Roy Foster on Ireland’s Many Unmade Futures (Ep. 147)

Roy, thank you for coming.

罗伊，谢谢你的到来。

The Irish were overwhelmingly Catholic.

爱尔兰人绝大多数是天主教徒。

In the global political world of the 17th century, that meant being against protestantized England.

在 17 世纪的全球政治世界中，这意味着反对新教化的英国。

They were seen as an entry point for continental political influence from Spain and from France, who were at war, effectively, for much of this time with England, and therefore they were ipso facto disloyal.

他们被视为来自西班牙和法国的大陆政治影响力的切入点，西班牙和法国在大部分时间里实际上与英国处于交战状态，因此他们事实上是不忠诚的。

This is in the view of the English.

这是英国人的看法。

Their first loyalty was to the pope; their ambition was to be an independent, sovereign country — which became stronger and stronger through the 19th century.

他们首先效忠的是教皇。他们的野心是成为一个独立的主权国家——这个国家在 19 世纪变得越来越强大。

The Scots, on the other hand, adapted — at least lowland Scotland, which was rich Scotland, adapted to being part of the union.

另一方面，苏格兰人则适应了——至少低地苏格兰，也就是富裕的苏格兰，适应了成为联邦的一部分。

They united with England in the union of Great Britain in 1707.

1707年，他们与英国联合组成了大不列颠联盟。

And the Scots made a good thing out of it because proconsular figures all over the British Empire, so many of them are Scots; look at generals in the British Army, so many of them are Scots.

苏格兰人从中做了一件好事，因为大英帝国各地的总督人物，其中很多都是苏格兰人；他们中的许多人都是苏格兰人。看看英国陆军的将军，很多都是苏格兰人。

The Highlands are different.

高地则不同。

The Highlands have their Catholic identity to a certain extent; they have their poverty.

高地在一定程度上具有天主教身份；他们有他们的贫穷。

They are exploited in the way that Irish tenants are exploited by absentee landlords.

他们受到的剥削就像爱尔兰佃户被缺席的地主剥削一样。

But that’s a minority element in Scotland.

但这在苏格兰只是少数。

The majority of Scots do well out of the union with Britain and have done until very recently.

大多数苏格兰人在脱离英国后过得很好，而且直到最近也是如此。

I think we may be seeing the end of that era right now.

我认为我们现在可能正在看到那个时代的结束。

Ireland has a different social basis, really, in many ways: in landowning, in a history of colonization and dispossession from the Elizabethan period on.

事实上，爱尔兰在很多方面都有着不同的社会基础：土地所有权、从伊丽莎白时代开始的殖民和剥夺历史。

But in the 17th century, that process of colonization and dispossession takes a very particular shape of expropriating native landowners in favor of English incomers and of planting, as the word went, in a plantation, of Scots and North-of-England people into the northern corner — the northeastern corner — of the island.

但在 17 世纪，殖民和剥夺的过程采取了一种非常特殊的形式：征用本土土地所有者，以支持英国移民，并按照种植园的说法，将苏格兰人和英格兰北部人民种植到该岛的北角——东北角。

From that day to this, of course, we’ve seen the effects of that.

当然，从那天到现在，我们已经看到了它的影响。

There’s radicalization going on in a different way, if you like, in Ireland, and for different reasons.

如果你愿意的话，在爱尔兰，激进化正在以不同的方式发生，并且出于不同的原因。

But it’s a radicalization that essentially expropriates the old Catholic aristocracy, the landowning aristocracy, in Ireland; it reduces them to a tiny minority west of the Shannon in the badlands of Connemara.

但这是一种激进化，本质上是剥夺了爱尔兰古老的天主教贵族、地主贵族的财产。它使他们在香农河以西的康尼马拉荒地中只剩下极少数。

There is a theory that Ireland is used as a laboratory for British government and that they will apply further afield, in India and the Caribbean, models and lessons that they’ve learned in Ireland, which is sometimes referred to as Britain’s oldest or England’s oldest colony.

有一种理论认为，爱尔兰被英国政府用作实验室，他们将在更远的地方，即印度和加勒比地区，应用他们在爱尔兰学到的模式和经验教训，爱尔兰有时被称为英国最古老的殖民地。

I have a slight problem with that, because Ireland is a very special kind of colony, if it’s a colony: it’s a metropolitan colony.

我对此有一个小问题，因为爱尔兰是一个非常特殊的殖民地，如果它是一个殖民地的话：它是一个大都市殖民地。

The original inhabitants remain, one could say, in a far stronger position than in many of the areas of the British Empire, where they are effectively either enslaved or wiped out.

可以说，原住民的地位仍然比大英帝国的许多地区要强大得多，在那里他们要么被奴役，要么被消灭。

But the point is really that what’s happening in Ireland in the 18th and 19th century is, as I’ve said earlier, a kind of dispossession.

但关键在于，正如我之前所说，18 世纪和 19 世纪爱尔兰发生的事情是一种剥夺。

But at the same time, there are elements — and this is true from the Act of Union, which abolishes the old, very elite Irish Parliament in 1800 — there are elements of experimentation in the British government of Ireland which aren’t (I have to say this) entirely malign, and you zero in on education.

但与此同时，也存在一些因素——《联合法案》确实如此，该法案于 1800 年废除了古老的、非常精英的爱尔兰议会——爱尔兰英国政府的一些实验因素并非（我不得不说）完全是恶意的，而且你在教育方面的关注归零。

The attempt that was being made in the early 1830s was to introduce a nondenominational form of primary education for the Irish people.

1830 年代初期的尝试是为爱尔兰人民引入一种非宗派形式的初等教育。

Ireland being Ireland, it was rapidly denominationalized: the Catholics used it for their purposes and the Protestants used it for their purposes.

爱尔兰就是爱尔兰，它很快就被宗派化了：天主教徒将其用于其目的，新教徒也将其用于其目的。

But the theory of it was that you had to overcome the religious differences, which by the early 19th century seemed to dictate everything that was happening in Ireland.

但其理论是你必须克服宗教差异，到 19 世纪初，宗教差异似乎决定了爱尔兰发生的一切。

The great novelist William Thackeray, who was married to an Irish woman, said when he did a tour of Ireland and wrote his Irish Sketch Book, “Where to get at the truth in this country: it is not possible.

伟大的小说家威廉·萨克雷（William Thackeray）娶了一位爱尔兰女子，他在游览爱尔兰并写下他的《爱尔兰素描集》时说道：“在这个国家哪里可以得到真相：这是不可能的。

There are two truths, the Catholic truth and the Protestant truth.” By the early 19th century, this seemed all too true.

有两种真理，天主教真理和新教真理。”到了 19 世纪初，这似乎是千真万确的。

It remained the preserve of the distant western fastnesses: Connemara, the islands off the coast, certain pockets elsewhere.

它仍然是遥远的西部要塞的保护区：康尼马拉、沿海岛屿以及其他地方的某些地区。

Irish speaking, therefore, became identified — and this is when we get what we call the Celtic Revival from the 1890s — became identified with a pure, prelapsarian view of an unmaterialistic, ancient, almost pre-Christian civilization, which inspired people like Yeats.

因此，爱尔兰语被认同为“1890年代的凯尔特复兴运动”，它被认同为一种纯粹的、堕落前的观点，即一种非物质主义的、古老的、几乎前基督教的文明，这种观点启发了像叶芝这样的人。

But Irish speaking ipso facto was part of that distant time and was not seen as relevant to the modern, go-getting, materialist commercialization that was affecting much of the rest of the country.

但爱尔兰语本身就是那个遥远时代的一部分，被认为与影响该国其他大部分地区的现代、积极进取、物质主义的商业化无关。

Butt is a radical land reformer in theoretical terms long before the land reform issue galvanizes Irish politics in the 1870s and ’80s.

早在土地改革问题在 1870 年代和 80 年代激发爱尔兰政坛之前，巴特在理论上就是一位激进的土地改革者。

He is a protectionist for Irish purposes.

他是爱尔兰的保护主义者。

He becomes, I think, a Home Ruler, somebody who thinks that Ireland must get some form of autonomy back, because of what he sees happen in the famine.

我认为，他成为了一位地方统治者，认为爱尔兰必须恢复某种形式的自治，因为他看到了饥荒中发生的情况。

The theory of the Act of Union between Ireland and Britain was that Ireland would be treated as any other part of the United Kingdom.

