O'Malley, Padraig 1942-

PERSONAL:

Born 1942, in Dublin, Ireland.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Boston, MA. Office—John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, University of Massachusetts at Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125. E-mail—padraig.omalley@umb.edu.

CAREER:

Writer, editor, historian, researcher, and policy expert. University of Massachusetts at Boston, senior associate and policy analyst at the John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs, named John Joseph Moakley Chair of Peace and Reconciliation at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, 2007.

WRITINGS:

The Uncivil Wars: Ireland Today, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1983.

(Editor) AIDS: A Special Issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, MA), 1988, published as The AIDS Epidemic: Private Rights and the Public Interest (essays), Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1989.

Biting at the Grave: The Irish Hunger Strikes and the Politics of Despair, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1990.

Northern Ireland: Questions of Nuance, Blackstaff Press (Belfast, Northern Ireland), 1990.

(Editor) Homelessness: New England and Beyond, preface by Raymond L. Flynn, John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs (Amherst, MA), 1992.

Northern Ireland—The Changing Paradigm: Politics and the Constitution, John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs (Amherst, MA), 1993.

Uneven Paths: Advancing Democracy in Southern Africa, New Namibia Books (Windhoek, Namibia), 1993.

Religion and Conflict: The Case of Northern Ireland, John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs (Amherst, MA), 1995.

Northern Ireland, 1983-1996: For Every Step Forward, John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs (Amherst, MA), 1996.

Ramaphosa and Meyer in Belfast: The South African Experience; How the New South Africa Was Negotiated, John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs (Amherst, MA), 1996.

(Editor) Southern Africa, the People's Voices: Perspectives on Democracy, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (Parktown, South Africa), 1999.

(Editor, with Paul L. Atwood and Patricia Peterson) Sticks & Stones: Living with Uncertain Wars, University of Massachusetts Press and John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies (Boston, MA), 2006.

Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa, Viking (New York, NY), 2007.

New England Journal of Public Policy, founder and editor.

SIDELIGHTS:

Dublin-born author Padraig O'Malley chronicles Ireland's turbulent history in both The Uncivil Wars: Ireland Today and Biting at the Grave: The Irish Hunger Strikes and the Politics of Despair. In the former title, released in 1983 and based on interviews with political and military figures, O'Malley examines the conflict between Irish Protestants and Catholics, the issue of British sovereignty over Northern Ireland, and the question of whether Irish reunification is viable. In the late twelfth century, the British government began ruling Ireland, a country which became the scene of civil and religious strife when England embraced Protestantism during the 1500s. Four centuries later, in the early 1920s, Ireland was divided by the Anglo-Irish treaty into a free Catholic state in the south, later named the Republic of Ireland, and a province of the United Kingdom in the north, called Northern Ireland, which afterward fell under the control of the Unionist Protestant majority. Violence erupted throughout the ensuing decades in the form of such events as the early 1920s civil war between pro-and anti-treaty factions, and bombing campaigns organized by members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), an anti-British militant group begun in 1919 and dedicated to the consolidation of Ireland into a complete and independent nation. Turmoil escalated in the late 1960s, when Northern Ireland's Catholics attempted to exercise their civil rights after years of political and economic discrimination by the Protestant majority. British troops were brought in to curb the campaign, and by 1972 London had assumed direct control over the province. O'Malley reports that approximately one household in twenty suffered injury or death during the period of unrest.

In The Uncivil Wars, O'Malley focuses, in part, on the late 1970s and early 1980s, when attempts to settle Northern Ireland's political struggles appeared to be moving toward an intergovernment level that would promote closer cooperation between Ireland's north and south. The author contends that these attempts were partly hampered by officials who used political rhetoric to serve their own purposes, including former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, whose vague language and immobile stance during Northern Ireland's IRA hunger strikes in the early 1980s allegedly encouraged miscommunications and misunderstandings. O'Malley also proposes that various factions and individuals "fed off" one another during the conflict, creating a violent cycle whereby terrorist acts by such groups as the IRA seemed to foster the extremist tactics of opposing figures like Unionist leader Reverend Ian Kyle Paisley, who vowed to destroy efforts toward power sharing between Protestants and Catholics.

Critics applauded O'Malley for his impartial stance in The Uncivil Wars, and praised his thorough research and his intelligible and precise examination of the highly complex situation. "It will be hard to find a work that clears the issues so well," assessed Jeffe Jeffers in the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Irish Press political correspondent and New York Times Book Review contributor Sean O'Rourke declared the book "provocative and challenging," adding that "[O'Malley] illuminates the inconsistencies of the arguments and hopes of the various parties in the dispute clearly."

