Richard Brown, Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1830-1882,
Authoring History, second edition, 2017, £20.37, paperback, ISBN 978-1540352231;
Richard Brown, Three Rebellions: Canada, South Wales and Australia,
Authoring History, second edition, 2016, £19.72, paperback, ISBN 978-1539455707
The opportunity to revise and update the original texts as both
these publications move into their second editions testifies to the success of
previous print and electronic editions in helping to create markets for some of
the less well trodden pathways of modern British and world history which have
rarely featured so prominently in texts aimed at students in tertiary and higher
education. In both instances the significance of the selected themes is
succinctly explained in new prefaces. The new edition of Famine Fenians and
Freedom, 1830-1882 takes its overall length from 582 to 602 pages and is now
offered as the second volume of a quartet on resistance and rebellion in the
British Empire. It examines the Irish dimension in Britain’s Empire through
attempts especially by Young Ireland and the Fenians to achieve Irish
independence through rebellion and by the populist and parliamentarian
constitutionalist Repeal association and campaign for Home Rule to the
achievement of devolved government. The book looks at the nature and impact of
the Great Hunger in its global context in Britain, the United States, Canada and
Australia and explains why, how and whither the Irish emigrated and how they
settled into their new communities. The cover features Fenians at the Battle of
Ridgeway in 1866, a victory, which the accompanying text argues ‘occurred too
late to have any significant effect on the Confederation process’ though ‘it did
play a major role in emotionally connecting the Canadian public to the idea of
Canada’. However, the reader is warned in a cryptic caption that the book’s
cover illustration amounts to a far from accurate depiction, though it might
have helped some readers had this intriguing caption been elaborated and more of
its provenance been revealed.
By contrast, the riveting cover illustration of the companion
volume, focusing upon three rebellions in Canada, South Wales and Australia is
extensively contextualised. Unusually, we discover, that it was painted by
Katherine Jane Ellice, the daughter-in-law of the local seigneur, a prosperous
fur trader, who was taken prisoner by the Patriotes at Beauharnois, near
Montreal, in November 1838. Ellice described her captors as ‘the most
Robespierre-looking ruffians, all armed with guns, long knives and pikes’. Their
expressions and weapons are vividly captured in the watercolour. Moreover,
Brown’s gripping account of the action and its significance is
characteristically engaging and stimulating. He concludes that the rebellions in
the Canadas, South Wales and Victoria were each a failure of popular
constitutionalism to deliver political change and the unwillingness of the
authorities to concede that change was necessary.
As the relationship of the United Kingdom with Europe and the
wider world is re-defined post-Brexit, some of the global themes hitherto
neglected but explored here with such insight, rigour and enthusiasm may perhaps
again appeal to a widening readership.
John A. Hargreaves
