Desmond Fennell is an Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, cultural philosopher and linguist, specialising in the essay and the reflective travel narrative, who lives in Dublin. His principal themes have been the Irish Revolution and the task of completing it; Irish Catholicism; the condition of the contemporary West; and European history.

Background

Born in Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

 in 1929, he grew up in Dublin, attending O'Connell School

O'Connell School

The O’Connell School is a secondary school for boys located on North Richmond Street in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. The school, named in honour of the leader of Catholic Emancipation, Daniel O’Connell, has the distinction of being the oldest surviving Christian Brothers school in Dublin, having...

 and Belvedere College

Belvedere College

Belvedere College SJ is a private secondary school for boys located on Great Denmark Street, Dublin, Ireland. It is also known as St. Francis Xavier's College....

. First place in Ireland in French and German in the Leaving Certificate was followed by a scholarship in Classical Languages for University College Dublin

University College Dublin

University College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...

, which he entered in 1947. While completing a BA

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 there in History and Economics, he studied English and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 in Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

. During the two years, 1950-52, devoted to an MA

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 in Modern History from UCD, he found inspiration in the teaching of Desmond Williams

Thomas Desmond Williams

Thomas Desmond Williams was an Irish academic and Professor of Modern History at University College Dublin ....

, and spent two semesters at Bonn University, Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

. There followed three years teaching English in a secondary school near Bilbao, Spain, and a study tour of American schools on its behalf.

Journalism

While still a student, Fennell contributed a column in Irish to The Sunday Press

The Sunday Press

The Sunday Press was a weekly newspaper published in Ireland from 1949 until 1995. It was launched by Éamon de Valera's Irish Press group following the defeat of his Fianna Fáil party in the Irish general election, 1948...

. There he befriended Douglas Gageby

Douglas Gageby

Douglas Gageby was the pre-eminent Irish newspaper editor of his generation. His life is well documented and a book of essays about him, written by many of his colleagues who had attained fame for their literary achievements, was published in 2006 [Bright Brilliant Days: Douglas Gageby and the...

 who, later, as editor of The Irish Times

The Irish Times

The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...

, was to give him free rein in that newspaper. Back in Germany in 1955 as an English newsreader on Die Deutsche Welle (German overseas radio), he contributed articles to Comhar and The Irish Times; radio talks to writer Francis McManus at Radio Éireann; and theatre criticism to The Times, London.

Immersion in German culture

Culture of Germany

German culture began long before the rise of Germany as a nation-state and spanned the entire German-speaking world. From its roots, culture in Germany has been shaped by major intellectual and popular currents in Europe, both religious and secular...

 had aroused in Fennell an interest in the human condition This in part explains a feature of his early writing – it would surface again in the 1990s – which differed from the practice of Irish Catholics generally. He investigated and wrote about “alien” - non-Irish, non-Catholic - lands and peoples. His first book Mainly in Wonder (1959), published by Hutchinson, London, was a reflective account of a year’s travel mainly in the Far East. After a year as first sales manager, Germany, for the Irish airline Aer Lingus

Aer Lingus

Aer Lingus Group Plc is the flag carrier of Ireland. It operates a fleet of Airbus aircraft serving Europe and North America. It is Ireland's oldest extant airline, and its second largest after low-cost rival Ryanair...

 he spent 1960 researching a book in what was then avant-garde “pagan” Sweden, and contributed to The Irish Times the first direct reportage from the Soviet Union (15 articles) to appear in an Irish newspaper.

Fennell returned to Ireland in 1961 and summarised his Swedish experience in an essay "Goodbye to Summer" which drew press reaction from Sweden to the US. He had gone to Sweden attracted by what he believed was an excitingly new 'liberal', post-European, post-Christian venture in living, and had been severely disillusioned. As a consequence, that year began his long-lasting effort to understand what was afoot, historically and ideologically, in the contemporary West.

Fennell, for whom painting has always been a passion, wrote art criticism for several Dublin publications and was briefly exhibitions officer of the Irish Arts Council. He met and married Mary Troy. Influenced by the approaching fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 Rising, he read the writings of the leaders of the Irish Revolution, identifying their project as a restorative humanism: a movement aiming to restore broken man in Ireland as a democratically self-governing nation, economically self-sustaining, intellectually self-determining and culturally self-shaping. Significant Fennell essays of this time were “Will the Irish Stay Christian?”, “The Failure of the Irish Revolution - and Its Success”, “Cuireadh chun na Tríú Réabhlóide” and “Irish Catholics and Freedom since 1916”. He enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with Fr. Austin Flannery OP, editor of the monthly journal Doctrine and Life which published a succession of his writings.