爱尔兰和英国联合法案的理论是，爱尔兰将被视为联合王国的任何其他部分。

The fact of it — when Irish people starved and died in their hundreds of thousands, and indeed millions, during the Great Potato Famine of the 1840s — the fact of it was that they were not treated as if they were “any” part of the United Kingdom.

事实上，当爱尔兰人在 1840 年代的马铃薯大饥荒期间，数十万甚至数百万爱尔兰人挨饿死亡时，他们并没有被视为英国“任何”一部分。

They were treated as a special case, and Irish property — landowners, such as it was — were left to take the brunt, which they didn’t, in many cases, accept.

他们被视为一个特例，而爱尔兰的财产——比如土地所有者——首当其冲，但在很多情况下，他们并不接受这一点。

Butt saw this happening all around him, and it radicalized him as a politician, as well as an economist.

巴特看到这种情况发生在他周围，这让他作为一名政治家和经济学家变得激进。

I think, to your larger question, Tyler: The reason why economics was something that intellectuals turned to in 19th-century Ireland — and Lecky, the great historian, was also a sophisticated and interrogative economist — was simply that there was that question that Butt kept asking: “Why are the many poor?” Why was Ireland so poor when it had so many natural advantages?

我认为，对于你更大的问题，泰勒：十九世纪的爱尔兰知识分子之所以转向经济学——而伟大的历史学家莱基也是一位老练而充满疑问的经济学家——只是因为巴特一直在问这个问题：“为什么许多人都是穷人？”爱尔兰拥有如此多的自然优势，为何却如此贫穷？

To some people, there’s a simple political answer: English domination.

对于某些人来说，有一个简单的政治答案：英国的统治。

But there were intrinsic, infrastructural reasons as well, many of them to do with the way land was used and the way the population was going.

但也有内在的基础设施原因，其中许多与土地使用方式和人口流动方式有关。

These questions had to be answered.

这些问题必须得到回答。

But, especially writing Modern Ireland, I was fascinated to see how often a radical and questioning discourse emerged through creative and fictional and poetic writings in Ireland.

但是，尤其是在写《现代爱尔兰》时，我很着迷地看到爱尔兰的创造性、虚构和诗歌作品中经常出现激进和质疑的话语。

Then, almost I would say serendipitously (but it was a tragic case, really), the person — a great mentor of mine, F.

然后，几乎我会偶然地说（但这确实是一个悲惨的案例），这个人——我的一位伟大的导师，F.

S.

S。

L.

L。

Lyons — who was to write the authorized biography of W.

里昂斯——W. 的授权传记作者。

B.

B.

Yeats died before he could write it, and the task passed to me.

叶芝在写这本书之前就去世了，这个任务就交给了我。

In writing about Yeats, I also had to write about the heft and the power and the originality of Irish writing in the English language, which is so notable in the period when Yeats comes to prominence — where you also have Joyce, you have Shaw, you have (slightly later) Beckett.

在写叶芝时，我还必须写爱尔兰英语写作的分量、力量和原创性，这在叶芝崭露头角的时期非常引人注目——在那里你还有乔伊斯，你有肖，你有（稍晚一些的）贝克特。

You have a great number of less well-known writers, like George Moore, who I think is a very underrated and experimental novelist of this time.

有很多不太知名的作家，比如乔治·摩尔，我认为他是这个时代一位被严重低估的实验性小说家。

They’re using the English language in a completely new way.

他们正在以一种全新的方式使用英语。

Now, part of this — and structuralist critics following the great Russian critic Bakhtin would say it’s because they’re writing in a language that is at the corners of change.

现在，部分原因——以及追随伟大的俄罗斯批评家巴赫金的结构主义批评家会说，这是因为他们正在用一种处于变革边缘的语言写作。

There are traditions of a different language, the actual Gaelic Irish language, which you mentioned earlier.

有一种不同语言的传统，即您之前提到的真正的盖尔爱尔兰语。

There are also uses and changes and moldings of English that happen in the island of Ireland which you don’t get outside.

英语的使用、变化和造型也发生在爱尔兰岛上，这是你在外面看不到的。

You still will get this.

你仍然会得到这个。

I had an aged Volvo once (this is not irrelevant), and I was on holiday in Ireland in the summer, as I usually am, and the boot — which you call the trunk — jammed.

我曾经有一辆旧沃尔沃（这并非无关紧要），夏天我在爱尔兰度假，就像往常一样，行李箱——你称之为后备箱——卡住了。

I went in to the local garage man in my Kerry village and said, “I suppose I should take it to a Volvo dealer.” He lifted up a monkey wrench and hit the back of the car where the boot was jammed with a great belt.

我走进凯里村当地的车库维修工并说：“我想我应该把它带到沃尔沃经销商处。”他举起活动扳手，敲打车尾，后备箱被一根大皮带卡住。

As he hit it (and it did spring open), he said, “In matters like this, Volvo dealers wield no special magic.”

当他敲击它时（它确实弹开了），他说：“在这样的事情上，沃尔沃经销商没有什么特殊的魔法。”

I thought at the time that could be something that Yeats could have heard, or Lady Gregory collecting sayings of the people traveling in the West of Ireland.

我当时想，这可能是叶芝听到的，或者格雷戈里夫人收集的爱尔兰西部旅行的人们的言论。

There is an original twist to the English language in Ireland which is unique.

爱尔兰的英语有一种独特的原始变化。

As I wrote about this more (and I wrote another book called Words Alone: Yeats and His Inheritances), I felt that, looking back through the 19th century and into the late 18th century, the time when the Irish language begins to spectacularly decline and English takes over, the novelists of the early 19th century — Lady Morgan (that’s Sydney Owenson), William Carleton, Sheridan Le Fanu, many others — who used to be seen as rather crude and farouche and slightly-rough-around-the-edges writers, now look to us, looking back through Beckett and Flann O’Brien and other experimentalists, as far more subtle, sophisticated, intentionally destabilizing writers of the English language than they used to be accepted for.

当我写更多的内容时（我写了另一本书《单独的文字：叶芝和他的遗产》），我觉得，回顾 19 世纪和 18 世纪末，爱尔兰语言开始急剧衰落，英语占上风的时代，19 世纪初的小说家 —— 摩根夫人（西德尼·欧文森）、威廉·卡尔顿、谢里丹·勒法努，许多其他人曾经被视为相当粗鲁、粗鲁和略显粗糙的作家，现在在我们看来，通过贝克特和弗兰·奥布莱恩以及其他实验主义者的回顾，他们是比他们过去所接受的更加微妙、复杂、故意破坏英语语言稳定的作家。

I think critical opinion would agree with me in this.

我认为批评意见会同意我的观点。

Why this is, is something to do with the decline of Irish and the way it seeps and filters into the way English is used.

为什么会出现这种情况，与爱尔兰语的衰落及其渗透和渗透到英语使用方式中的方式有​​关。

Part of it is to do with the way that the English language is often a way in which — a medium which Irish people in the 19th century use to conceal the truth or evade uncomfortable conclusions when they’re dealing with land agents or police or bailiffs.

部分原因在于英语通常是 19 世纪爱尔兰人在与土地代理人、警察或法警打交道时用来隐瞒真相或逃避令人不安的结论的媒介。

Or the army, when it comes to that.

或者说是军队。

Part of it is the oral tradition of storytelling and using slightly idiosyncratic but vivid turns of phrase — like car dealers “wielding no special magic.”

部分原因在于讲故事的口头传统，以及使用略显特殊但生动的措辞的方式——就像汽车经销商“没有施展特殊魔法”。

I think myself that historical parallels and historical precedents can be used as rather a blunt instrument.

我自己认为，历史相似之处和历史先例可以用作相当生硬的工具。

But certainly, there was a feeling among radical politicians, nationalist politicians in Ireland and Black politicians in the United States that they had a certain common cause.

但可以肯定的是，爱尔兰的激进政客、民族主义政客和美国的黑人政客有一种感觉，他们有某种共同的事业。

There’s also the overwhelming fact — and this I think is very relevant to Douglass — that the great leader of Catholic Ireland who brought about the so-called emancipation of Catholics — when they were finally allowed to sit in Parliament, in 1829 — this great leader, Daniel O’Connell, was a very passionate antislaver and abolitionist.

