Paul Bew

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Paul Anthony Elliott Bew, Baron Bew is professor of Irish politics at the Queen's University of Belfast, a position he has held since 1991.

A native of Belfast, Bew attended Campbell College, Belfast before studying for his Masters and PhD at Cambridge University. He was active in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights movement, and participated in the 1969 Belfast-Derry march which was attacked by loyalist protestors at Burntollet. He is a recognised authority on Irish History and politics.

He is a member of the Cadogan Group, a loosely-organised unionist think-thank. Like Trimble, he is a signatory of the Cambridge neocon think tank the Henry Jackson Society Project for Democratic Geopolitics.

In February 2007, it was announced by the House of Lords Appointments Commission that he will be made a life peer and will sit as a Crossbencher. His title was gazetted as Baron Bew, of Donegore in the County of Antrim on 26 March 2007.

Early life

Bew was born in 1950 to a northern Protestant father and a southern Catholic mother. He was educated at Campbell College where joined the Northern Ireland Labour Party Young Socialists.[1]

Civil rights movement

Bew joined the People's Democracy (PD) and was present in January 1969 when a PD civil rights march was attacked at Burntollet.[2]

BICO and the Workers Party

In the early 1970s, Bew and fellow historian Henry Patterson were influenced by the British and Irish Communist Organisation (BICO) analysis, which argued that the British state could play a progressive role in the conflict.[3] Both were at one time members of the BICO-allied Workers' Association for a Democratic Settlement in Ireland.[4]

The Workers' Party's Eamonn Smullen subsequently invited Patterson to write a section of The Irish Industrial Revolution, and he and Bew eventually both joined the party.[5]

Patterson and Bew were among the speakers at the Worker's Party's 1984 Marx Centenary Conference.[6]

In a 1991 debate with Tomás Mac Giolla in the Workers' Party publication Making Sense, Bew argued that the Easter Rising had been an aberration that allowed the ideas of 'marginal radicals' to hold sway for 40 years:[7]

Of course, the intimate Redmondite involvement in Westminster - which would have survived home rule - is impossible to recreate, but a more relaxed, less charged version of Irish political destiny already exists with Brussels to some degree playing the role Redmond envisaged for London.[8]

David Trimble adviser

More recently, he was an unofficial adviser to the former Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble. Though he has this to say about such labels:

He rejects his frequent designation as an "adviser" to Trimble. "This is misleading because it does an injustice to the people who are employed as his advisers and also implies regular contact, whereas I sometimes go months without contact." However, he accepts "informal adviser" as a reasonable description of a relationship that has grown from the late 1970s, when Trimble was a member of the interviewing panel that gave him his first job at Queen's. "There were two historians on the panel, but David was the only person who had read something I had recently written about Irish history, and asked a number of penetrating questions." [9]

According to Henry McDonald, this interview took place in 1979, and the book that Trimble had read was The State in Northern Ireland.[10]

Bew was present at the British-Irish Association conference at Keele University in 1986, where Trimble met another key member of his inner circle, the journalist Ruth Dudley Edwards.[11]

During the Drumcree Crisis in July 1998, Bew was one of a small group including among others, Professor Liam Kennedy, Sean O'Callaghan and Ruth Dudley Edwards which attempted to draft a speech for the Prime Minister. Dudley Edwards subsequently wrote:

There would have been no need to mention this draft either, had not two newspapers run front-page stories about us having written a pro-Orange speech. It was in fact an attempt to get a British politician to show he had some understanding of and respect for ordinary Northern Irish people. And though subsequent events made the speech irrelevant, echoes of it have subsequently appeared in prime ministerial utterances and in a letter from his chief-of-staff to the Orange Order.[12]

Dean Godson describes Bew as an occasional 'back-channel' between Trimble and the British government, describing one incident in May 1999 when Bew met Jonathan Powell, and was surprised to find him unaware of the threat to the UUP's seat in the then-upcoming European elections. According to Dean Godson:

Shortly thereafter, Bew met Powell at a private residence in Pimlico. Bew sought to explain to Powell the Prime Minister's growing credibility problem within the majority community, stemming from his perception of broken referendum pledges.[13]

Following Seamus Mallon's resignation on 15 July 1999, Godson reports that Stephen King rang round Bew, Ruth Dudley Edwards and Eoghan Harris to persuade Trimble not to resign.[14] Bew suggested that Trimble should form a new executive whilst depositing a post-dated resignation letter with the Northern Ireland Assembly, a suggestion Trimble declined.[15]

Bew was Trimble's and Ken Maginnis's first choice to serve as a pro-unionist voice on the Patten Commission into policing, but declined partly for personal reasons.[16] Bew came to regard the man who chosen in his stead, barrister Chris Smith, as having been 'captured' by the Commission.[17] He also expressed concern to Ken Maginnis about another commission member, Canadian academic Clifford Shearing, who had written sympathetically about alternative justice in South African townships.[18]

Bew spoke along with Eoghan Harris and Malachi O'Doherty at the UUP assembly group away day in Glasgow on 25 September 1999.[19]

At a meeting in the Commons on 17 November 1999, Lord Cranborne put to Trimble the post-dated cheque idea, which according to Godson, had earlier been put forward by Bew. This time the suggestion was taken up by Trimble, who decided to deposit a resignation letter with the UUP president Sir Josias Cunningham.[20] Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson told Bew at a dinner on 6 March 2000 that he wished he had never come up with the idea.[21]

