ireland (in this way, MacManus is kind of like Ireland’s answer to Thomas Bulfinch). Starting with chapter 30, we get a proper history book of Ireland as written by an Irish patriot and, thus, not at all nonpartisan and, so, not very accurate.

The tale MacManus invokes is one in which a thriving Irish nation is torn apart by internal conflicts exasperated by invading Englishmen who then subjugate this proud people and oppress them at every turn until they reemerge into the modern world, a Nation Once Again.  All very Irish. But for all of his praising of the Ireland of old – that is, Ireland as told in tales and myths and legends which may or may not have really existed but let’s pretend that it did as the reality sucks – it would appear that Ireland got up and running when the English missionary (Oops!) St. Patrick came along and converted all those heathen Irish to Christianity. He refers to the Romano-British Saint in almost worshipful terms and praises him for making Ireland what it is today (or, the today of 1922). Whether or not the Reader thinks that is a good thing, I leave it up to them. But worse, from an historical perspective, is his praise of St Bridget as a real flesh and blood person when there is, in fact, very little evidence that she existed at all; it is more likely that Bridget was an appropriated native goddess transformed into a Catholic Saint, a tried and true Christian way to convert the local pagans en masse to The Word.

The Story of the Irish Race then is a work of fiction, and while the early myths from the times of misty legends may be enjoyed for what they are, anything that touches on the modern-day history of Ireland should be taken with a grain of salt…scratch that, which a heaping steam-shovel load of salt.