Transcripts For CSPAN2 Michael Brendan Dougherty My Father Left Me Ireland 20240714

Thank you everybody for coming. I im a visiting fellow here at coi and f we are here for a gret conversation. It will be a conversation tonight about nationalism, family and fatherhood and the excellent new book i love, my father left me ireland by Michael Brendan dougherty. In some ways this is different from what we do from what i used to. Im a scholar here at aei and fear of the American Enterprise institute forar Public Policy research. We do lots of social science studies and in fact, social science studies get a bad name in my father left me ireland, but in a way that highlights what we have in common. It is often as he puts it a nation today in the modern way of thinking is often come up with, at best problematic. It is best problematic as an administrative unit. That section is tipped off by talking up singing to his newborn baby over and over again in the same songs. The wind that shakes the barley and even the game i tried to sing in the global byway i also sing my children to sleep because they are of a pc and i dont have the vocal chordson mr. Doherty does. The stories that we tell our children, this is another way of educating in addition to the Public Policy Research Type stuff that typically do here at aei and there are virtues and perils. My story quickly before we get to the author here is one of the perils learning about world war ii, charlie turned to me and said im a little confused. Are the british and the nazis the same thing, and i have to say no, what are you talking about sex we were on the same side of the british in world war ii. And he said we were on the same side as the british . I realize growing up with the stories at the same time, the love of america that had to fight against the bricks into the irishness you could come to understand isou only the bad gu, so i had to set them straight on that i thought about the low light icing i would sing to us except by children name your coconspirators and he answered no and was sent off. Why did he sing these songs to our children, not to demonize them at all was because we know the creation of a good populist, the creation of improving the world, the same thing we treated ithe public plus the research, all of that primarily is a good job of a Public Policy researcher, but of our poets and storytellers and so here at aei is excellent but we have in my opinion a brandnew irishamerican poet and storyteller who will give us a hefew remarks about this great book my father left the ireland. Michael, thank you. [applause] ive had trouble people ask me what is l this book and its hard to summarize in the 14 seconds before the commercial break interrupts you, so im going to quote it no vanity inou my heart that old a couple of reviews of the book just to situate it. It is a timeless tale of familial bonding. Its a heartbreaking poem to sacrifice and alan jacobs called it a bit of revisionist history but not in the unusual sense of the term. It was also called by ezra klein coming and i thought this was really good in moving theic lyrical memoir about fatherhood and identity. Its an attack and critique on some of the poor assumptions of liberal modernity. Its also i would say fundamentally ait romance book. Let me just set the scene here. Im 6yearsold and sitting in the backseat of a car by another grandfather in the front seat. The morning before we flew to ireland and as we were landing i dipretended to count the shapesf green as he circled above the airport. He happened to know if there mwere 40 Like High School teachers said, that this point in the back of a car you are looking outherelooking out overa very deep gray sky, so much that its turning of allll the greens blue. The windnd was around. Possibly the oldest memory i can recall of being with my father and one of the few i could make fodid makefor several more year. My father has been talking about this job driving around delivering books. This is long before the eu build roads and highways while mixing everything beautiful in this file. Hes looking at my mother in a bubbly way which was new to me and if hes trying to say to her watch this and thats when he turns to me and informs me of our noble blood that i have for him, did you know that you are dissented from the high kings there are parts of the cars that are torn and parts of my fathers sweater. I noticed in examining my reaction. Plus the irish blood, the irish royal blood had gotten us nothing impressive at all except it was still a boost over the whole earth. My mother let her heart sickness over this man drive her crazy anyway. Her appearance listened to irish lullabies like to throug shed to think of herself as irish and her son as irish. She started studying thege language, taking the are these weekends in rural new york where you are forbidden from speaking the birla. She started singing songs in teaching me the history through them. The history i learned as a child was straightforward and hear a ont of people coming out of the captivity. Colonization on the one side and ms. Wu on the other. Irish people, rebellions as catholic confederates against protestant usurpers, irishmen against the misrule as poor white lieutenants against their wicked way with words. Aas young ireland republicans against the power of thela englh monarchy andng a singing nationalist against the british imperialism and finally come ase alirish nation itself pitted against those who have attempted to rob them of their culture of their history and self understanding. Rebellion yourself means you irish. What could i have to rebel against. I got tired of this as a teenager. Its about the view in history that he and his countries set out to destroy the leaders of irelands volume. At the moment that the body of radicals, short circuit and the democratic process and instead of the rules, the irishul are sent. Hethe same because of the civill war, theye