Humbert tradition

Ploughing the Humbert tradition

Twenty-one years later, what have the highlights been and what is the raison d’être of the School?

Áine Ryan

ADMIT IT, as a nation, we’re very good at it. And thanks to William Butler Yeats and his diverse poetic meanderings, we can boast of hosting the oldest of its kind in the world. ‘Gabfests’ may be what the cynics call them, but summer schools provide a much more respectful, even reverential, title for days and nights devoted solely to debate, discourse, dialogue, discussion, disagreement, dissension ….  oh! and a modicum of fine dining and drinking.
While Sligo’s Yeats Summer School will be 50 soon, Mayo’s General Humbert Summer School will next week come of age and celebrate its 21st birthday. The landmark event whose origins author and journalist, Mr John Cooney, puts down to ‘a moment of madness’ after reading Thomas Flanagan’s historical novel The Year of the French, has attracted six Taoisigh, and an annual cavalcade of MPs, TDs, MEPs, ambassadors, academics, poets, journalists and broadcasters.
Defining the School as providing ‘intellectual tourism’ to Mayo, John Cooney, last year, told The Western People it had always provided ‘a topical and practical forum’ for addressing myriad issues. Surely though such symposia would benefit society more if the politicians, academics and clergy leaders also attended in the role of listeners and audience, as well as the usual agenda-setters. Contemplate a scenario where little-known experts on the School’s subject matter – for example this year’s themes of multi-cultural Ireland or the impact of the 2007 General Election – featured as guest speakers. What would a non-national, who has endured racist abuse on a Castlebar street have to contribute, or a traveller attending literacy classes? Wouldn’t it be fascinating to hear what Dr Jerry Cowley had to say about surviving for five years as an Independent TD? Or what a young history or politics post-graduate student hoped to achieve in his or her relevant studies.  
At the inaugural school, held in 1987 from August 21 to 23,  the late Sean MacBride  poignantly laid a wreath at the Humbert Monument in Ballina; ironically, in 1898, his mother,  Maud Gonne, had officiated at the unveiling of the monument. In the intervening 89 years this country’s political landscape had changed remarkably: the Land League and United Irish League had effectively disenfranchised a medieval, ascendancy landlordism; the Easter Rising had led to an uneasy peace and the Treaty and civil war had ensued, leading ultimately to Saorstát na hÉireann and the Republic of Ireland in 1949.
 By the late 1950s the Fianna Fáil Government, under the stewardship of Sean Lemass, aimed for an annual two per cent economic expansion, while vigorously protecting home-grown industries and establishing such State boards as Bord na Móna, Irish Shipping and Aer Lingus.  
Thirty years later when Lemass’s son-in-law, Charles J Haughey presided at the inaugural opening of the Humbert Summer School in 1987, Ireland had conceded some of its nationalistic aspirations and pragmatically joined the EU. Coincidentally, it was also amid yet another haemorrhage of mass-emigration.
“In the period of economic depression we are going through, a summer school is both a community morale booster and an essential feature of a development plan,” John Cooney observed in June 1987. 
From the outset, John Cooney, along with Tony McGarry, defined the parameters of the School under a number of main categories: the history of General Humbert and his campaign in Connacht; the Northern Ireland Peace Process; Irish Foreign Policy and our relationship with Europe and the promotion of the west of Ireland. More recently the School added a definitive cultural dimension by including local cultural and historical societies and some artistic programming.
In 1988, the second year, the School was expanded to ten days and attracted an impressive list of speakers, including retired Taoiseach Jack Lynch, in a rare public appearance.
Arguing that General Humbert’s mission was a reminder that Ireland’s links with Europe had always been strong, Jack Lynch said: “Had we not joined Europe in 1973, I believe our economy would have withered with little prospect of revival. Inside Europe, especially in the integrated market, we can prosper. But we cannot afford to wait until the end of 1992 when the Single Market will be fully effective. We must act now. It is up to ourselves.”
However, the same year, leading historian, Dr Marianne Elliott, pithily debunked any romanticism or altruism in France’s foreign policy, associated with Humbert’s invasion. 
“The 1798 Rebellion and the French invasion attempts which followed have been subsumed into Ireland’s tradition of glorious failures. Shed of such romanticism, however, the failure and suffering appear anything but glorious. France never was the dispassionate saviour of popular tradition, but a pragmatic and cynical European power fighting a bitter war at home and abroad,” said Dr Elliott.
As well as five Government ministers, including a number of party leaders – Desmond O’Malley, Prionsias de Rossa, and Jim Kemmy – the Primate of all Ireland, Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich and British Ambassador, Nicholas Fenn attended the 1988 gathering. At a dinner honouring Minister for Commerce, Albert Reynolds, Mr Fenn said that while ‘the time had not yet come’ when it was ‘natural’ for a British ambassador to attend such a function, he hoped it was imminent. 
Twelve years later, in 2000,  Ulster Unionist MP, Mr Ken Maginnis was accusing Taoiseach Bertie Ahern of going ‘mentally on walkabout’ when faced with northern affairs.
“He is a good politician but he is careless and hasn’t got over this attitude that somehow Unionists don’t matter at the end of the day,  because he can speak to Peter Mandelson or Tony Blair,” said Mr Maginnis.
A year on and SDLP Leader, Mr John Hume MP observed that while technological and transportation advances had made the world smaller, there were still ‘borders in the hearts and minds of people which are preventing society from progressing’.
The continued integration of the EU showed that differences between peoples could be overcome, said Mr Hume, who this year will deliver the annual Bishop Stock address.
“We have far greater differences with many of these countries but we have been able to work them out – so why can we not do the same with our country,” said John Hume in 2001.
Four years earlier in 1996, Peter Sutherland was presented with the Humbert Leadership Award for his role in the controversial GATT Treaty (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs). Addressing the School, he argued that Ireland was far more ‘Statist’ than any of our competitors.
Urging that it was time to ‘reconsider the policy of Statism’, Mr Sutherland said: “The bottom line is that it is now generally agreed that it is not the vocation of politicians or civil servants to run businesses.” Neither was it the job of the semi-state sector since inevitably the State was the power over that sector, he added.
Mr Sutherland’s views certainly appear prophetic as the country now grapples with the latest regional crisis over the Aer Lingus pull-out of its Shannon-Heathrow commitments. They also heralded the cold economic ethos of the Celtic Tiger, consigning our residual nationalism – artificially life-supported by the continued colonial presence of the British in the north – to poets and polemicists, terrorists and traditionalists.