The full achievement of the Revolution’s aims became a guiding motivation and theme of Fennell's writing for the next twenty-five years. This included, and ran parallel to, advocacy of an Ireland, a Europe and a world rendered self-governing as a ‘community of communities’, exemplified in the pamphlet with maps Sketches of the New Ireland(1973) and the book Beyond Nationalism: The Struggle against Provinciality in the Modern World(1985) In this advocacy he was inspired by Tom Barrington, director of the Institute of Public Administration and worked with other like-minded persons.

In 1964 Fennell moved with wife and son to Freiburg, Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

, as assistant editor of Herder Correspondence, the English-language version of Herder-Korrespondenz; a Catholic journal of theology, philosophy and politics which played a leading "progressive" role during the Second Vatican Council. In 1966, as editor, Fennell returned to Dublin. Two years later he resigned and moved with his family to Maoinis in Irish-speaking South Connemara. He included many of his anonymous essays for Herder Correspondence in a book edited by him,The Changing Face of Catholic Ireland (1968).

Western years

During the following four years Fennell wrote an influential column for the Dublin Sunday Press. His principal themes in the Connemara

Connemara

Connemara is a district in the west of Ireland consisting of a broad peninsula between Killary Harbour and Kilkieran Bay in the west of County Galway.-Overview:...

 period (1968–1979) were the “revolution” of the Gaeltacht

Gaeltacht

is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region. In Ireland, the Gaeltacht, or an Ghaeltacht, refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant language, that is, the vernacular spoken at home...

 or Irish-speaking districts (which he helped to initiate and in which he participated); the pursuit of a settlement in Northern Ireland at war; decentralisation of Irish government to regions and districts; and a “Europe of Regions”.

Mainly in The Irish Times, The Sunday Press and several pamphlets, Fennell modified the nationalist position on Northern Ireland. While pioneering recognition of the Northern unionists as British – "the Ulster British" – he argued for British-Irish joint rule, persuaded the North's Social Democratic and Labour Party to declare for it, and helped to elaborate Sinn Féin's four-province federal proposal.

From 1976 to 1982, Fennell lectured in Political Science and tutored in Modern History at University College Galway. In 1980 he resumed his column in the Sunday Press and two years later returned to Dublin as lecturer in English Writing in the Dublin Institute of Technology

Dublin Institute of Technology

Dublin Institute of Technology was established officially in 1992 under the but had been previously set up in 1978 on an ad-hoc basis. The institution can trace its origins back to 1887 with the establishment of various technical institutions in Dublin, Ireland...

.

In his column, and in the books The State of the Nation: Ireland Since the Sixties(1983) and Nice People and Rednecks:Ireland in the 1980s(1986), while continuing his “two ethnic identities” line on the North,
During the 1980s, Fennell wrote a number of books and pamphlets which advocated a strongly traditionalist conservative

Traditionalist Conservatism

Traditionalist conservatism, also known as "traditional conservatism," "traditionalism," "Burkean conservatism", "classical conservatism" and , "Toryism", describes a political philosophy emphasizing the need for the principles of natural law and transcendent moral order, tradition, hierarchy and...

 position. Fennell's books "The State of the Nation" and "Nice People and Rednecks" were strongly antagonistic to feminism

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

, divorce

Divorce

Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

, and abortion

Abortion

Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

, while supporting traditional Roman Catholicism, the Fianna Fail

Fianna Fáil

Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party , more commonly known as Fianna Fáil is a centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland, founded on 23 March 1926. Fianna Fáil's name is traditionally translated into English as Soldiers of Destiny, although a more accurate rendition would be Warriors of Fál...

 party under Charles Haughey

Charles Haughey

Charles James "Charlie" Haughey was Taoiseach of Ireland, serving three terms in office . He was also the fourth leader of Fianna Fáil...

 and traditional Irish culture. According to historian Tom Garvin

Tom Garvin

Tom Christopher Garvin is an Irish political scientist and historian. He is Professor Emeritus of Politics in University College Dublin. He retired from lecturing duties in August 2008. He is an alumnus of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.Garvin is a graduate...

, Fennell saw "the rise of the liberals" in Ireland as part of a process "which is turning the Republic back into a mere province of the United Kingdom".
In 1990, the National University of Ireland awarded him its DLitt (Doctor of Literature) degree for his published work.