还有一个压倒性的事实 ——我认为这与道格拉斯非常相关——这位天主教爱尔兰的伟大领袖带来了所谓的天主教徒解放——当他们最终被允许在 1829 年进入议会时——这位伟大的领袖丹尼尔·奥康奈尔是一位非常热情的反奴隶主和废奴主义者。

And many of the people in his Catholic movement and then his movement to repeal the union with Britain and Ireland felt the same way.

他的天主教运动以及随后废除与英国和爱尔兰联盟的运动中的许多人也有同样的感受。

He was a great radical in the cosmic sense of radical politics, Daniel O’Connell, as well as being a founder of Catholic freedoms and an avatar of national autonomy.

他是激进政治宇宙意义上的伟大激进分子丹尼尔·奥康奈尔，也是天主教自由的创始人和民族自治的化身。

Now, you grew up in Waterford, correct?

现在，你在沃特福德长大，对吗？

But the school that they taught in and where I was taught was a Quaker school.

但他们任教的学校以及我受教的学校是一所贵格会学校。

We weren’t Quakers — we were nominally Church of Ireland — but the ethos of the education — and very many of our friends were Quakers, and Waterford was a strong center of the small but disproportionately influential Quaker presence in Ireland.

我们不是贵格会——“我们名义上是爱尔兰教会”——“但教育精神”——“我们的很多朋友都是贵格会，而沃特福德是爱尔兰贵格会规模虽小但影响力极大的一个强大中心。

The older I get the more I admire what Quakers stood for, what they did, what Quaker values are; and the more I am conscious that those values infused the — I think — very impressive education that I was lucky enough to be exposed to.

随着年龄的增长，我越来越钦佩贵格会所代表的东西、他们所做的事情以及贵格会的价值观。我越发意识到这些价值观融入了我有幸接触到的令人印象深刻的教育。

You ask for Waterford and I give you Quakers.

你要沃特福德，我给你贵格会。

But Quakers were an intrinsic part of the history of Waterford, and I was brought up at the center of that.

但贵格会是沃特福德历史的固有组成部分，我是在沃特福德的中心长大的。

I think, yes, if you take a Quaker view of Irish history, you will have a more intrinsically sympathetic view to the varieties of religious experience that exist in Ireland than you would if you were either coming from a hard-line Church of Ireland background or a devoutly Catholic background.

我认为，是的，如果你以贵格会的观点看待爱尔兰历史，你会对爱尔兰存在的各种宗教经历产生本质上的同情，而不是来自强硬的爱尔兰教会背景或虔诚的天主教背景。

Quakers sit rather attractively, to me, in a middle territory, and a territory that doesn’t privilege privilege, if I can put it that way.

对我来说，贵格会相当有吸引力，他们处于中间地带，而且是一个没有特权的领域，如果我可以这么说的话。

How does that look?

看起来怎么样？

Was it ever on the table?

它曾经摆在桌面上吗？

Was it just fantasy?

这只是幻想吗？

Thanks to the opposition of King George III, this was ruled out, and Catholics felt very reasonably that they had been misled and cheated.

由于国王乔治三世的反对，这一点被排除了，天主教徒非常合理地感到自己被误导和欺骗了。

It took nearly 30 years, till 1829, under Daniel O’Connell, as I’ve mentioned, for that injustice to be rectified.

正如我所提到的，直到 1829 年，在丹尼尔·奥康奈尔 (Daniel O’Connell) 的领导下，这种不公正现象才得到纠正，花了近 30 年的时间。

There’s a very good recent book about it by Antonia Fraser.

安东尼娅·弗雷泽 (Antonia Fraser) 最近写了一本非常好的书。

This, I think, was a missed chance for reconciliation.

我认为，这是错失的和解机会。

Those 29 years between the union of 1800 and Catholic emancipation of 1829 were suffused with bitterness, which need not have been the case.

从 1800 年合并到 1829 年天主教解放之间的 29 年充满了痛苦，但事实本不该如此。

The other great missed chance is in 1886, when Gladstone converted himself and a large part of his ruling Liberal Party in Britain to the cause of Irish home rule.

另一个错失的重大机会是在 1886 年，当时格莱斯顿本人和他领导的英国执政自由党的大部分成员皈依了爱尔兰自治事业。

In the greatest speech of his life, for nearly (I think) two and a half hours, he tried to persuade the House of Commons that if they rejected giving Ireland an autonomous parliament within the empire, indeed within the United Kingdom, they would regret it in the future and it would be a very ominous sign.

在他一生中最伟大的演讲中，在将近（我认为）两个半小时的时间里，他试图说服下议院，如果他们拒绝在帝国内，实际上是在联合王国内给予爱尔兰一个自治议会，他们将来会后悔，这将是一个非常不祥的迹象。

They did reject it, the House of Commons.

他们确实拒绝了，下议院。

They passed it a few years later, but it was rejected by the House of Lords.

几年后他们通过了该法案，但被上议院否决。

I think 1886 was probably the last moment when, conceivably, there could have been united Ireland between the increasingly different Northeast and the rest of the island, with an autonomous parliament on the Canadian model within the empire, which I suspect would have disengaged itself over the next 50 years by peaceful steps, as indeed the Irish Free State after the Irish revolution disengaged itself from the Commonwealth by peaceful steps.

我认为1886年可能是爱尔兰在日益不同的东北部和爱尔兰岛其他地区之间实现统一的最后时刻，在帝国内部建立一个加拿大模式的自治议会，我怀疑它会在接下来的50年里通过和平步骤脱离，就像爱尔兰革命后的爱尔兰自由邦通过和平步骤脱离英联邦一样。

But by then Ireland was partitioned, which to me is an inevitable tragedy but still a tragedy.

但那时爱尔兰已经分裂，这对我来说是不可避免的悲剧，但仍然是悲剧。

And that could just about have been averted had Britain given Ireland home rule in 1886.

如果英国在 1886 年给予爱尔兰自治权，这种情况本来可以避免。

I think the First World War, which is one of the defining events in Irish history, split a deeper rift than ever between the Northeast and the rest of the country.

我认为第一次世界大战是爱尔兰历史上的决定性事件之一，它在东北部和该国其他地区之间造成了比以往任何时候都更深的裂痕。

Mind you, very, very many — more than 100,000 — Irish men volunteered to fight on the side of the Allies in the First World War, but the real commitment came from the Northeast, the Protestant culture of the Northeast, which was determined to use the war effort as a way of showing that they were part of Britain, not part of a putative home-rule Ireland.

请注意，在第一次世界大战中，非常非常多——“超过十万”——爱尔兰人自愿加入盟军一边作战，但真正的承诺来自东北部，即东北部的新教文化，他们决心利用战争努力来表明他们是英国的一部分，而不是假定的自治爱尔兰的一部分。

The Battle of the Somme, which decimated the flower of Ulster’s youth on the western front, put this into stone, just as the 1916 nationalist rising a few weeks before, at Easter 1916, and the executions of all the leaders of that, built into stone the resentment of the nationalist Irish against British rule, leading to the extremely traumatic guerrilla war of independence and then the civil war which followed.

索姆河战役摧毁了阿尔斯特在西线的青春之花，将这一点变成了铁石心肠，就像几周前的 1916 年复活节，1916 年民族主义者的崛起以及所有领导人的处决一样，使爱尔兰民族主义者对英国统治的怨恨变成了铁石心肠，导致了极其痛苦的独立游击战争，以及随后的内战。

Incidentally, Tyler, as an economist, I think we’ve got to mention the extraordinary achievement of land reform in Ireland.

顺便说一句，泰勒，作为一名经济学家，我认为我们必须提到爱尔兰土地改革的非凡成就。

When I went to live in England in the 1970s, I was amazed at how feudal the English land system was: the size of huge estates, the fact people in villages in Norfolk and Dorset didn’t own their own properties.

当我 20 世纪 70 年代去英国生活时，我对英国土地制度的封建程度感到惊讶：巨大的庄园规模，诺福克和多塞特村庄的人们并不拥有自己的财产。

This was so different from Ireland, where, thanks to the Land Acts from 1881 right through to 1909, with a great deal of government money, the Irish occupying tenantry were enabled to buy out their own holdings from the landlords, who were given enormous sweetener payments by the British government.

这与爱尔兰截然不同，在爱尔兰，得益于 1881 年至 1909 年的《土地法》，爱尔兰占领区的佃农可以用大量政府资金从地主手中购买自己的土地，而英国政府向地主支付了巨额补贴。

This is one of the Irish revolutions that is less often mentioned.

