Life
Fr. Francis Shaw, author of a celebrated article in Studies imputing
blasphemy to the leaders of the 1916 Rising in timing their action for
Easter, with associated symbolic speeches and writings, written in 1966
but not thought judicious to publish until 1971.
[ top ]
Works
‘Medieval Medico-Philosophical Treatises in the Irish language’,
in John Ryan, ed., Essays and Studies presented to Professor Eoin MacNeill
(Dublin: Three Candles Press 1940), cp.144-45; ‘The Linguistic
Argument for Two Patricks’, in Studies (1943), pp.315-22;
Irish Medical Men and Philosphers’, in Brian Ó Cuiv, ed.,
Seven Centuries of Irish Learning 1000-1700 (Dublin: Stationary
Office 1961), pp.87-90; ‘The Canon of Irish History: A Challenge’,
in Studies, LXI, No. 242 (1972), pp.113-52 [var. 157].
[ top ]
Criticism
Padraig Ó Snodaigh, Two Godfathers of Revisionism (Dublin:
Fulcrum Press 1992), 44pp.
[ top ]
Commentary
Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland (1996), pp.211-12: ‘What
troubled Hogan [err for J. J. Horgan] and Father Shaw in the 1916 writings
was their unapologetic invocation of Wolfe Tone and, by extension, the
"godless" anti-Catholic rebels of the French Revolution. Father
Shaw, [211] citing clerical alw, bjects to Pearse’s description of
the Jacobin Tone as a prophet.
Quotations
Patrick Christ: ‘Objectively the equation of the patriot with
Christ is in conflict with the whole Christian tradition, and, indeed,
with the explicit teaching of Christ.’ (Studies, Summer 1971,
p.123; cited in Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland, 1995, p.211.)
[ top ]
Notes
W. B. Yeats: Shaw writes that Yeats’s supposedly Irish inspiration
found its basis in a pseudo-Oriental dream-world, far removed from anything
properly called Celtic, and based on "much mutual borrowing and uninspired
imitation’"; further, took issue with Leavis’s view that
Yeats’s Irishness made his dream-world "something more than
private, personal and literary" and conferred on it "an external
validation" (New Bearings in English Poetry, 1932, p.34),
denouncing the poet for turning upstanding Irish heroes into effeminate
dreamers and Anglicised lotus-eaters. Shaw goes on to assert that Yeats
poetry did not express ‘national character and feeling’, and
further: ‘the fact of the matter is that while Mr. Yeats went to
[S. J.] O’Grady and Lady Gregory for his heroes, he went to the "Brahmin
philosopher" and Madame Blavatsky for his inspiration. Is it not
a little surprising to find "the great fountain of Gaelic Ireland"
pouring forth, by some strange perversion, a pure stream of Oriental philosophy?’
(In Studies, March 1934, pp.25-41, and June 1934, pp.260-78. cited
in Roy Foster, ‘When the Newspapers have Forgotten Me ...’,
in Yeats Annual 12, Macmillan, 1996, p.173.) [Check date.]
[ top ]
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)