We Don't Know Ourselves

 We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland by Fintan O'Toole is one of the better nonfiction books I've ever read. Thorough and lively, it's a comprehensive survey of Irish history since the author's birth, in 1958. O'Toole's personal narrative is muted and serves only to ground the larger account of Ireland's economy, political violence, and culture. I had heard of the Troubles, of course, and seen films and television shows that told parts of the story (with varying success). O'Toole's book gave the big picture, without making the terrorism the most interesting aspect of those years. Sociological and religious forces drove much of We Don't Know Ourselves, explaining everything from political corruption to population declines to real estate. 

The inherent contradictions and "known unknowns" that permeate Irish society were the real subject of the book. It explored Ireland's place, as a mostly independent, mostly Catholic, population on the frontiers of Europe during the Sexual Revolution. The tensions between public and private morality proved unsustainable. How a country can officially enact the most socially conservative laws in the developed world, while privately ignoring child abuse at parochial schools, engenders barely concealed rage. O'Toole is not detached. He does not romanticize his country's plight. His clinical descriptions of the IRA's bloodlust, for example, deflate any sympathy from American readers. If there's a plot in the text, it's how a country gradually but emphatically rejects the teachings of the Catholic Church. Given the hypocrisy and collective, willful ignorance, it is an understandable conclusion.