这是很少被提及的爱尔兰革命之一。

It created a very solid, conservative, small-property-owning rural petite bourgeoisie.

它创造了一个非常稳固、保守、拥有小财产的农村小资产阶级。

In that one fact, in that one sentence, you have a large explanation for why the Irish revolution, when it did come, was politically radical in some ways but socially very conservative.

在这一事实中，在这句话中，你可以很好地解释为什么爱尔兰革命在真正到来时在某些方面在政治上是激进的，但在社会上却非常保守。

You also have the reason for the (I have to use the word) backwardness or conservatism of Irish farming in the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s.

20 世纪 20 年代、30 年代、40 年代、50 年代、60 年代爱尔兰农业的落后或保守主义（我必须使用这个词）也是有原因的。

It was the small family farm and the absolute determination of the landholder to hold onto what he (or, more rarely, she) had fought in the land war of 1879–81 to get hold of.

这是一个小型家庭农场，也是土地所有者保住他（或者，更罕见的是，她）在 1879-81 年土地战争中所争取到的土地的绝对决心。

The stem system of inheritance, the ruthless emigration of redundant siblings to leave one inheritor for the farm — all this led to a fairly stagnant agricultural economy.

继承的主干制度，多余的兄弟姐妹无情地移居国外，为农场留下一个继承人——这一切导致了农业经济的相当停滞。

There was also a stagnant industrial economy for much of the 20th century, until the 1950s, when a very brilliant civil servant called T.

20 世纪的大部分时间里，工业经济都处于停滞状态，直到 20 世纪 50 年代，一位非常出色的公务员 T.

K.

K.

Whitaker brought in a whole new schedule of economically liberalizing measures and began to invite external investment into Ireland and set up an industrial development authority to work on Ireland’s resources.

惠特克推出了全新的经济自由化措施计划，并开始邀请外部投资进入爱尔兰，并设立了一个工业发展机构来开发爱尔兰的资源。

It did have resources.

它确实有资源。

I’m not talking about turf in the bogs and endless winds to drive electricity, although this has now come to be the case.

我不是在谈论沼泽中的草皮和无尽的风来驱动电力，尽管现在已经成为这种情况。

I’m really talking about the existence of a highly educated and quite disciplined and intelligent workforce, because Irish education has always punched above its weight.

我真正谈论的是一支受过高等教育、纪律严明、聪明的劳动力队伍的存在，因为爱尔兰的教育总是超乎其应有的水平。

We’ve seen this in the years of the so-called Celtic Tiger as well.

我们在所谓的“凯尔特之虎”时代也看到了这一点。

From the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, the Irish economy did expand in a way that it had never done under the years of de Valera (and you as an economist will know this), partly because I think the general tendency began to be to look outward and welcome influences coming in from the outside world.

从 20 世纪 50 年代、60 年代、70 年代开始，爱尔兰经济确实以德瓦莱拉时代从未有过的方式扩张（作为经济学家你会知道这一点），部分原因是我认为总体趋势开始向外看并欢迎来自外部世界的影响。

Whereas de Valera had — and this goes back to the years of the Celtic Revival, in which he was immersed — de Valera had a vision of Ireland which was inward-looking, which was purist, which was anti-materialist, which was not going — he said this frequently in speeches — which was not going to privilege the creation of wealth and material comfort if it meant losing the essentials of what he conceived of as Irish identity.

而德·瓦莱拉——这可以追溯到他沉浸其中的凯尔特复兴时期——德·瓦莱拉对爱尔兰的愿景是内向的、纯粹的、反唯物主义的，这是行不通的——他在演讲中经常这样说——如果这意味着失去他所追求的本质，那么他就不会优先创造财富和物质舒适。被视为爱尔兰身份。

I think there’s a question as to whether the outburst of violence that began in 1968/9 — and then continued, as you know, until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 — there’s a question as to whether this was the bursting of a boil, which was always going to happen because of the way the Catholics in the northeastern counties — the statelet set up by the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 — that this was always going to happen.

我认为有一个问题是，从 1968 年 9 月开始的暴力爆发 ——然后如你所知，一直持续到 1998 年的《耶稣受难日协议》 —— 这是否是一场沸腾的爆发，因为东北部县的天主教徒的方式总是会发生这种情况 —— 英国与爱尔兰条约建立的小国。 1921 —— 这总是会发生的。

More recently there’s a more nuanced view that sees movements towards reconciliation, movements towards peaceful civil rights demands, movements towards liberalization within a certain wing of the unionist party — that sees this as happening in the early and mid-1960s.

最近有一种更微妙的观点，认为工会党的某个派系内部有走向和解的运动、走向和平的公民权利要求的运动、走向自由化的运动——认为这发生在 20 世纪 60 年代初和中期。

And all that followed as a lurch into violence that could have been avoided, had the unionist establishment behaved with more intelligence and foresight.

如果工会建制派表现得更有智慧和更有远见的话，接下来发生的一切都可能会陷入暴力之中。

I think I incline rather to that view, and I believe that it was the view of Seamus Heaney as well, about whom my latest book is.

我想我更倾向于这种观点，而且我相信这也是谢默斯·希尼的观点，我的最新书就是关于他的。

Certainly when you read about his life and those of his peers in mid-1960s Northern Ireland, you get a sense of: finally, some new territories of interaction, cultural interaction, social interaction between the two communities opening up.

当然，当你读到他和他的同龄人在 20 世纪 60 年代中期北爱尔兰的生活时，你会感觉到：两个社区之间终于出现了一些新的互动、文化互动、社会互动领域。

But due to the violence with which civil rights demonstrations were put down in 1969 and due to the rise of the Provisional IRA as a result of that, that was not to be, and we had 30 years and 3,500 deaths instead.

但由于 1969 年镇压民权示威的暴力以及由此导致的临时爱尔兰共和军的崛起，这种情况并没有发生，我们迎来了 30 年的时间和 3,500 人的死亡。

And it was a political slum.

那是一个政治贫民窟。

And one reason it was a political slum, Northern Ireland, was that the British threw money at it when demanded by the unionists but kept their faces firmly averted from the kind of culture of discrimination that had been built upon and encouraged ever since the measures like the abolition of proportional representation in voting, right back at the beginning in the 1920s.

北爱尔兰之所以成为政治贫民窟的一个原因是，英国人在工会成员的要求下向其投入巨资，但却坚决回避那种歧视文化，这种文化是自 20 世纪 20 年代初废除投票比例代表制等措施以来建立和鼓励的。

When they did intervene, it was, I believe, reluctantly.

我相信，当他们介入时，他们是不情愿的。

There’s a simple nationalist version, which is that they were determined — the British were determined — to hang onto Northern Ireland for military reasons no matter what, and that’s why they poured the army in.

有一个简单的民族主义版本，那就是他们决心——“英国人决心”——无论如何都要出于军事原因保住北爱尔兰，这就是他们派军队进来的原因。

Absolutely unproven, and I think proven to be untrue by the recollections and the evidence that’s come to light since.

绝对未经证实，而且我认为通过回忆和此后曝光的证据证明这是不真实的。

Northern Ireland was never going to be anything but a running sore for the British, and many of them secretly and covertly would have really done their utmost to wash their hands of it, as indeed they may almost unintentionally be doing now because of the nonsensical position in which the catastrophe of Brexit has put Northern Ireland in relation to the larger island and in relation to the Republic.

北爱尔兰对英国人来说永远不会只是一个流脓疮，而且他们中的许多人实际上会秘密地尽最大努力摆脱它，事实上，他们现在可能几乎无意中这样做，因为英国脱欧的灾难使北爱尔兰与更大的岛屿和共和国的关系处于荒谬的位置。

There was a kind of doublethink in that — I think the vast majority of Irish people were engaged in what might be called a pro-Allied neutrality.

其中存在一种双重思想——我认为绝大多数爱尔兰人都奉行所谓的亲盟国中立态度。

Certainly Allied airmen who were shot down over Ireland, for instance, during the war, if they were from the Allied side, were quietly repatriated to Britain.

当然，例如，在战争期间在爱尔兰上空被击落的盟军飞行员，如果他们来自盟军一方，会被悄悄遣返回英国。

If they were Germans, they were interned.

如果他们是德国人，他们就会被拘留。

There was a different approach.

