Ruth Dudley Edwards | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1944-05-24)May 24, 1944 (age 80) Dublin, Ireland |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Alma mater | Girton College, Cambridge Wolfson College, Cambridge |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Parents | Robert Dudley Edwards |
| Relatives | Owen Dudley Edwards (brother) |
Ruth Dudley Edwards (born 24 May 1944) is anIrish Unionist[1] historian and writer, with published work in the fields of history, biography and crime fiction, and a number of awards won. Born inDublin, Ireland, she has lived in England since 1965, and describes herself asBritish-Irish.[2] Her revisionist approach toIrish history and her views have sometimes generated controversy or ridicule.[3][4][5] She has been a columnist with the IrishSunday Independent, theDaily Telegraph andSunday Telegraph, andThe News Letter.[6]
Dudley Edwards was born and brought up inDublin, in what she describes as "the Catholic tribe",[6] and first graduated fromUniversity College Dublin (UCD). She has said that she loved her time at UCD but subsequently leftIreland to escape the influence of theCatholic Church, and a culture which backed "physical force nationalism."[7] She studied at twoCambridge University colleges,Girton andWolfson.[citation needed]
Her father was an Irish historian, ProfessorRobert Dudley Edwards. Her brotherOwen Dudley Edwards, a recognised expert onSherlock Holmes, also pursued a career as an historian, latterly at theUniversity of Edinburgh, while her sister, Mary, is deceased.[8] Dudley Edwards's grandmother,Bridget Dudley Edwards, was anIrish suffragette and a member ofCumann na mBan, a women's organisation designed to support theIrish Volunteers.
Her non-fiction books includeAn Atlas of Irish History,James Connolly,Victor Gollancz: A Biography (winner of theJames Tait Black Memorial Prize),The Pursuit of Reason:The Economist 1843–1993,The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions (shortlisted forChannel 4/The House Politico'sBook of the Year) andNewspapermen:Hugh Cudlipp,Cecil King and the glory days of Fleet Street.
HerPatrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, first published in 1977, which won theNational University of Ireland Prize for Historical Research, was reissued in 2006 byIrish Academic Press.
In 2009 she publishedAftermath: The Omagh Bombings and the Families' Pursuit of Justice, a book about the civil case that was won on 8 June 2009 against theOmagh bombers. The book won theCWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction.[9]
The Faithful Tribe was criticised byUlster Protestant journalistSusan McKay as "sentimental and blinkered",[10] but theNew Statesman contributor Stephen Howe described it as "engrossing and illuminating"[11] and theIrish Independent journalistJohn A. Murphy described it as "enormously readable, entertaining and informative", but "[her argument] 'extremely disingenuous'", and he quotes Shakespeare, 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks', when describing one of her counter-arguments as 'exaggerated'. He added "Historically in Ireland, Protestant 'liberties' tended to mean Protestant 'privilege,' and many Protestants (even including someUnited Irishmen) doubted whether Roman Catholics were constitutionallycapax libertatis capable of appreciating or enjoying liberty at all, because of Roman tyranny and priest-craft. In short, the Orange Protestant is still benightedly living in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the Southern Catholic, whatever his past intolerances, has moved on.".[12] In 2016 she publishedThe Seven: The Lives and Legacies of the Founding Fathers of the Irish Republic (Oneworld), a re-examination of theEaster Rising, addressing the fundamental questions and myths surrounding the 1916 leaders.
Also a crime fiction writer, her novels, most with a satirical angle, and featuring a British civil servant, Robert Amiss, and later led by Baroness Ida "Jack" Troutbeck, include:Corridors of Death,The Saint Valentine's Day Murders,The English School of Murder,Clubbed to Death,Matricide at St. Martha's,Ten Lords A-leaping,Murder in a Cathedral,Publish and Be Murdered,The Anglo-Irish Murders,Carnage on the Committee,Murdering Americans, andKilling the Emperors (the latter two won awards).[9] She was inducted into the prestigiousDetection Club in 1996.
Dudley Edwards has been a long-term columnist with the IrishSunday Independent, Ireland's highest-circulation newspaper, and theDaily Telegraph andSunday Telegraph of London, and also writes forThe News Letter of Belfast.[6]
Dudley Edwards has noted that "revisionist" is sometimes used as a term of attack on her and her work, for example bySinn Féin, a party which she holds is itself revisionist in its handling of some historical narratives. She summarises her own position as "I'm a proud revisionist who believes it is the job of historians to be prepared constantly to revise their opinions in the light of fresh evidence, and that if their conclusions are of national relevance they should defend them publicly."[13] Others view her “revisionist” history as being too biased, lacking in context, and intentionally misleading that her works classified as “nonfiction,” such as the “An Atlas of Irish History,” are better understood as partisan propaganda that would be inappropriate for use in an academic setting.[14]
Dudley Edwards describes herself as having grown up in a "Catholic tribe" which "was given an absurdly exaggerated and often invented narrative of their past sufferings which theProtestant tribe were not educated to counter" and has written sympathetically ofUlster Unionism.[6] At the same time, she stated that she is "not in principle againstIrish unification".[15] In 2000 Dudley Edwards wrote "I am neither [Irish]nationalist norunionist, just a democrat."[16]
In a February 2022 column, titled "It's official – I am now a unionist!", she acknowledged that politically she was aUnionist, claiming "the awfulness of Sinn Féin and many of their weaselly fellow-travellers have succeeded in making me embrace unionism".[17]
In a radio debate with historianTim Pat Coogan overKen Loach's 2006 filmThe Wind That Shakes the Barley, in which neither historian had seen the film beforehand, Dudley Edwards was "highly critical of what she saw as being little more than a lopsided, anti-British, pro-IRA propaganda piece. At one point, she suggested that historical accuracy would have been better served if Loach had made reference to the IRA's pogrom against the Protestant population in Cork.", to which Coogan responded that revisionists "ignored the fact that the murdered Protestants of Cork were informers."[18]
Dudley Edwards has described herself as "hardline Brexiteer." She called on theDUP to support Boris Johnson's Brexit deal in October 2019, citing aUnionist friend who said "it could put Northern Ireland in a terrific position as a gateway between the EU and the UK/world economy."[19] She has also called for theRepublic of Ireland to leave theEU.[7]
I listened to two eminent Irish historians, Ruth Dudley Edwards and Tim Pat Coogan, ... (Neither historian had seen the film.) ... historical accuracy would have been better served if Loach had made reference to the IRA's pogrom ... ignored the fact that the murdered Protestants of Cork were informers ...
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