Carson: The Man Who Divided Ireland (review)

Geoffrey Lewis has written a readable and well-researched biography of Sir Edward Carson that stresses his central role in the partition of Ireland, despite Carson's failure to achieve his two stated objectives—"to preserve the Union, and to fight against anarchy in his own country" (ix-x). It is the first full-length Carson biography in decades, and well overdue. Lewis makes a convincing case that his subject, more than any other individual, deserves responsibility for the political division of Ireland.

Lewis demonstrates the unlikelihood of Carson's political prominence. He emphasizes Carson's lack of personal ambition and attributes Carson's entry into political life to the patronage of prominent Unionists Lord and Lady Londonderry and especially Arthur Balfour. Carson seems remarkably indifferent both in the positions he sought, such as his first parliamentary seat and his leadership of the Irish Unionists, as well as those he passed up, such as his chances to lead the Unionist Party, the War Cabinet, and the new government of Northern Ireland. The standard view of Carson prevails here: brilliant attacker, hypochondriac, poor administrator, and inspirational though not organizational leader of the Ulster Unionists.

One of the book's strengths is its examination of Carson's early career for predictors of his behavior during the Home Rule crisis. Lewis insightfully argues that Carson never accepted the importance of party unity in guaranteeing a two-party system. When it came to "the sanctity of the Union of Britain and Ireland . . . any compromise, whether or not an exercise in the art of the possible, was weakness" (51). Carson could as easily attack friend or foe, bolting William Gladstone's Liberals over Home Rule; attacking Unionists over Irish land reform; embracing the divisive cause of tariff reform; and becoming an "arch-Ditcher" resisting the Parliament Act of 1911. Threats to party, national, or even personal unity were irrelevant, as was the likelihood of success, when Carson perceived the vital issue of the Union at stake.

Lewis shows how Carson's role as legal advocate foreshadowed his climactic political career. Putting Carson's handling of the Oscar Wilde case in the best light, Lewis nonetheless highlights it as an example of Carson's professional ruthlessness. Lewis emphasizes that Carson destroyed Wilde's reputation on the stand not to defend Victorian morals but as the only means to defend his client against charges of criminal libel. Carson's legal defense of amateur imperialist Dr. (Leander) Jameson is even more instructive, showing that throughout his career methods mattered little to Carson. The author observes that Carson, "like Jameson, but fifteen years later, was ready to flout the law for the greater good of Empire" (48).

Lewis describes early Carson biographies as written "in a spirit of uncritical piety" (258), though he himself shows great sympathy for his subject and presents his story mostly from a unionist perspective. He does on occasion take his subject to task, acknowledging Carson's use of the language of "incitement to sedition" (99) and describing the Carson-approved Larne gunrunning as "an act of blatant criminality" (149). Nevertheless, Lewis consistently holds the Liberal government most responsible for threatening the peace by its unwillingness to accommodate the Ulster Unionists to Carson's satisfaction.

Throughout the book Unionist assertions are presented as facts, not arguments. A biographical subject as controversial as Carson demands a much more critical inquiry. Instead, Lewis calls Gladstone's plea for Irish unity under Home Rule "hopeless" (32) and proclaims flatly: "There were two nations living in one island" (97). Carson's attachment to the Union likewise is central but not investigated deeply. Carson certainly favored the practical over the theoretical, but Lewis might have considered whether this fervor originated with Carson's Dublin Protestant roots, Victorian-era imperial attitudes, or something more specific to Carson's experience.

Lewis also provides a superficial analysis of Irish nationalists. Carson ignored all nationalist efforts at compromise and...