有一种不同的方法。

Too much emphasis is put, perhaps, on de Valera’s correctness in going to pay his respects on the death of Hitler at the German embassy — or the German legation, as it was — in Dublin at the end of the war.

或许，人们过分强调了德瓦莱拉在战争结束时前往都柏林的德国大使馆（或者实际上是德国公使馆）悼念希特勒逝世的正确性。

You can’t really read from that that he was essentially pro-Nazi, though some Irish republicans certainly were.

你无法真正从中看出他本质上是亲纳粹的，尽管一些爱尔兰共和党人确实是亲纳粹的。

He simply felt that as a head of state, he was doing exactly what he should do when another head of state died, in whatever circumstances.

他只是觉得，作为一个国家元首，当另一位国家元首去世时，无论在什么情况下，他都在做他应该做的事情。

But this is often raked up against Ireland, implying that Ireland was pro-German during the Second World War.

但这经常被针对爱尔兰，暗示爱尔兰在第二次世界大战期间是亲德的。

It wasn’t, by any means, but preserving a position of neutrality was I think probably politically inevitable for de Valera.

无论如何，这不是，但我认为对于德瓦莱拉来说，保持中立立场在政治上可能是不可避免的。

I think one interesting fact is that so very few politicians in Ireland from the opposition’s side ever queried it.

我认为一个有趣的事实是，爱尔兰反对派政客很少对此提出质疑。

I can only think of one, James Dillon, the Fine Gael leader, who was very much antineutrality and believed that Ireland should have entered on the side of the British.

我只能想到一个人，统一党领袖詹姆斯·狄龙，他非常反对中立，认为爱尔兰应该站在英国一边。

It was, I think, as I’ve said, a pro-British neutrality, but a neutrality nonetheless.

我认为，正如我所说，这是一种亲英国的中立，但仍然是中立。

It’s one of those subjects in Irish history which has recently been coming into focus — and the histories and the treatment of those people who did volunteer to fight on behalf of the Allies and came back to a cold welcome.

这是爱尔兰历史上最近成为焦点的主题之一——以及那些自愿代表盟军作战但回来后受到冷遇的人们的历史和待遇。

Or, if they were soldiers from the Irish Army who’d gone to fight for Britain, they were actually disciplined when they came back.

或者，如果他们是为英国而战的爱尔兰军队的士兵，他们回来后实际上会受到纪律处分。

This is now coming under view, and a number of very interesting studies have been written about it.

现在人们开始关注这一点，并且已经撰写了许多关于它的非常有趣的研究。

It’s one of those many issues in Irish history, like the abuse of children and women in the so-called industrial homes run by the Catholic Church.

这是爱尔兰历史上的众多问题之一，就像在天主教会经营的所谓工业住宅中虐待儿童和妇女一样。

It’s one of those no-go areas that is very recently coming under examination by a new generation of, I think, very impressive Irish historians.

这是我认为令人印象深刻的新一代爱尔兰历史学家最近正在审视的禁区之一。

I think this is a good thing.

我认为这是一件好事。

Living in Britain, where they have what I think is an archaic and crude first-past-the-post system, which has given repeatedly sweeping powers of government to parties who have not received anything like a national majority — I think it’s a much less admirable system than what Ireland manipulates.

生活在英国，那里有一种我认为陈旧而粗糙的简单多数当选的制度，该制度一再将政府的全面权力授予那些没有获得全国多数席位的政党——我认为这是一个比爱尔兰操纵的制度更不令人钦佩的制度。

The general line is often taken that it’s too difficult for voters, but actually anyone who’s at all interested in where their vote is going knows very quickly or finds out very quickly the advantages and disadvantages sometimes of tactical voting in a PR system.

人们通常认为这对选民来说太困难了，但实际上，任何对自己的投票结果感兴趣的人都会很快知道或很快发现公关系统中战术投票的优点和缺点。

The Irish are exceptionally good at it.

爱尔兰人尤其擅长于此。

The disadvantage might be that it produces a rather clientelist kind of politics, and there’s a lot of horse trading and pork barrel (as you would say in the States) politics that go on, especially in rural constituencies, as deals are hammered out for who gets what and what votes go to whom.

缺点可能是它会产生一种相当依附主义的政治，而且有很多马匹交易和猪肉桶政治（就像你在美国会说的那样）持续存在，特别是在农村选区，因为交易是根据谁得到什么以及什么选票投给谁而敲定的。

But in the end, I think it’s produced — I think this has to be admitted — it’s produced a remarkably stable political system in a postrevolutionary country.

但最终，我认为它产生了——“我认为必须承认这一点”——它在一个后革命国家产生了一个非常稳定的政治体​​系。

When you look at the numbers of revolutionary regimes that were set up in European countries after the First World War — and I think Ireland should be seen as one of those — when you look at what was happening in Central Europe, when you look at the rise of fascism, especially in Italy but also in Germany and to a certain extent in France — Ireland, though it had a miniature parafascist party in the 1930s, kept a stable democratic system going.

当你看看第一次世界大战后欧洲国家建立的革命政权的数量 ——我认为爱尔兰应该被视为其中之一—— 当你看看中欧所发生的事情，当你看看法西斯主义的崛起，特别是在意大利，也包括在德国，在一定程度上在法国 —— 爱尔兰虽然在 20 世纪 30 年代有一个小型的反法西斯政党，但它仍然保持着稳定民主制度继续进行。

And it kept it going through the crises of war and poverty and a number of internal crises within the government itself, right through to the present day.

它让它经历了战争和贫困的危机以及政府内部的许多内部危机，直到今天。

At the moment, we have, again, a coalition government in Ireland between the long-standing enemies, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties, that emerged out of the civil war divide.

目前，爱尔兰再次组建了一个联合政府，其成员包括长期宿敌爱尔兰统一党和统一党，它们是从内战分歧中诞生的。

Which is yet another of those, until recently, rather unexplored areas of Irish history: the traumatic civil war that followed the Anglo-Irish War in 1921.

直到最近，爱尔兰历史上还有一个尚未被探索的领域：1921 年英爱战争之后的痛苦内战。

I think the PR system that Ireland adopted has stood it in good stead, and I think that Ireland at the moment seems a far more mature and effective polity, in political terms, certainly than Boris Johnson’s England.

我认为爱尔兰采用的公关制度发挥了很好的作用，而且我认为爱尔兰目前在政治方面似乎比鲍里斯·约翰逊领导的英格兰更加成熟和有效。

And I say “England” advisedly, because I think both Wales and Scotland are in a rather questionable position vis-à-vis the unity of the UK at this moment.

我说“英格兰”是经过深思熟虑的，因为我认为威尔士和苏格兰目前相对于英国的统一都处于相当可疑的位置。

You mentioned stained glass, Tyler, and that of course is with artists like Harry Clarke and Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone.

泰勒，你提到了彩色玻璃，当然还有像哈里·克拉克、梅尼·杰利特和埃维·霍恩这样的艺术家。

That is another area, a medium in which modernism and cubism even, in the case of Evie Hone, finds its way into Irish art at a time when the British are turning away or averting their faces from it.

这是另一个领域，一种媒介，在英国人对爱尔兰艺术敬而远之的时候，现代主义和立体主义甚至在埃维·霍恩的例子中也找到了进入爱尔兰艺术的途径。

There’s a great crisis — not crisis, a controversy — in Irish art around the early years of the 20th century when a man called Hugh Lane, a great collector of art, tries to set up a modern gallery in Ireland of impressionist and even early postimpressionist art, and tries to give his great collection to the Irish people to form such a gallery.

20世纪初期，爱尔兰艺术出现了一场巨大的危机——“不是危机，而是一场争议”，当时一位名叫休·莱恩（Hugh Lane）的伟大艺术收藏家试图在爱尔兰建立一个现代画廊，展示印象派甚至早期后印象派艺术，并试图将他的伟大收藏送给爱尔兰人民来组建这样一个画廊。

I can’t go into it now, but it becomes a disputed issue when he dies in the Lusitania, leaving a disputed will, and the paintings are grabbed by the National Gallery in London where they largely still reside, though a new arrangement for sharing them with Dublin has just been recently worked out.