lose decent english build institutions and have to turn towards a church that is corrupt and crony esque. In an august since its a code of the racial and political bigotry of. That is the view of the professional cast i passed in te 1990s, and increasingly then it was my view, too. What plus what was i going to ps superstore on the atlantic. Three of the education i got another one that taught me to despise these things was an education that wasnt really preparing me for anything about manhood. It wasnt providing me. Having children, raising them correctly, and eventually i did mary. I look back at these men like ppatrick pearse. He did a little career in the fall beginning i of the 20th century before turning his mind to education. He founded the school and was kind of an experimental Educational School for boys. It was a nationalist spectacle the boys put. On plays, he taugt one in my approach, it was an education and he taught them irish sports particularly hurling. He denounced the Education System set up in ireland. He compared it to the separate Education System set up for antiquity. Heor wrote all mobile and good things that would tend to make them strong and proud and valiant. From the slaves all such was hidden they were told not t tauo be stronge and valiant but to be dexterous and object wasnt to make them good men do but to mae them good slaves andsign ireland. Sleek and dexterous. I remember reading these words with my sleeping newborn infant daughter in my lap and thinking this is harvard and yale and every product of those prep schools and washington, d. C. The idea of becoming strong and powerful is something i was taught in school to laugh at. Not directly but theec implica implication. I had to come from this man, pierce. He was a moderate like everybody else in 1910, 1912 when the rules first past. As he saw it he joined with the nationaliststs as many others dd and he wrote this essay which has been formative in history ever since. Translator the men who fled ireland for 25 years have done evil and they are bankrupt and i policy, credit, not even n words. They have nothing to propose ireland no ways, no courage and based on the church and blasphemy. Its no longer the utterances of men but thend chattering of our soul. Its built upon an untruth. Theyve conceived of it as a material thing whereas as a spiritual thing they need the same main man would think if he decides he has an immortal soul. They do not recognize the image and likeness of god hence the nation to them isnt a holy thing, violent and viable, the thing a man that are not. They thought of the nationalities to be negotiated about a tariff rather than an immediate jewel to be preserved a thing so secret it may not be brought into the marketplace at all were spoken of. He was announcing this generational curse on the home rulers. We try to bargain with an enti entire. I parliament that they were subverting the democratic achievements. My use of the essay enddoublequotes prop up to me. The other day on the irish radio host said its sustainable of democracy. If extremist demands echoed ever since to take things into their own hands. In fact, pierce wasnt totally disdainful of democracy. It was only on this one point whether the nation was a holy thing to be preserved against all peril. Whether people would recognize the image of likeness and god and its life. The radio host was correct about my intentions with that passage and spoke i borrowed the generational curse. Life bearing the image and likeness of god has transgressed and as it goes on it doesnt lessen the guild but increases the machine. Its general though not just specific to the event. It is a shame if old generation that believed by liberating itself from the taboo and prejudice it would find freedom. They were liberated from responsibility from care from their own children into fatherlessness is now common in america, becoming common in ireland. So this book is an audible. The joy of my life was discovering suddenly i was doing the same crazy things myy mother did. We tend to think of parenting as a way of extending ourselves in the future when we think of that biologically but i noticed in this book it works the reverse way my child sent me back to my parents and wouldd give me books i would recognize as my mother or fathers death means my child and pressed upon me the duty to go to my parents and ask them what to do. It was also my mother in particular in pulling me towards the future. She too was bothering me at her dying breath to give her grandchildren. Ive only gotten three so far, we are working on it. I found that pierce was right when he talked about the hand of the past weighing on the present of the future. My mother waited on me to become a man, becoming a father. History weighed upon these rebels to man up and do something. Athat biological connection to y father the joy of my life after my daughters birth is the making in fact half my irish fathers parentage, the socialcal facts into the fact he sees my grandchildren more than me he saw his tgrandfather the first phase of her life and couldnt see me for nine or ten months and so the book is a romance of fatherhood. My father and i missed each other and only found each other late like any good romance novel and so i come back to that sto story. The implanted something in me, that story into this longing for him and somehow we navigated the misunderstanding. As the irishman even ones with accents, we arere crowned with d songs and foolish absurd sacrifices that annoy everyone else. My daughter runs to his lap and calls him granddad. I would trade that for all its place in india, all of the overall materials in iraq or the tv dumped in boston harbor. Thank you. [applause] weve all come to the stage to respond christopher caldwell, the editor of the claremont books and is writing a second book so if theres anybody to comment on a a book it is christopher caldwell. Please tell us what you