We Don't Know Ourselves

2022 draws to a close, so I'd like to give a quick shout-out to my "book of the year": Fintan O'Toole's "We Don't Know Ourselves".

A non-fiction work, it tells the story of Ireland in the author's lifetime, from his particular vantage point. No attempt is made to abstract modern Irish history onto some neutral plain. Rather, O'Toole sets about relating what he sees as the big moments of the past 63+ years in Ireland as he experienced them, marshalling facts in support of his own experience. What he arrives at for a conclusion might be described as this: Ireland's first crack at modernity was to cling to a conservative Catholicism, vote for an idealistic nationalism, and allow a kleptocratic capitalism; Ireland's second crack at modernity was to sideline and repudiate a conservative Catholicism, vote for a pragmatic present in the hope for an ideal future, and to channel capital's gains to the national interest.

O'Toole held my interest from the start and I cannot give a better endorsement of this, his latest book, then this: I bought a subscription to The Irish Times to read his columns there and keep my reading of this history going.