我现在不能谈论这个问题，但当他在卢西塔尼亚去世时，这成为一个有争议的问题，留下了一份有争议的遗嘱，这些画作被伦敦国家美术馆抢走，它们基本上仍然存放在那里，尽管最近刚刚制定了与都柏林分享它们的新安排。

The interesting thing is that Lane and many Irish people had an eye for the new French painting, as did some Scottish collectors, long before they became valuable in the eyes of the English art establishment, so I think there’s always been a case for arguing that Irish art looks to Europe in many ways; many Irish artists train in Europe.

有趣的是，莱恩和许多爱尔兰人都对新的法国绘画感兴趣，一些苏格兰收藏家也是如此，早在它们在英国艺术机构眼中变得有价值之前，所以我认为总是有理由争论爱尔兰艺术在很多方面都向欧洲看齐；许多爱尔兰艺术家在欧洲接受培训。

An exception, someone who doesn’t train in Europe, is perhaps one of the greatest if not the greatest Irish painters of the 20th century, who is Jack Yeats, brother of W.

一个例外，一个没有在欧洲接受训练的人，也许是 20 世纪最伟大的爱尔兰画家之一，他就是杰克·叶芝 (Jack Yeats)，W.

B.

B.

Yeats.

叶芝。

There is this absolutely wonderful huge exhibition of his work in the National Gallery in Dublin at the moment, where the radicalism and power and poetry of these very expressionist paintings is just mind-blowing.

目前，都柏林国家美术馆正在举办一场绝对精彩的大型展览，展示他的作品，这些表现主义画作的激进主义、力量和诗意令人惊叹不已。

You can’t think of any English painter at the time who’s doing anything like it.

你想不出当时有哪个英国画家在做这样的事情。

You can think of Kokoschka, you can think of some of the German expressionists, some of the colorists, and you can see parallels.

你可以想到科科施卡，你可以想到一些德国表现主义者，一些色彩学家，你可以看到相似之处。

But it’s a very definitively un-British kind of painting.

但这绝对是一种非英国的绘画。

So that’s visual art.

这就是视觉艺术。

We’ve long been used to the idea of Irish literature existing in a different — a much more international, a much more radical — framework than English writing of the — certainly of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

长期以来，我们已经习惯了爱尔兰文学存在于一个与 19 世纪和 20 世纪早期的英国文学不同的、更国际化、更激进的框架中。

But I think an interesting development that’s happening now in cultural history and cultural criticism is that Irish visual art is also being seen from this angle as well.

但我认为现在文化史和文化批评中正在发生的一个有趣的发展是，爱尔兰视觉艺术也可以从这个角度来看待。

But during the boom of the Celtic Tiger, I think a million would have been cheap for a major Jack Yeats.

但在凯尔特之虎的繁荣时期，我认为对于一位主要的杰克·叶芝来说，一百万美元已经很便宜了。

They were hitting large prices.

他们的价格很高。

And recently they’ve been hitting them again.

最近他们又开始攻击他们了。

I think to compare them — if you’re thinking of the tens of millions, you’re thinking of Picasso and Matisse, and I think that’s a different ball game, really.

我想比较一下他们——如果你想到的是数以千万计的人，你想到的就是毕加索和马蒂斯，我认为这是一个不同的球赛，真的。

I don’t think Jack Yeats — I think what you’re buying with a major Picasso or a Matisse is a statement of a change in the history of art that affects the entire artistic world.

我不认为杰克·叶芝（Jack Yeats）——我认为你从毕加索或马蒂斯的主要作品中购买到的是影响整个艺术世界的艺术史变化的陈述。

I imagine, though I’m by no means an expert, that that’s one reason for the astonishing prices that these command — as with, to take a very different example, Andy Warhol.

我想，虽然我绝不是专家，但这就是这些作品价格惊人的原因之一——举一个完全不同的例子，安迪·沃霍尔。

If you’re buying a Jack Yeats, you’re not buying into a work that has changed the practice and effect and achievement of world art.

如果你购买杰克·叶芝的作品，你购买的并不是一件改变了世界艺术的实践、效果和成就的作品。

You’re buying something very special and, if you like, idiosyncratic, and I think every bit as beautiful as a Matisse or a Picasso — but that’s perhaps a biased opinion.

你买的是非常特别的东西，如果你喜欢的话，也可以是与众不同的，我认为每一点都像马蒂斯或毕加索一样美丽——但这可能是一个有偏见的观点。

No, I think if you look at modern Irish fiction, which is very often a barometer of how a country thinks about itself, in the early decades of Irish independence, let’s say the ’20s and ’30s, you had the short stories of Seán Ó Faoláin and Mary Lavin, Frank O’Connor.

不，我想如果你看看现代爱尔兰小说，它通常是一个国家如何看待自己的晴雨表，在爱尔兰独立的最初几十年，比如说20世纪20年代和30年代，你会看到肖恩·欧·法兰和玛丽·拉文、弗兰克·奥康纳的短篇小说。

And you had a kind of — not utopian, but often a rather idealized, though often quite a bitter view of Irish, especially rural, life, as well, but certainly a sense of specialness and removedness, and a celebration of a certain kind of Irish identity.

你有一种——不是乌托邦式的，但通常是一种相当理想化的，尽管通常对爱尔兰人的生活，特别是乡村生活，也有一种苦涩的看法，但肯定有一种特殊感和疏远感，以及对某种爱尔兰身份的庆祝。

This is, I think, true of many lesser-known writers as well.

我认为，对于许多不太知名的作家来说也是如此。

What seems to me to have happened since the 1970s, when the whole focus of Irish literary achievement shifted from the short story to the novel, when you have writers like John Banville, Colm Tóibín, Anne Enright, Sebastian Barry, they’re going for a different kind of thing.

在我看来，自 20 世纪 70 年代以来发生的事情，当时爱尔兰文学成就的整个焦点从短篇小说转向长篇小说，当约翰·班维尔、科尔姆·托宾、安妮·恩赖特、塞巴斯蒂安·巴里等作家出现时，他们正在追求一种不同的东西。

They are not in the least utopian, though very often a novel will end with some kind of resolution.

它们绝不是乌托邦，尽管小说常常会以某种解决方案结束。

But I think dystopian might be more the world that many of them are working in or are working to represent.

但我认为反乌托邦可能更多的是他们中的许多人正在工作或正在努力代表的世界。

The novel of family life has become, in many cases — and Dermot Bolger is another example here — a novel that explores imprisonment, rather than safety and refuge.

在许多情况下，关于家庭生活的小说已经变成了一部探讨监禁而非安全和避难所的小说，而德莫特·博尔格就是另一个例子。

The novel of rural life, and think of the great John McGahern here, is often a novel of cruelty, hardness, exploitation, rather than a novel of pastoral beauty.

描写乡村生活的小说，想想伟大的约翰·麦加亨，往往是一部残酷、残酷、剥削的小说，而不是一部田园之美的小说。

The novels of Sebastian Barry sent his characters often wandering all over the world to get away from a terrible Irish past — though, as I’ve said, there’s often a resolution at the end.

塞巴斯蒂安·巴里的小说经常让他的人物在世界各地流浪，以摆脱可怕的爱尔兰过去——尽管，正如我所说，最后往往会有一个解决方案。

Colm Tóibín, who has also extended the range of the Irish novel immensely, writes about the memory of the war of independence and the encoded cruelties and violences in Irish life.

科尔姆·托宾也极大地扩展了爱尔兰小说的范围，他描写了独立战争的记忆以及爱尔兰生活中隐秘的残酷和暴力。

So I think we’re not in a position at the moment, or we’re not in a situation at the moment, where utopian theorists are going to be found writing about Irish life.

所以我认为我们目前所处的位置，或者说我们目前所处的情况，不会发现乌托邦理论家正在撰写有关爱尔兰生活的文章。

We’re at a very different moment, partly because we’re talking about things that had not been talked about.

我们正处于一个非常不同的时刻，部分原因是我们正在谈论从未谈论过的事情。

I’m thinking here of the so-called mother and baby homes, and many other scandals about church authority.

我在这里想到的是所谓的母婴之家，以及许多其他有关教会权威的丑闻。

We’re talking about things that, for many years, were not to be spoken of.

我们正在谈论多年来不被谈论的事情。

He also said something which I’ve often quoted, which I like very much, which is that Ireland is in the mainstream of European history, whereas England is in an eccentric tributary.