think is the most interesting and important about the book. Almost everything about the book is interesting and important. He said it was hard to describe what it was about. I think i can describe it. You have a basic situation here he was brought up by his mother who and left by his father. It actually represents the autobiography of our most famous irishamerican,ri our last president but this is a more ambitious and glittery attempt to bring two stories together. If you look at the titles my father left the ireland, thats the title of two books one is my father left me and the i seconds ireland so there is something in the first book you have a very sad book of this sort irish people cant really write as a sort of self revealing autobiographical point americans excel out and other people dont. Do you mind having somebody read . Pl i want everybody to read it. I would like to read a passage. Its the perfect description of something a lot of children of divorce will kind of share. I sat in my grandmothers rocking chair in the uniform of my school, gray slacks, white shirt and coffin tie. They told the news, your wife is pregnant. I let myself forget. I was going to be a brother, technically have one. How was i a brother to someone that wasnt my mothers child, was likely to be to them what it was to me being a child i couldnt even ask these questions. One thing i had to deploy was the exact response they wanted to solicit from me. Neither of us got to see how high this was. Venturing up under the delusion i would make it to school before the neighbors returned me to wear any 7yearold child that way belonged but in that moment they gave me a goodbye hug. All he ever wanted was for things to change. I never thought any of it through until then. I didnt know why you lived 3,000 miles away. I just knew enough not to ask. This announcement revealed to me the secret hope in my heart so this is the material which this is built and as michael has described, he started to study ireland which is kind of a sad thing when you think about it. Theres the raw material of a kind of interesting resolution. I will describe this without dampening the experience of leaving this for anybody but this b book is not about the mythology of ireland and the words of ancient time and all that stuff. Its actually kind of a close study of the easter rising and its about the origins of the easter rising if you know the book about the ideological origins of the resolution. But i think he finds and correct me if this is nonsense but its not so much the release of a nation from captivity but a tination into identity and the interesting thing about these people spectacularly in a very filled out way but for all the people involved in the rising was about claiming an idea for themselves and here it comes subtle. Its about an assertion of ones identity that ireland never had before. Once it is over and the civil war starts, it becomes clear that they did have that identity and that is the sort of what he was seeking in a pair of old way. That is what he is seeking in his own family in a parallel play. I was running these stories wtogether. What was interesting to me there is all this ideological that gets spoken of the easter rising obut some of it is actually useful he wont talk about the lmvement to establish israel. They had almost gotten comfortable with the label and one of the reasons the rising in 1916 was so transformative for irish like thissh for 30 years from 1898 to 1916, ireland had been filling with this Cultural Movement sports, language revival, they have been filling themselves with these sentiments mourning the death of the irish nation and the famine and then suddenly enters onto the stage a political crisis and then onto this moment in the stage tom clark starts translating this sentiment into the political reaction and in the same way and a much smaller parallel ein borrowing their wish until it becomes true in my own life, willing to become a father he should have been. One thing i want to ask you about the universality of this, some of the first people to react to w your book you talk about zionism and hebrew and the Irish Language. You see from 100 years ago in some ways they are similar to the movements we see today the leaders were interested in the National Movements in czechoslovakia and hungary and india later many of them would meet with indian figures to discuss the mutual project of this establishing the territory. The one nation who comes out of world war i feeling totally vindicated probably his pool and, the idea of the nation as attractive after a century so there is a commonality among the nationalists and people remarked today fact that nationalists or National Conservatives talk to the ones in hungary or other ones in france or brazil as if it is a betrayal of their ideas when in fact it is just a calling common way. Theres nothing about nationalism but for the few, burger king and hoping for the good of the similarly minded people in other nations. Michael has written very intelligently and very independently, certainly aboutio nationalism in europe. Theres an irish nationalist somewhere in the middle of the 19th century but he taught himself hungarian and wrote a great book about the hungarian nationalism. I think an interesting thing aboutsm the idea of nationalism that comes in this book and i want to stick with this idea that it is working in parallel to the personal identity of the family is that nationalism is one of the things that makes the subject is interesting. Nationalism is about strength. I will quote this passage about that. The latitude of the irish this is one of the aspects it usually doesnt explain from the conviction ones nation is best in every way back from Something Like a panicked realization that nobody in the authority or around you is taking theas natin seriously, but everyone is engaged in a private enterprise while the common inheritance is being threatened