Cut on the Bias: The Irish History Seminar
by Bowen Smith, History Department Head
We love our myths. They inspire us, console us and absolve us so well that we weave
them deep into our history. Then we try mightily to forget the difference between
the natural and the synthetic. Mostly, we succeed.
Still, the occasional loose thread tantalizes. Something compels us to tug
on it and trace the artifice. The garment gets messy and comes apart at the
seams. Those it fits best get angry. They use all sorts of nasty euphemisms for this
unraveling of a stylish narrative and its eventual replacement with something sturdier and
humbler. They call it skepticism, revisionism, even nihilism. In the Irish History Seminar, we just
call it historiography.
Over the nine years that I’ve offered this Sixth-Form Honors elective, students have
initially reacted to our analysis and criticism of competing versions of the dramatic Irish
past with a mixture of unease and excitement. Struggling to prepare for this fall’s exam
essay on how serious a challenge historians’ bias presents to our understanding of the
United Irishmen and the revolutionary 1790s, one very conscientious, exasperated
scholar confessed, “I’m afraid I’m just becoming a cynic. I can’t believe history anymore!”
Descartes would sympathize with his skeptical crisis, but prescribe something more
practical than weak-kneed nostalgia for the textbook mono-narratives that we too often
present as “history.”
The Seminar’s version of Cartesian therapy begins with the acceptance of an indubitable truth: all historians are human and, hence, as biased as you and me and our favorite
cable news channel. Both consciously and unconsciously, they pick and choose shamelessly
from evidence, methodology and philosophy to fashion their own version of the story. Yet,
somehow, we still love them... and trust them. The heart truly does have its own reason.
Reconciling ourselves to the very human imperfection in our histories doesn’t end with this
potentially depressing discovery of the ubiquity of bias. Investigating and critiquing it in its different
shapes and colors and fashions, we begin to recognize the timeless, universal qualities in our own nature.
The most biased historian, the most manipulative propagandist is us.
Seamus MacManus published his unabashedly nationalist The Story of The Irish Race (1921) in the extraordinarily
charged atmosphere of the Irish War of Independence. His selfless United Irish heroes, Wolfe Tone, Thomas Russell
and the Emmets, almost Christ-like in their republican virtue, in effect, rise from their slumber to support Collins, de
Valera, Barry and O Malley in their desperate struggle against the British Empire. MacManus means to inspire his own
people in their hour of destiny and does so with a ripping good yarn. In spite of his ideological bias or, perhaps, because
of it, his history-as-rallying-cry continues to call from the shelves of our big corporate book stores almost a century
P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL
after it first sounded. This ancient mode of storytelling triggers something primal in us and defies the contemporary
discipline’s morally neutral, scientific pretensions.
Ireland’s prince of these professional pretensions, Roy
Foster, occupies the chair in Irish history at Oxford for
good reason. The very talented anti-nationalist revisionist portrays Tone and the other United Irish leaders not as
martyrs in the national passion play but as dangerouslyout-of-their-depth naifs epitomizing the “radical chic” of
their heady era of revolution. Foster’s genius as a modern
academic historian lies in his ability to mock rebel idealism and rationalize state terror while seeming to remain above
the late unpleasantry. In the Seminar, the students’ quantitative and qualitative analysis of his verb and modifier choices
reveals the deception. We see how his Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 (1988) met the need of British and Irish establishments petrified and embarrassed by the resurgence of the independence struggle in the North after the bloody
suppression of the American-style civil rights movement of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. We recognize the history text’s
potential as a sophisticated biological weapon... and our temptation to deploy our own.
In the daily discussion, vigorous peer review of essays and formal debate of the Seminar, we try to practice what
we preach. Sensitive to the vices and virtues that characterize authors and readers alike, we strive for transparency
rather than impossibly inhuman objectivity. Some might call it disillusionment. Well, like our discovery at the morning
mirror as the fog slowly retreats to the edges, that’s just what it is.
Long fascinated by what history reveals about our human condition, Bowen majored in the subject at the College of the Holy Cross,
where he balanced his studies with four years as a varsity hockey goaltender. After graduation, the intellectual and athletic aspects of his
nature compelled him to take on the multidimensional challenge of prep school life. Three years in the classroom at St. Sebastian’s in
Needham, MA, convinced him to pursue his favorite discipline at the graduate level. A Master of Arts degree in Modern European History
at University at Albany, and the completion of doctoral studies (ABD) in early modern Britain and Ireland at Fordham University, led to
teaching and dean of faculty responsibilities at the Saint Thomas Choir School in Manhattan for five years.
With his wife, Kate (an accomplished English teacher), and their young sons, Conor ’17 and Sean, Bowen decided the Abbey’s mission,
traditional curriculum and beautiful setting made it the ideal place to combine professional and family life. The third of the Smithereens,
Thomas, arrived shortly after the move to the bayside.
Here at the Abbey, Bowen chairs the History Department,
has taught the signature Humanities course for more than a
decade (team - teaching with Kate for the past three years)
and developed a challenging university-style, honors-level
Irish History Seminar.
As head coach of boys’ varsity soccer, Bowen guided the
Ravens to their most successful season in School history in
2011, capturing the EIL title and a New England Prep Championship tourney berth for the first time. But if pressed on his
most satisfying achievement at the Abbey, he would choose
his selection by his peers for the Dom Peter Sidler Award for
teaching excellence in his first year of eligibility in 2007.
WINTER BULLETIN 2014