Life
1912-1996 [James Camlin Beckett]; ed. Belfast Acad. Inst. and QUB, grad.
1934 (1st Class Hons. in Mod. History); taught for 11 years at Belfast
Royal Academy; MA QUB; lect. in history, QUB, 1945; Protestant Dissent
in Ireland 1687-1780 (1948); produced 2-vol. history of QUB, with
Theo Moody; Reader in History, 1952; installed in personal chair as Prof.
of Mod. Hist. QUB, 1958-75); The Making of Modern Ireland 1603-1923
(1965), and freq. reprinted; MRIA; member of Irish Manuscript Commission;
enthusiastic student of Norwegian language and literature; d. 12 Feb.;
bur. Ballinderry, Co. Antrim, called ‘the doyen of northern historians’
by W. J. McCormack (Battle of the Books, 1986); issued a history
of Queen’s University, Belfast, with T. W. Moody. DIW OCEL FDA
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Works
‘The Anglo-Irish Tradition in Literature’, Lagan, 2 (1944),
pp.44-47; Protestant Dissent in Ireland 1687-1780 [Irish Hist.
Studies, ed. T. W. Moody et al.] (London: Faber & Faber 1948);
A Short History of Ireland [Hutchinson University Library] (London:
Hutchinson 1952; edns. to 1979); with T. W. Moody, ed., Ulster since
1800: A Social Survey (London 1957); The Making of Modern Ireland
1603-1923 (London: Faber 1965), rep. (London: Faber 1966), 496pp.,
maps.; Do., another edn., (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1966), 496pp., maps.;
with R. E. Glasscock, Belfast: The Origin and Growth of an Industrial
City (London: BBC 1967), 204pp.; Confrontations: Studies in Irish
History (London 1972); The Anglo-Irish Tradition (1976; rep.
Belfast: Blackstaff 1982); ed. Belfast: The Making of the City
(1982); The Cavalier Duke, A Life of James Butler, First Duke of Ormond
(Belfast: Pretani Press 1990); also ‘The Irish writer and His Public
in the Nineteenth Century’, Hunter and Rawson, eds., Yearbook
of English Studies, 2 (1981), pp. 102-116; ed., Historical Studies,
VII [Papers of Irish Conference of Historians] (London: Routledge
1969). Also, ‘The Irish Writer and his Public in the Nineteenth Century’,
in G. K. Hunter and E. J. Rawson, eds., The Yearbook of English Studies,
Vol. 2 [Mod. Humanities Research Assoc.] (1981).
The Making of Modern Ireland (Faber 1966; reps. 1969, 1971, 1973, 1978; new edn. 1981, rep. 1985, 1987, &c.), 514pp. CONTENTS, ‘Pacata Hibernia'; 'Ireland in the Early Seventeenth Century'; Protestant and Recusant, the constitutional Struggle, 1603-1641’; ‘The War of the Three Kingdoms’; ‘Confiscation and Settlement; Restoration Ireland’; ‘"The Glorious Memory"’; ‘The Emergence of the Protestant Nation’; ‘The Economic and Social Basis of the Protestant Ascendancy’; ‘The Rise of the Patriots’; ‘The Winning of the Constitution’; ‘Grattan’s Parliament’; ‘The Impact of Revolution’; ‘From the Union to Catholic Emancipation’; ‘O’Connell and the Policy of Repeal’; ‘The Great Famine’; ‘Land and Politics, 1850-1870’; ‘The Beginning of Home Rule’; ‘The Uncrowned King’; ‘The Policy of Conciliation, 1891-1905’; ‘The Home Rule Crisis, 1906-1914’; ‘The Revolution in Ireland, 1914-1923’ [each of the foregoing with numerical subsections and page-head titles, e.g., The Viceroyalty of Fitzwilliam, Balfour and the Land Question, Easter Week, 1916]; also Select Bibliography & Index.
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Criticism
An obituary notice by A. T. Q. Stewart appeared in History Ireland,
Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer 1996), pp.5-6.
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Notes
Seamus Heaney cites Beckett in making his case in ‘The Sense
of Place’ [1977): ‘And when we look for the history of our sensibilities
I am convinced, as Professor J. C. Beckett was convinced about the history
of Ireland generally, that it is to the stable element, the land itself,
that we must look for continuity.’ (p.149; quoted in Sophia Hillen
King, ‘The Millstone and the Star, Regionalism as Strength’,
in Linen Hall Review, Autumn 1994, p.7.)
D. George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland (London: Routledge 1982; 1991), writes: ‘Had the Normans not come to Ireland, Rory O’Connor [High King] might have forged some kind of national monarchy of the kind that had already been created in the neighbouring countries; but the Norman intervention introduced the frist of those breaks in a pattern of development which one Irish historian has drawn attention to (viz., J. C. Beckett, in ‘The Study of Irish history’, Confrontations, 1972, pp.11-25.) A genuine [29] national monarchy did not emerge; but neither did the kings of Ireland unite to check and expel the invader. Instead each ruler fought for himself, now allied with, now against, the newcomers.’ (Boyce, p.29-30.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)