or robbed it might don a mask of invincibility but it got s but e full fearful knowledge of the nation solubility. No one i in ireland thinks tt its the best that just about anything. No one thought weve always been the greatest at the industry philosophy. Its much more comic than that. However, this Cultural Movement did end up producing the literature that is the bible and the pound for pound champion in western europe in the 20th century. It is funny that its misunderstood even in ireland. I talk about the antinationalism that was born of suffering and sorrow inflicted by those who put on the mantle of the 1960s rebels not for the peak in this almost doomed attempt to serve the nation honorably and they marched in to turn up the sword to the Commanding Officer on the other side of the battle. That wasnt the provisional tactics in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s so there was a highly motivated determination to tear down the mythology and you know its still within 2016 as they were celebrating these events i was singing these songs to my infant daughters while these events were going on and they put together the most expensive production and in it herc is portrayed quite literaly by a danish filmmaker as a religious fanatic on par with the Islamic State completely bloodthirsty and comparisons of the rebels were so common. When we are looking back at the history i will admit we were always going to take to it our motivations and desires and question and so the becomes what are your ambitions and desires and how will that govern your understanding and my search in the book is to search for Something Better within myself in doing so i find this noble story. What seems to be a big temptation in the exact moment you were growing up you seem to be a person who in the mid90s before september 11 which is a time in the United States went for thblamedfor the lack of a bm that kind of irony had full range. Everything was ironic, everything was a joke like spongebob was the source of worldview of the culture at the time. You seem to have made a conscious decision about irony at some point. There seems to have been people urging you to resolve whatever problem youre having with your own sense of belonging. You seem to have felt you were being urged to resolve this by declaring your conflicts lebasically meaningless. I dont have a folder with no one else really has a father anyway. No one has anything to be proud of anyway. They have a crummy history that none of these countries are really worth fighting for anyway. Thats how the culture raises children as well. It sits within the larger thcomplex homeland or culture ad if ithat has its influence on children. What i got from my education from the fashionable things like the silly books that have some dyuth to them but bring to the study of history a demythologizing attitude like why my teacher told me or the way people recommended to use a peoples history in the United States or Something Like that. Which all owith all of them d completely red. That the attitude i discovered over time it wasnt obvious to me when i was a teenager was this close to solving any sense of duty and being thrown back on myself by the culture and they would have been a party to this in some ways. They were afraid of exercising the authoritys and what i ought to like and what i ought to love. The cultures message was the truth of your self, and what i think a lot of people by generation coming up in the 90s found is we were much more tyrannical in the privacy of our own hearts and our parents would have been if they stepped up to their role in our life. Anand we were pickinessand the f charges of ourselves. If you dont know how to you dont know what is virtuous, then every defect they dont matter to you, your books, your intelligence, all of it becomes reasons to dominate your abominr thoughts and feel alienated. It accomplishes nothing the fact that the songs are written about them and then the fact as it pierced his side as the lyrical goes that is almost impossibly sentimental to express especially in the ironic days in the 19 nineties were the vietnam war still set the tone more than somalia or bosnia. They didnt actually accomplish anything that they accomplished everything that was almost embarrassing. Andll that every political idea is a mask for power and manipulation that cynical attitude and all persons exist one of the things that is funny its not in the book but at the back of my mind have you ever seen modern family sitcom . All human beings are in the family and cynical and manipulative. The onlyre redeeming feature is when they are called out they acknowledge their cynicism. Is played for laughs played all against all but i cannot watch an episode of that without wanting to blow my brainso out. I dont think that irony is confined but i mention the nineties as you are asking these questions most forcefully and with 9 11 it actually brought the shadow of reality over irony but an interesting aspect of the book is the personal memoir level and the political democracy level is a parallax of time which is like being caught out of time which is very important. So now we are at the high point of ironic distance if you look at brexit in england now. The key way brexit has been derailed through the irish border what they have been able to arguet is if you were to establish a hard border between Northern Ireland and the rest he would go back to. The days to experience the good friday agreement of the late nineties and what makes that possible is probably the eroding sense of nationalism on both sides and ultimately in eroding religious faith it doesnt matter less that the people on the side were protestant or they were catholics of the irish republic. But we were all europeans wreck thats a good challenge so i want all of you to think of your questions put your hand up when you have them but isnt that like if you love peace is of that the erosion of