他还说了一句我经常引用、我很喜欢的话，就是爱尔兰处于欧洲历史的主流，而英国则处于一个古怪的朝贡国。

I think that’s very true, and a lot of what we’ve been saying today, Tyler, seems to me to bear that out, from the 17th century on.

我认为这是非常正确的，泰勒，我们今天所说的很多内容在我看来似乎从 17 世纪开始就证明了这一点。

What Ireland was, I think, is something that is also, in a sense, up for grabs, where we’re trying to reenvision it, we’re trying to revise it, we’re trying to reexplain it.

我认为，从某种意义上说，爱尔兰也是一个可供争夺的东西，我们正在尝试重新构想它，我们正在尝试修改它，我们正在尝试重新解释它。

Something I wrote long ago, which has been quoted once or twice, is that the best history is written when we realize that people acted in terms, in belief of, in expectation of a future that was never going to happen.

我很久以前写过的一句话（已被引用一两次）是，当我们意识到人们的行为方式是基于、相信并期待着一个永远不会发生的未来时，就会写出最好的历史。

And I think that’s very true of — well, it’s true of the histories of most countries, but very true of the history of Ireland.

我认为这对于大多数国家的历史来说都是如此，但对于爱尔兰的历史来说也是如此。

The expectations in which the revolutionaries acted in 1919–21 were of a future that didn’t happen.

革命者在 1919-21 年采取行动时对未来的期望并未实现。

The expectations of unionists and imperialists in Ireland, of which there were many in the late 19th century — they acted in terms of a future that was never going to happen either.

爱尔兰的统一主义者和帝国主义者（在 19 世纪末有很多这样的人）的期望是，他们的行动是基于一个永远不会发生的未来。

We all act in terms of a future that’s never going to happen, but that imagined future is what dictates the way in which we behave.

我们的行为都是基于一个永远不会发生的未来，但想象的未来决定了我们的行为方式。

I think, in a sense, John Stuart Mill’s very honest admission is relevant to that as well.

我认为，从某种意义上说，约翰·斯图尔特·米尔非常诚实的承认也与此相关。

It all would collapse — no, actually, it wouldn’t all collapse.

一切都会崩溃——不，实际上，它不会全部崩溃。

There would be an extreme check applied in the crash of 2006–2008, but now that we can look back from 2022, the upside is still there.

2006 年至 2008 年的崩盘将进行极端的检查，但现在我们可以从 2022 年回顾，上行空间仍然存在。

Ireland is a great deal richer, more prosperous, more fully populated, and more, I think, optimistic than it was in the Ireland I grew up in in the 1960s and early ’70s.

与我在 20 世纪 60 年代和 70 年代初长大的爱尔兰相比，爱尔兰更加富裕、繁荣、人口更加稠密，而且我认为更加乐观。

I think Ireland has got very used to being a world player, or at least an EU player, if I can put it like that, and that can’t be underestimated.

我认为爱尔兰已经非常习惯于成为世界球员，或者至少是欧盟球员，如果我可以这么说的话，这是不能低估的。

I think Ireland began being rich earlier than people think, just as Ireland began being liberal earlier than people think.

我认为爱尔兰比人们想象的更早开始变得富有，就像爱尔兰比人们想象的更早开始变得自由一样。

People think that Ireland cast off the shackles of overwhelming Catholic power and social morality with the scandals that emerged about bishops having children and the mother and baby homes and so forth.

人们认为，爱尔兰因主教生子、母婴之家等丑闻而摆脱了天主教势力和社会道德的束缚。

Not so.

并非如此。

I think — and I said this in the lectures that became that book, Luck and the Irish — I think it began with the Irish women’s movement in the very early 1970s, when what the sociologist Tom Inglis has called the bargain, the implicit bargain between the priest and the mother that kept Ireland going, was broken radically from the mother’s side.

我认为 ——我在《幸运与爱尔兰人》这本书的讲座中说过这一点——我认为它始于 20 世纪 70 年代初的爱尔兰妇女运动，当时社会学家汤姆·英格利斯（Tom Inglis）所说的讨价还价，即牧师和母亲之间维持爱尔兰持续发展的隐性讨价还价，从母亲一方被彻底打破。

When women were not going to be instructed by the church how to live their lives, and how to live not only their reproductive lives but their social and their work and their sexual lives.

当教会不会指导妇女如何生活，不仅如何过她们的生殖生活，而且如何过她们的社会、工作和性生活。

That was an enormous revolution, and it happened both quickly and irrevocably from the 1970s.

这是一场巨大的革命，从 20 世纪 70 年代开始，它发生得迅速且不可逆转。

Similarly, I think Ireland became rich not just when the Big Pharma and the Silicon Valley began invading in the 1990s.

同样，我认为爱尔兰变得富有不仅仅是在 20 世纪 90 年代大型制药公司和硅谷开始入侵时。

It became much richer from 1972–3 when it entered the Common Market, as it was then called, and became the recipient of very many grants and handouts and also, more creatively, was integrated into the European government, always punching above its weight at Strasbourg and Brussels, and doing very well out of it.

从1972年3月开始，它进入了当时的共同市场，并成为了许多赠款和施舍的接受者，并且更有创意地融入了欧洲政府，在斯特拉斯堡和布鲁塞尔总是发挥出超强的作用，并且做得很好。

Ireland took to Europe in a very committed way.

爱尔兰以一种非常坚定的方式进入欧洲。

Even during the years of austerity after the crash of 2006–8, when it seemed at the time rather draconian implementations of economic policy were being ordered on Ireland from the so-called troika of European financial authorities, it wasn’t objected to half as much as it was in Greece or in Spain, for instance.

即使在2006-8年经济崩溃后的紧缩时期，当时所谓的欧洲金融当局三驾马车似乎对爱尔兰实施了相当严厉的经济政策，但遭到的反对程度并不如希腊或西班牙的一半。

The medicine was taken because so much good medicine, or sugar, or whatever you like to use metaphorically, had gone down in the previous 20-odd years.

之所以服用这种药，是因为在过去的二十多年里，很多好药、糖或任何你喜欢用的比喻都已经消失了。

Ireland has come through a lot of its economic dislocation since then and is more — I think I’m right to say — more passionately and more committedly European than ever, especially in the light of what Brexit is bringing about in the larger island next door.

从那时起，爱尔兰经历了很多经济混乱，并且比以往任何时候都更加“——我认为我说得对”——更加热情、更加坚定地致力于欧洲，特别是考虑到英国退欧给隔壁的更大岛屿带来的影响。

Now, Ireland may be different, right?

现在，爱尔兰可能有所不同，对吗？

There’s less populism of a certain kind there — many other differences.

那里某种民粹主义较少——还有许多其他差异。

There’s also such a thing as reverse emigration.

还有反向移民这样的事情。

A great many people from the boom years on — you wouldn’t say re-emigrate — returned, I suppose is the simple way of putting it, to Ireland, having emigrated earlier.

许多人从经济繁荣时期开始——“你不会说重新移民”——“我想这是早先移民到爱尔兰的简单说法。

And returned bringing with them, I suspect, an outward-looking and tolerant view, which perhaps they wouldn’t have if they had lived all that time in Ireland.

我怀疑，他们回来时带来了一种外向和宽容的观点，如果他们一直生活在爱尔兰，也许他们不会有这种观点。

I think given what you see in other countries — and you’re absolutely right; it’s I think unusual for it to be so — but I think there is a far lesser degree of resentment and expressed bigotry against incoming people from different cultures in Ireland, partly because those people themselves become rather quickly what is called the New Irish.

我认为考虑到你在其他国家所看到的情况 ——你是绝对正确的；我认为这种情况很不寻常——但我认为，爱尔兰对来自不同文化的移民的不满和偏见要小得多，部分原因是这些人很快就成为了所谓的新爱尔兰人。

I think you get far more middle-class Catholics who will admit to believing in the union now than you ever would have before.

我认为现在承认相信联盟的中产阶级天主教徒比以往任何时候都要多得多。

You get, on the other side, I think, more — especially in the younger age cohorts — you get far more people from a Protestant background prepared to envisage a united Ireland.

另一方面，我认为，更多的人——尤其是年轻一代——有更多的新教背景的人准备设想一个统一的爱尔兰。

Partly, of course, because the Republic with which they would theoretically be uniting is such a younger, more outward-looking, less priest-ridden, more fashionable (to use the word) entity than the country that their parents or grandparents would have averted their gaze from.