Second "Abroad" Period

In the early 1990s Fennell abandoned what he called his “social idealism” in the Irish and broader spheres. Recognising that the Irish Revolution had failed irretrievably to achieve its aims, he concluded that the power of the West’s “consumerist empire” effectively prevented any “community of communities”. In 1990 he had begun his second “abroad” period with a visit to East Germany to record the last days of that Communist state in Dreams of Oranges. Fennell's publication of 1991, "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing: Why Seamus Heaney is Number 1" angered admirers of Heaney because it contested Heaney's reputation as a major poet and accused Heaney of ignoring the problems affecting Catholics in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

.

Fennell’s concluding view of the present condition of the West, developed through a series of essays and lectures, is that European or Western civilisation has been ending through three successive rejections of it by the Russian, German and Second American revolutions. Fennell has stated "the rules of Western civilisation are well known. Massacre and abortion

Abortion

Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

 are
grevious crimes. Christian morality guides the making of laws. Men's work and women's work are different. Chastity
and frugality are admirable virtues. Homosexual relationships are an unnatural vice. Women are legally subordinate to
men". The surviving post-European substitute, the left-liberal values-and-rules system of the Second American Revolution, (which Fennell
claims is "senseless") has been made bearable to westerners only by “the constant increase of the power to buy and do” which it provided. When that constant increase ends, the ensuing social chaos will invite the rise of a successor civilisation.

Remarkably, neither this contentious account of the end of western civilisation nor Fennell's writings since 1996 on the "postwestern condition” and the “revision of European history”, have drawn any considered published reaction in Irish intellectual circles. In part this is because new, original thinking on human or world issues is very rare in Ireland, so that if it does occur, those Irish who might respond to it, one way or another, are unsure how to deal with it.
Irish writer John Waters has a point when he says that “modern Irish culture deals with the great questions of life by avoiding them”. Indicative of the situation, and contributing to it, is the fact that Ireland uniquely in Europe has no magazine of ideas and that its history magazine History Ireland deals only with Irish history.

In recent years Fennell has had a certain amount of contact with the successor groups of the British and Irish Communist Organisation

British and Irish Communist Organisation

The British and Irish Communist Organisation was a small but highly influential group based in London, Belfast, Cork, and Dublin. Its leader was Brendan Clifford. The group produced a great number of pamphlets, and many regular publications including, The Irish Communist and Workers Weekly in...

, although he differs from them on certain points. His most recent books,such
as Ireland After the End of Western Civilisation were published by their Athol Press imprint, and he regularly writes articles for their monthly magazine, the Irish Political Review.

Books

• Mainly in Wonder (1959)
• The Changing Face of Catholic Ireland (1968)
• The State of the Nation: Ireland since the 60s (1983)
• Beyond Nationalism: The Struggle against Provincialism in the Modern World (1985)
• Nice People and Rednecks: Ireland in the 1980s (1986)
• A Connacht Journey (1987)
• The Revision of Irish Nationalism (1989)
• Bloomsway: A Day in the Life of Dublin (1990)
• Heresy: The Battle of Ideas in Modern Ireland (1993)
• Dreams of Oranges: An Eyewitness Account of the Fall of Communist East Germany (1996)
• Uncertain Dawn: Hiroshima and the Beginning of Postwestern Civilisation (1996)
• The Postwestern Condition: Between Chaos and Civilisation (1999)
• The Turning Point: My Sweden Year and After (2001)
• The Revision of European History (2003)
• Cutting to the Point: Essays and Objections 1994-2003 (2003)
• About Behaving Normally in Abnormal Circumstances (2007)
• Ireland After the End of Western Civilisation (2009)

Further Reading

• Quinn, Toner, ed., Desmond Fennell: His Life and Works, Veritas, Dublin, 2001
• Deane, Seamus, ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol. III, Faber and Faber, 1991, pp, 586-90, 677.
• Share, Bernard, ed., Far Green Fields: Fifteen Hundred Years of Irish Travel Writing, Blackstaff, Belfast, 1992, pp. 71-80.

Pamphlets

• The Northern Catholic (1958)
• Art for the Irish (1961)
• The British Problem (1963)
• Iarchonnacht Began (1969)
• A New Nationalism for the New Ireland (1972)
• Take the Faroes for Example (1972)
• Build the Third Republic (1972)
• Sketches of the New Ireland (1973)
• Towards a Greater Ulster (1973)
• Irish Catholics and Freedom since 1916 (1984)
• Cuireadh chun na Tríú Réabhlóide (1984)
• Whatever You Say, Say Nothing: Why Seamus Heaney Is No.1 (1991)
• Savvy and the Preaching of the Gospel (2003)

External links

• Official Website