nationalism and the stubborn catholicism . That is what you would find if you would ask around. Yes you would. The problem with Northern Ireland. May refer to them as communities as a nationalist communityy that have dueling National Loyalties. Im not sure i agree christopher that the identities receded in Northern Ireland. Im not saying that they have that that is the argument. I think that is. But the attempt at the good friday agreement was the political implications although there were questions. So the Police Service of Northern Ireland no crowns that are worn on the Police Officers or those gestures to provide the illusion that youre not living in the country at all that the public or the state requires you to acknowledge. All the symbols have been reduced as well. Yeven National Identity is a private concern. We saw one week ago a dissident group claimed to be engaging the enemy and killing of the process, a journalist. My fear the attempt to erase National Identity is doomed but if it were successful, it would be a calamity to recognize because National Loyalty is shared when you are not in the disputed border land of ireland allows protestants and catholics to live t together peacefully and share the love of the land and live together. In lend their imaginations and sympathies to each other. Or as we argue one day on a podcast about the deepest issues of politics and yet enable our sons to die for each other in a time of stress or war. But if we tear National Loyalties down entirely we would have this blood tribe in these objects that motivate us in more to prevent peace on this shared territory. What do you think of the regime that came out of the easter rising . If revolution is not selfactualization, it looked for much of the 20th century like ireland had made the extraordinary bargain probably less prosperous than it would have been as a part of the british empire. And it created an extraordinary thing which was a not quite capitalist economy the only noncapitalist economy. Andi extraordinary kind of society. To think about the nineties the people in ireland sound like. I know there is a lot of historical wishing about the past you see in places like spain certainly. It is almost as if they were repudiated totally. What about the society that existed 80 or 90 years after quick. My father and i have different opinions on a this. He lived in the world that i talk about in the book what he calls the ireland of his childhood where he grew c up with this housing development. For the upper poor for lack of a better term he pretends to utbe shivering thinking about it. Now my little fragmentary experience is that it was warm and a place of intimacy. But the land reforms that were accomplished late 19th century recreated a peasant economy and in a place that to alter those six counties from the rest of the island at country that did not ieexperience industrialization. So you have that peasant economy and a catholic conservativism that goes with it. But they never industrialize totally and they make the transition in the nineties to a financial economy and it gives new character like in belfast or o detroit or liverpool like the industrialized workingclass. So it does provide different flavors of what discredited the state was immigration with another wave in the eighties but the whole is to establish our state thatem obviously the problem of emigration should end after governing ourselves. Now i would blame it on the british the postwar british economy which is irelands greatest trading partner goes into total depression near collapse in the postwar era which is devastating to ireland. But i would say really only in the seventies. There was up until the seventies spent the postwar socialist economy is not for ireland. It sends the british in word to look at the forces within and also imposes quotas that affect irish exports so they asked for the people instead to do the rebuilding. And the speech to ireland that we dreamed of which outlines the idea of frugal comfort , that was i a whipping boy in the 19 nineties. That speech was misquoted frequently. The one re talks about the superior standard of living quick. I dont know they are but he talks about ireland talking about Spiritual Life and frugal comfort and this became a point of shame and then sport in the 19 nineties but when ireland goes bust 2008 now you see imminent historians reviving the speech and wondering if there wasnt some wisdom in it for a small country and one of the funny things to do i dont think they would admit this but the new generation of historians in ireland seem to be slipping each others secret notes and reviews of the irish times like how Charles Townsend wrote a review of the book at the very end he said his island was not as grim as the current orthodoxies have it inlets that escape but almost slipping in a knowledge that cant be publish as it exist in 2017. Raise your hand and wait microphone. Also before i forget. The book that we are talking about is for sale in the hallway afterwards i encourage everyone to buy it and they will sign it. Just a quick question. From romantic abstract with all of this, how is that especially through that romantic abstraction through 1916 that they would go back the other way to be romantically abstract about the other side in 2010. I just started to read it so i was just reading about this last half. And it would seem the fact there was a great population in exile and love for both real and imagined ireland that something had been taken away fromak people that i suspect it has a metaphorical parallel to the reconciliation with an absent father. Yes. Ireland in a way my advantage of writing the book is having access of ireland through my father where the metaphor of the nation as a home that could be broken or threatened or troubled is more intuitive than my father left me america in a post nineties world from one that inflicts history around the world. It wouldnt