All Ireland

by Standish J. O'Grady

Standish James O'Grady (1846-1928), the son of a Church of Ireland rector in Cork, read Classics at Trinity College, Dublin, and subsequently became a barrister and leader-writer on the Conservative Dublin Daily Express. He produced a series of histories of Ireland, helping to lay the foundations of the Irish Literary Revival by making Irish mythology available to the rising generation: the two-volume History of Ireland gives an account of bardic times, centring upon the exploits of Cuchulain and the Red Branch warriors. Although he knew no Irish, and even mispronounced the name of his hero Cuchulain, he managed to impose order upon his fragmentary sources and communicates his immense enthusiasm for his subject. Like his hero Carlyle, O'Grady believed in a natural aristocracy ruling by an instinctively recognized right, and much of his most impassioned prose was directed towards urging an absentee or irresponsible Anglo-Irish Ascendancy to recognize its duties. All Ireland was inspired by the agitation which followed allegations that Britain had overtaxed Ireland for most of the nineteenth century. O'Grady seizes what he regards the final opportunity for the landlord class to muster popular support, and urges that Ireland should create a permanent single-party state based on nationalism and agriculture. He argues that an organized and united Ireland will have sufficient courage and racial resources to impose its will on a degenerate modern Britain. He advocates an All-Ireland Convention to formulate all Irish questions, working through Westminster so that Ireland may enjoy both the Imperial Treasury and an Imperial destiny that will keep her from mere provincial nationalism.

151 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1898

About the author

Please be careful not confuse him with his cousin Standish Hayes O'Grady.

Standish James O'Grady

His father was the Reverend Thomas O'Grady, the scholarly Church of Ireland minister of Castletown Berehaven, County Cork, and his mother Susanna Doe (or Dowe). Standish O'Grady's childhood home - the Glebe - lies a mile west of Castletownbere near a famine mass grave and ruined Roman Catholic chapel. He was a cousin of Standish Hayes O'Grady, another noted figure in Celtic literature, and of Standish O'Grady, 1st Viscount Guillamore.

He married Margaret Fisher and had three sons. Advised to move away from Ireland for the sake of his health, he passed his later years living with his eldest son, a clergyman in England, and died on the Isle of Wight.

His eldest son, Hugh Art O'Grady, was for a time editor of the Cork Free Press before he enlisted in the Great War early in 1915. He became better known as Dr Hugh O'Grady, later Professor of the Transvaal University College, Pretoria (later the University of Pretoria), who wrote the biography of his father in 1929.

After a rather severe education at Tipperary Grammar School, Standish James O'Grady followed his father to Trinity College, Dublin, where he won several prize medals and distinguished himself in several sports.