At an American Enterprise Institute conference in London on 13 January 2001, Trimble told Bew that he could not push the Good Friday Agreement in a 'Unionist way' lest it give republicans an excuse not to decommission.[22]

Bew was one of a number of Trimble supporters who argued that the North Belfast UUP MP Cecil Walker should stand down after a disastrous TV debate ahead of the 2001 Westminster election.[23] He also proposed that a Border Poll should be held on the same day as the election to strengthen the union and increase unionist turnout.[24]

Bew Told Godson that his had been the only voice arguing for suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly at a Hillsborough dinner hosted by the Permanent Secretary of the Northern Ireland Office, Joe Pilling in October 2001.[25]

In 2003, Trimble aide David Campbell asked Bew to deliver a paper on Eamonn De Valera's 1923 order to dump arms as a model for disaarmament. Bew criticised this precedent because the IRA had continued to regard the Irish Free State as an illegal entity.[26]

According to Dean Godson, Bew took the view that Bush administration neoconservatives could have over-ruled US envoy Richard Haass over his support for Northern Ireland Assembly elections in 2003, but that the disdain of British diplomats for the neocons prevented them from exploiting this.[27]

Boston College Oral History Archive

Bew, along with two other historians who remained anonymous, took part in assessing information from IRA and UVF paramilitary veterans for the Boston College Oral History Archive. Archive testimony from Brendan Hughes and David Ervine was published as Voices from the Grave in 2010.[28]

Publications

Books

  • Land and the National Question in Ireland 1858-82, Gill & Macmillan, 1979.
  • The State in Northern Ireland, 1921-72: Political Forces and Social Classes, Manchester University Press, 1979.
  • C.S. Parnell, Gill & Macmillan, 1980.
  • Sean Lemass and the Making of Modern Ireland, 1945-1966, Gill & Macmillan, 1982.
  • With Henry Patterson, The British State & the Ulster Crisis, Verso Books, 1985.
  • Conflict and Conciliation in Ireland 1890-1910: Parnellites and Radical Agrarians, Clarendon Press, 1987.
  • With Henry Patterson and Ellen Hazelkorn, The Dynamics of Irish Politics, Lawrence & Wishart, 1989.
  • With Gordon Gillespie, Northern Ireland: A Chronology of the Troubles, 1968-93, Gill & Macmillan 1993.
  • With Peter Gibbon, and Henry Patterson, Northern Ireland, 1921-96: Political Forces and Social Classes, Serif, 1996.
  • With Henry Gillespie, The Northern Ireland Peace Process, 1993-96: A Chronology , Serif, 1996.
  • John Redmond, Dundalgan Press, 1996.
  • With Henry Patterson and Paul Teague, Between War and Peace: The Political Future of Northern Ireland, Lawrence and Wishart, 1997.
  • Ideology and the Irish Question: Ulster Unionism and Irish Nationalism 1912-1916., Clarendon Press, 1998.
  • With Peter Gibbon and Henry Patterson, Northern Ireland 1921 - 2001: Political Power and Social Classes, Serif, 2002.
  • Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006, Oxford, 2007.
  • The Making and Remaking of the Good Friday Agreement, Liffey Press, 2007.

Affiliations

Notes

  1. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.311.
  2. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.311.
  3. ↑ Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, The Lost Revolution: The Story of the official IRA and the Workers' Party, Penguin Ireland, 2009, p.395.
  4. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p30.
  5. ↑ Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, The Lost Revolution: The Story of the official IRA and the Workers' Party, Penguin Ireland, 2009, p.395.
  6. ↑ Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, The Lost Revolution: The Story of the official IRA and the Workers' Party, Penguin Ireland, 2009, p.463.
  7. ↑ Brian Hanley and Scott Millar, The Lost Revolution: The Story of the official IRA and the Workers' Party, Penguin Ireland, 2009, p.463.
  8. ↑ Paul Bew, The End of an Era, Making Sense, March/April 1991. Archived in The Left Archive: Addendum to the Workers’ Party 1991 Debate from ‘Making Sense’, The Cedar Loune Revolution, 26 October 2007.
  9. ↑ Paul Bew: Belfast's history man Paul Bew's labour of love is to put the politics of Northern Ireland in its real historical context. Huw Richards met him, The Guardian Tuesday March 9, 2004.
  10. ↑ Henry McDonald, Trimble, Bloomsbury, 2000, p.80.
  11. ↑ Henry McDonald, Trimble, Bloomsbury, 2000, p.103.
  12. ↑ Ruth Dudley Edwards, The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions, Harper Collins, 2000, p.532.
  13. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.428.
  14. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.461.
  15. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.464.
  16. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.476.
  17. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.480.
  18. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.481.
  19. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.496.
  20. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.519.
  21. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.519.
  22. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.814.
  23. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.659.
  24. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.706.
  25. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.733.
  26. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.739.
  27. ↑ Dean Godson, Himself Alone, David Trimble and the Ordeal of Unionism, Harper Perennial, 2004, p.774.
  28. ↑ Ed Moloney, Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland, Faber and Faber, 2010, p.1.
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