work. And then to have people understand that parallel. [laughter] that definitely would not work. I do want to speak that the book is written in full knowledge there is a long history and literature of a bad irish dad the drunkard and the failure. And i did try to subvert that a little bit and also ireland has a funny attitude to the diasporaot and especially to america where many people dont know much to understand the reality and in some ways has grown closer to london that i would say both is further from london and dublin culturally. And the irish attitude toward irish america is full of derision. They hate the idea the yanks are clamoring to be irish which is the future of my childhood. So on the west coast of ireland to encounter this ironic and they said i bet you have some irish and you and i said i dont know they said wheres your family from . So wheres the place in america you mean West Virginia cracks. [laughter] so there was this appreciative derision. And in that town of dingle there is a guy hes 140 years old im sure he still there was a professional storyteller to american a tourist. He just sits there see you cannot help but to ask him a story. Stories he has completely invented. Appreciative derision was mine. My name is christian and by thee taxi driver who picked me up. And then ended up catholic. And those irish rebels and what does that matter . Is that still relevant does it still resonate with the irish populist quick. And i talk about and i exaggerate a little bit about that selfhatred or shame of irish nationals in the 19 nineties irish people have disagreements and i could end up in one cab and with one personal curse. With jerry adams and then another one if we find out anything with patrick pierce and the all volunteer force. So im not the biggest fan. I was brought up on the clancy brothers. This is the most ira song that they sing. If you go further down and end up late enough i learned songs i never knew existed. And into the weeds of it in from america but then they take those easiest and the neoliberal way. The microphone is on its way. On the modern ira it seems the nationalist are blamed but also marxist so i Wonder Within ireland it seems we get blamed for the Internationalist Movement brick iho dont even know who these new guys are. There were the Irish Volunteers that were led and taken over by the irish republican brotherhood. But connolly talked about how he would be obamay needed by his fellow socialist to be a committed irish nationalist to seek freedom and independence but the modern ira grew out of the split with the far left wing communist dominated ira of the fifties and sixties. Mcginnis and jerry adams harken back with that nationalist idea but moscow was very i interested because they were shooting at the british where they were just infiltrating irish media to seem like a debating society so as a Political Movement anywhere it tends to be opportunistic if youre seen as a capitalist power you will find yourself full of communist but to move progressively to the left at one point was a Prolife Party and very catholic in character and now a leader of gay rights and it has had splits over the prolife issue with the conservative nationalist alternative. Is o authentic nationalism intrinsically democratic or other other forms as well quick. There is a connection as a feverish movement one of the things the history of nationalism is that it springs up and achieves and rises up again in the presence of another and to be noted in the review and tends to be a convictionha that they are failing the future. What to be mean by democratic rex those that had been a bomb needed by the historians as the elite clash of intellectuals who did not understand or did not even care enough for the lies of the Common People who join their movement so they have typically a divide between the leaders and the foot soldiers. For me to learn irish history was really dreary. So learning the initial reaction a lot of that was negative and anger from the streets but it is also shocking because of the rise out of slavery. It is interesting the newspapers during world war i, they would start to censorship by the authorities in the first reaction is to have all of these thugs that have destroyed dublin and the identityty that some people knew it was evolved they recognize the uniforms of the movement but then all these poets of language activists that were respected with upper middleclassca catholic figures than Public Attitude started to change. In the sense that its understood by the people only later without the approved commentatorsrp and thats why it turns into a p. This ballads. Not that theres anything wrong. Weve talked about the primary title you talk about the proctoring and hopefully the reconstruction of the civil United States how much will do you see in each otherofhis books and thinking . When i was reading the beginning of the book, one of the first things that occurred to me is the piccolo and the charlottesville attack happened they tried to kill all those people and grew up in a couple different places without a father so that is the very skeleton of this. Especially born a in jersey. What i argue is the collapse of famine is due to an erosion of Strong Community and its not always easy to find it so michaels mother was say i need to get her something else. American Society Today especially suburban new jersey and new york doesnt build a family ihelp afamily in the ways do. 30 years before the right neighborhood in philly you are right there and it isnt as easy in the 1980s, so she other civic institutions like the Irish Language activist groups and so there is the. I thought that they were parallel and not i was looking at vias and i joked that yours tlwas on the little platoons and mine was on the idea of society as a contract into living, the dead and unborn experience i write about in the book i write about it as something that primeshe you put the