O'Malley again examines the IRA in his 1990 book Biting at the Grave. In the work, the author chronicles the IRA hunger strikes in Northern Ireland, when ten inmates of the Maze/Long Kesh prison near Belfast starved themselves to death between May and August of 1981. O'Malley bases his book on printed sources as well as on numerous interviews with former prisoners, religious and political leaders of all sects, and families and friends of the strikers. According to O'Malley, the strikers were protesting changes in penal procedures instituted by the British government after it assumed control of the province in 1972. Prior to that time, Unionist leaders granted suspected terrorists privileges usually reserved for prisoners of war: they were allowed to organize their own recreational pastimes, permitted to live in huts, and authorized to wear their own clothes. Under British rule, however, terrorists convicted after 1976 were classified as felons, labels the nationalistic IRA prisoners refused to accept. The inmates resisted wearing uniforms and embarked on a "dirty protest," in which they soiled their cells with excrement. They then placed five demands in front of the British government in order to elevate themselves to political-prisoner status. Among these were the freedom to associate with one another, the right to refrain from prison work, and the privilege of receiving parcels and visitors. Encountering resistance from the British government, the prisoners resorted in 1980 to hunger striking. The first lasted just shy of two months; it was abandoned following a misunderstanding in which protestors thought they were being granted favorable terms. The second strike was begun in March of 1981 by twenty-seven-year-old Bobby Sands, the prisoners' officer commander, who, O'Malley writes, believed himself to be among the "heroes" of Irish history willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom. In the midst of considerable media attention, Sands died following sixty-six days of starvation; nine more strikers lost their lives before the protest disintegrated, as alarmed family members exercised their rights as next of kin and sought medical assistance for their interned relatives.

As some commentators pointed out, O'Malley disagrees with the hunger strikers and the politics behind them. He believes the deaths merely served to expose the wide gulf between Protestants and Catholics, since the Catholic nationalists viewed themselves as encouraging a long tradition of cultural commitment to freedom, while the Protestant unionists saw a plan conspired by the IRA and Catholic church to undermine the privileged status of the majority. O'Malley also asserts that the strikers died hoping that Ireland would be reunified—an impossibility, he contends (at least throughout the remainder of the twentieth century), because of the north's economic dependence on Great Britain and the republic's inability to bear the inevitable monetary burden. Finally, O'Malley discusses the plight of the families of the dead, who not only suffered grief but also struggled with moral questions over whether they should intervene or let their loved ones die. "I could never explain the torment of my mind in those last lonely hours," Sands's mother recalled about the period after her son lost consciousness, as quoted in Biting at the Grave. "I thought, this is how Mary must have felt when Jesus told her, ‘I must be about my Father's business.’ I prayed for strength. I prayed for help. It was lonely."

Biting at the Grave received wide acclaim from critics. The book "is a social-studies inquiry with the force of tragedy," declared Naomi Bliven in the New Yorker. "[O'Malley] writes candidly, conversationally, and impartially, without sentimentality or argot. His book is a heartbreaking scale model of communal conflict." New York Times Book Review contributor Roy Foster asserted that "perhaps the most remarkable thing about Biting at the Grave is that Padraig O'Malley … makes that macabre enthusiasm [of the strike] explicable, while convincingly repudiating the politics behind it." Reviewer Gregory A. Schirmer in the Washington Post Book World lauded the author as well: "O'Malley narrates the story of the Irish hunger strikes of 1981 with impressive and often moving detail, and traces the complex but ultimately futile negotiations that failed to end them. More important, he shrewdly assesses the psychological, cultural, religious and political forces that kept the hunger strikes going against all odds, and against all reason."

Northern Ireland: Questions of Nuance, published in 1990, serves as a follow-up volume to The Uncivil Wars. In the book, O'Malley looks once again at Northern Ireland and seeks out "what, if anything, had recently changed in the province that might provide a basis for fresh hopes of peace," noted an Economist reviewer. The critic remarked that O'Malley's "answer will be bleak reading" for any who hope for peace and reunification on the divided Ireland. O'Malley notes that Protestant Unionists have the right to refuse unification with the Irish Republic, but that their opponents do not recognize this political fact. Further, the Unionists have been driven to near-paranoia about political options available to them; so much so, says O'Malley, that even positive developments make them assume a defensive stance against forced unification. O'Malley also asserts that, at the time of the book's publication, Great Britain had not put forth a workable and coherent policy and was not succeeding at showing Irish nationalists that England was, in fact, their ally: in short, those who should have been setting Ireland's political agenda were not.

With Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa, O'Malley addresses political victory of a different type in a biography of a key figure in the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa. Satyandranath Ragunanan Maharaj, more commonly known as Mac, was a member of the African National Congress. He endured torture and inhumane treatment as a political prisoner in South Africa and was a prison colleague of civil rights activist and future South African president Nelson Mandela. After serving twelve years in jail, Maharaj was released in 1976 and helped smuggle out a copy of Mandela's important autobiography. When Mandela rose to power in 1994 in the first post-apartheid government of South Africa, he appointed Maharaj as minister of transport. Maharaj successfully served his country and left behind a record of dedication and considerable accomplishment. Later, after he had left office, Maharaj was accused of taking bribes and other improprieties, but O'Malley notes that no conclusive evidence was ever found to back up this accusation. The author surmises that such charges were the result of internal feuding within the African National Congress. O'Malley bases his book on numerous interviews with Maharaj, who spoke frankly about his role in helping build a free South Africa as he recounted his life story. "Brilliantly written, this book is highly recommended for its extensively researched history of South Africa" and for its portrait of influential antiapartheid activists, commented Mary C. Allen in Library Journal. O'Malley's book "brings needed attention to a significant associate of Mandela," observed Booklist reviewer Gilbert Taylor. In O'Malley's telling, Maharaj emerges as an "imperfect and deeply human hero, animated by his stubborn streak to devote his entire life to the cause," noted a Publishers Weekly contributor.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

O'Malley, Padraig, The Uncivil Wars: Ireland Today, Houghton, 1983.

O'Malley, Padraig, Biting at the Grave: The Irish Hunger Strikes and the Politics of Despair, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1990.

PERIODICALS

America, October 13, 1984, T. Patrick Hill, review of The Uncivil Wars: Ireland Today, p. 214; March 16, 1991, John F. Wrynn, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 293.

American Political Science Review, Charles Townshend, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 324.

Best Sellers, December, 1983, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 336.

Biography, summer, 2007, Jeremy Harding, review of Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the Struggle for South Africa, p. 434.

Booklist, September 1, 1983, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 25; March 15, 2007, Gilbert Taylor, review of Shades of Difference, p. 22.

British Book News, March, 1984, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 188.

Catholic Historical Review, July, 1990, Mark J. Hurley, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 614.

Choice, February, 1984, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 874; September, 1990, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 216; June, 2007, P. Rutland, review of Sticks & Stones: Living with Uncertain Wars, p. 1827.

Christian Science Monitor, November 2, 1983, Sara Terry, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 24; August 30, 1990, Leonard Bushkoff, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 13.

Commonweal, November 30, 1984, Elizabeth Shannon, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 663.

Contemporary Sociology, March, 1990, William W. Darrow, review of The AIDS Epidemic: Private Rights and the Public Interest, p. 288.

Economist, January 19, 1991, p. 79.

Foreign Affairs, winter, 1984, Fritz Stern, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 422.

Guardian Weekly (London, England), June 3, 1984, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 22; April 14, 1991, reviews of Biting at the Grave and Northern Ireland: Questions of Nuance, p. 28.

Irish Literary Supplement, fall, 1990, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 32.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1983, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 809; February 15, 1990, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 245.

Library Journal, October 1, 1983, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 1867; May 1, 1990, Richard B. Finnegan, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 100; March 15, 2007, Mary C. Allen, review of Shades of Difference, p. 79.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, December 18, 1983, Jeffe Jeffers, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 3.

Nation, December 24, 1983, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 677.

National Catholic Reporter, May 11, 1990, Michael J. Farrell, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 13.

National Review, July 27, 1984, John P. McCarthy, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 45; May 29, 1990, John P. McCarthy, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 42.

New Yorker, February 13, 1984, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 130; October 29, 1990, Naomi Bliven, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 130.

New York Times Book Review, February 5, 1984, Sean O'Rourke, review of Uncivil Wars, p. 16; April 15, 1990, Roy Foster, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 6; December 2, 1990, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 3; June 10, 2007, Jeremy Harding, "The Old Revolutionary," review of Shades of Difference, p. 26.

Political Studies, June, 1991, Arthur Aughey, review of Northern Ireland, p. 389.

Publishers Weekly, August 5, 1983, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 77; December 2, 1988, Sybil Steinberg, review of The AIDS Epidemic, p. 48; March 2, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 71; February 5, 2007, review of Shades of Difference, p. 50.

Reference & Research Book News, June, 1989, review of The AIDS Epidemic, p. 29.

Reference Services Review, annual, 1991, review of The AIDS Epidemic, p. 19.

Saturday Review, December, 1983, William Cole, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 47.

Social Service Review, December, 1993, review of Homelessness: New England and Beyond, p. 695.

Times Educational Supplement, October 12, 1984, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 32.

University Press Book News, September, 1990, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 19.

U.S. Catholic, September, 1990, Gerald M. Costello, review of Biting at the Grave, p. 48.

Washington Post Book World, May 29, 1990, Gregory A. Schirmer, "Ireland's Freedom Fasters," review of Biting at the Grave, p. C1.

Wilson Quarterly, February, 1985, review of The Uncivil Wars, p. 96.

ONLINE

University of Massachusetts, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies Web site,http://www.mccormack.umb.edu/ (May, 2007), Ed Hayward, "UMass Boston Adds the John Joseph Moakley Chair of Peace and Reconciliation to Endowed Professorships."

University of Massachusetts Press Web site,http://www.umass.edu/umpress/ (December 17, 2007), biography of Padraig O'Malley.