当然，部分原因是，理论上他们要联合的共和国是一个比他们的父母或祖父母会避开目光的国家更年轻、更外向、更少牧师束缚、更时尚（用这个词来说）的实体。

At the same time, I think there’s much talk at the moment of a border poll and how it would go — a border poll meaning a vote for reunification.

与此同时，我认为目前边境民意调查以及它将如何进行有很多讨论——边境民意调查意味着投票支持统一。

I think intercommunal tensions are so high at the moment in Northern Ireland — and that again brings us back to Brexit or has a lot of its origins in Brexit — that I think it’s the wrong time for such a poll.

我认为目前北爱尔兰的族群间紧张局势如此之高——这再次让我们回到英国脱欧，或者说其很大程度上源于英国脱欧——我认为现在进行此类民意调查的时机不对。

If it narrowly turned out in favor of a united Ireland, I think it would be fairly catastrophic.

如果结果以微弱优势支持统一的爱尔兰，我认为这将是相当灾难性的。

If it turned out narrowly the other way, it would probably be catastrophic too.

如果结果恰好相反，那也可能是灾难性的。

I think at the moment things are too finely balanced to push it.

我认为目前事情的平衡太过微妙，无法推动它。

I suspect, and here I’m pushing the boat out a bit, that in about 30 years’ time the governing opinion in the six counties of Northern Ireland might well have shifted much more towards uniting with a European Republic of Ireland to the south than staying with what will by then be a sadly diminished England.

我怀疑，在大约 30 年的时间里，北爱尔兰六个县的执政观点很可能会更多地转向与南部的欧洲爱尔兰共和国联合，而不是留在那时可悲地衰落的英格兰。

But that’s just a personal opinion.

但这只是个人意见。

I think Belfast would — maybe I speak from the kind of slightly idiosyncratic Protestant culture I was brought up in, but I think that in a united Ireland, Belfast and what it stands for would supply something that was lacking, certainly, in newly independent Ireland: that quality that’s sometimes called Northern Iron.

我认为贝尔法斯特会——也许我是从我长大的那种有点特殊的新教文化出发，但我认为在一个统一的爱尔兰，贝尔法斯特及其所代表的东西将提供新独立的爱尔兰所缺乏的东西：这种品质有时被称为“北铁”。

I think the creativity and — just think of the Belfast poets since the 1960s — the creativity and the history and the Belfast energy would be a valuable adjunct to the rest of the island.

我认为创造力和 ——想想 20 世纪 60 年代以来的贝尔法斯特诗人——创造力、历史和贝尔法斯特的活力将成为岛上其他地方的宝贵补充。

That’s not to say that there aren’t great disadvantages in the case.

这并不是说这种情况没有很大的缺点。

In the economic situation, you as an economist would know the powerless state of the Northern Irish economy, and the fact that so much of Northern Ireland’s society subsists on handouts that come directly or indirectly from the larger island.

在经济形势上，作为一名经济学家，你会知道北爱尔兰经济的无力状态，以及北爱尔兰社会的大部分人直接或间接来自较大岛屿的施舍这一事实。

That’s an enormous question of assimilation which we haven’t really touched on, and which is I think a great obstacle to a simplistic form of reunification.

这是一个巨大的同化问题，我们还没有真正触及，我认为这是简单形式统一的巨大障碍。

But were there to be reunification, possibly after my 30-year period — yes, I think Belfast would supply something that would bring a new injection of energy and interest into the reunited island, one hopes.

但是，如果能够实现统一，可能是在我的 30 年任期之后——是的，我认为贝尔法斯特会提供一些东西，为重新统一的岛屿带来新的活力和兴趣，人们希望如此。

Derry/Londonderry would perhaps assimilate with a reunited Ireland rather easily than many places, because in a sense, culturally, so much of it has looked south anyway.

德里/伦敦德里也许比许多地方更容易融入重新统一的爱尔兰，因为从某种意义上说，从文化上来说，无论如何，爱尔兰的大部分地区都向南。

But that’s, again, a semi-educated guess.

但这又是一个半受过教育的猜测。

I should say one of the great things about being an Irish historian is the sophisticated, engaged, passionate interest in history among Irish people.

我应该说，作为一名爱尔兰历史学家的伟大之处之一是爱尔兰人民对历史的复杂、投入和热情的兴趣。

We see it at the moment in the Decade of Commemorations, so-called, commemorating that key decade, 1912–22, when so much changed in Ireland.

我们现在在所谓的十年纪念活动中看到了这一点，纪念 1912-22 年那个关键的十年，当时爱尔兰发生了巨大的变化。

Living in England, I’ve been amazed at how little commemoration there was, let’s say, for instance in 1991 of 1691, of the Glorious Revolution, of the moment when Whig culture created essentially the modern British political system.

生活在英国，令我惊讶的是，人们对辉格党文化基本上创造了现代英国政治制度那一刻的纪念活动如此之少，比如说1691年的1991年的光荣革命。

Nobody gave a damn about it or remembered it.

没有人在乎它或记得它。

I was in France in 1989, and again, the extraordinary level of commemorativeness about the revolution was something you never see in England, perhaps because England is more secure and perhaps blinkered in its own views of itself and its past.

1989 年我在法国，对这场革命的非凡纪念程度是你在英国从未见过的，也许是因为英国更加安全，也许是因为英国对自己和过去的看法狭隘。

Moving on to teaching Irish history to English people, British people, I think it’s absolutely vital.

接下来向英国人民、英国人民教授爱尔兰历史，我认为这绝对至关重要。

I’ve done it in London for many years.

我在伦敦这样做已经很多年了。

I inaugurated the first chair of Irish history in Oxford, which is still there, with a very brilliant successor, I’m glad to say.

我很高兴地说，我在牛津开设了第一任爱尔兰历史教授，该教授至今仍在那里，并且有一位非常出色的继任者。

Teaching English people, especially at the heart of the establishment, which you would have to say Oxford represents, is utterly vital, because these are the people who will be the civil servants and possibly politicians of the future.

教育英国人，尤其是在牛津所代表的机构核心，是至关重要的，因为这些人将成为未来的公务员，甚至可能是政治家。

The astonishing ignorance of English people about Irish history, apart from some set pieces, is one of the things that astonished me when I came, back in 1974, to be an academic in this country.

当我 1974 年回到这个国家成为一名学者时，让我感到惊讶的事情之一就是英国人对爱尔兰历史的无知，除了一些固定的事情之外。

That’s the obstacle you have to get over when you’re teaching Irish history to English people.

当你向英国人教授爱尔兰历史时，这是你必须克服的障碍。

Teaching Irish history to Americans, which I have done a bit, is another question again, because you’re encountering the emigrant memory of Ireland in many cases.

向美国人教授爱尔兰历史，我已经做了一些，这又是另一个问题，因为你在很多情况下都会遇到爱尔兰的移民记忆。

Irish Americans or people with some Irish blood in them will say “I’m Irish,” not “I’m Irish American.” It’s a sense of identity which I think societies of emigrants bring very powerfully with them and sustain very powerfully.

爱尔兰裔美国人或有爱尔兰血统的人会说“我是爱尔兰人”，而不是“我是爱尔兰裔美国人”。我认为移民社会强烈地带来并维持着这种认同感。

But it does mean that, all too often, the memory of Ireland is the memory of the grandmother or the grandfather or the generation who emigrated.

但这确实意味着，爱尔兰的记忆往往是祖母、祖父或移民一代的记忆。

They’ve kept it in aspic, and it’s necessary to stir that around a bit, to change it, to accentuate the complications, the nuances, the ironies of Irish history, the unexpected futures, and the futures that were expected but never happened, as I mentioned earlier.

他们把它保存在肉冻中，有必要稍微搅拌一下，改变它，强调爱尔兰历史的复杂性、细微差别、讽刺性、意想不到的未来，以及预期但从未发生的未来，正如我之前提到的。

That’s what you have to try and get across to an audience that thinks they have a kind of historic tapestry, an immobilized tapestry or a mural of great national events, one after the other, leading in the end to liberation.

这就是你必须尝试让观众明白的，他们认为他们拥有一种历史挂毯，一幅固定的挂毯或一幅伟大的国家事件的壁画，一个接一个，最终通向解放。

It was all greatly more complicated and more difficult and more interesting and, I think, more creative than that.

一切都比这更复杂、更困难、更有趣，而且我认为也更有创意。