skepticism about the institutions and the purpose because the fact is someone that supposedly showed you this time, attention, affection felt free to absent himself in a fundamental way and its my belief and i try to marry this experience of my children reconnected me to my father, to my deceased mother into this national tradition, so it does so in my particular case given the circumstances i was born into, but i think it is true on a general level for society that those with lots of children are more humble before the past and are forced to make these sacrifices for the future. A lot of beliefs and people on the left and right sign up for them which is moving us away from the particularities of the prejudice of the past is worth something more general and universal. Its a problem of philip of policy wonks. The idea that that is always right is the same project and we oned to move beyond, become more secular and mature and moveth beyond the things that are dividing us that they are often the things that make us belong to something. If you remove the things dividing us it is anything on a human level. This project from constraint isnt just about constraint conf the prejudice ofit the past. What i try to stay in the book is its literally an attempt to liberate the ideas and people not just from the prejudice of their parents but to the duties to their children, and i dont think that its a stretch to say it isnthat isnt just an abstr, youre saying i dont have enough respect for history. Ultimately we see the refusal to have children, a portion of unwanted children and euthanasia it manifests itself in actual bloodshed and thats the shame in trying to escape. He gave to the home movers who didnt recognize it the sameness and likeness of god. Its about selfrealization and about finding yourself. It not inventing yourself. Its interesting the way the father gets dragged into this project. Its interesting how at the end of the book and i think that this is a gradual thing he emerges so it is a book about reconciliation but then neithere are still ongoing areas of contention. He first takes it on a level with his children and i think the hop hope of that is by addressing it to him in this personal way to someone i actually belong to us and not just to condemn and abominate. By absenting their judgment and authority from the culture. Have time for one last question. We will take those two back therent is. Thank you for speaking about this interesting book. I was wondering given the language you used the rediscover of manhood. What do they offer were not not offer women in the history of the laundries and in pain rightt now there is a nationalist movement one of their rallying cries is a violence against wwomen standard so how do you reconcile that . Stack that was a great question this one will be somewhat different. Is there something distinctive about the political character of irishamericans the rest of us should be aware of and observant of . I will tak i will take the first question q first. In 1916, i mentioned the Irish Volunteers, the army to that there was a militant Womens Movement that included many suffragettes and in fact the first woman elected to parliament was comes out of the movement as a romantic figure in the movement and much loved even today in the commemoration commd send the mails. One thing that was not noted commemorating her was that after the rising and she abstained from taking her seat with Irish Republicans did, she cited the amory of seeing the boys outfit as a factor in her conversion to catholicism. She was in the only protestant who was caught up in this movement has found herself afterwards converting. The irish state afterwards many complain that started circumscribing their rights immediately. Divorce became more restrictive than i had been in the u United Kingdom so you have contrary movement that included a lot of fliberationists and feminists f the time but then its dominated by catholic institutions. To the question about the political character of irishamericans, watch your wallet. [laughter] we are american patriots. One of the funny things i think about i this the movement in the United States where hundreds of Union Civil War soldiers and must themselves in the plan of invading canada to ransom it from the irish freedom. In a way it is defeating the national myth. It wasnt bad to do a repeat of that for i think. [laughter] and i was studying in college thithere was the guardian class represented by dogs, the loyalty and willingness to attack. I hadfe a professor who said sometimes i think in some people look at me as thoug though theyd take an insult but i took it as ehe highest possible compliment. So again, outside we have a reception its usually just whine and cheese. This time we did add beer. Tried to add whiskey but they are keeping us down. [laughter] more importantly online on sale, amazon i recommend you all pick it up. Most people will say he will drink it down in one sitting. Thank you for coming. [applause] in the late 1850s americans trusted their congressmen but not congress as an institution. Nor did they entrust each other. By 1860 many were armed not because they were eager to other opponents but out of the fear that your opponent might kill them. History professor and author will be our guest in depth sunday from noon to 2 p. M. Eastern. The latest book is the field of blood. Her other titles include the essential hamilton writings and affairs of honor. Join our conversation with your phone calls and facebook questions. Then in his latest book the majority, we examine whether evangelicals are choosing evangelical cover over christian values. I think the lesser evil argument is tempting but dangerous. It contributes to keeping a system in place that takes accountability out of the system and its also an easy way to bring in Something Like evangelicalism or any other and use that as a way to get votes which seems like the first possible way