A man of distinction

Prof. Richard English has charted the North’s painful history

Historian Richard English, Wardlaw Professor of Politics at the University of St Andrews in Scotland is widely recognised as the world’s foremost authority on the IRA and the history of Irish nationalism.

His  Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA and Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland were hailed as outstanding works of scholarship, the latter winning the Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, among several other accolades for both works.   

And Prof. English appears to be on his way to becoming similarly regarded in the field of international terrorism.

His latest book Terrorism: How to Respond (Oxford University Press) was well received, one  distinguished reviewer, Conor Gearty, of LSE  advising “if you want to read one book which explains the phenomenon of terrorism… then this is the book for you”.

New strategies

It argued that the post 9/11 ‘American War on Terror’ has spectacularly failed and that new strategies including the addressing of underlying root causes should be tried instead.

His next book Does Terrorism Work? A History also from OUP, an ambitious project, is keenly awaited in 2016.

In 2011 Prof. English was head-hunted by St Andrews and persuaded to leave a prestigious chair at Queen’s University, Belfast – where he had taught since 1989 – to become director of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the university where Prince William met and fell for Kate Middleton.

Belfast is still his home, as it has been for 25 years, where he lives with his wife and two daughters, returning at weekends.

Although brought up in England and trained as an historian at Keble College Oxford he was born in Belfast in 1963 while his parents were on leave from Nigeria where his father taught in a Methodist seminary. 

Not surprisingly Prof. English is less well known for his strong Christian faith than for his academic distinction.

But, refreshingly, he is more than pleased to talk about his faith and about how it may help him to be a better scholar and teacher. 

“Yes, my faith is strong. It’s an important part of my life, it always has been. I was raised a Methodist and I attend a Church of Ireland church, without seeing any tension between the two.”

The importance and influence of faith in Richard’s life is not that surprising. His father, the late Rev. Dr Donald English was one of the most prominent figures in world Methodism in the 20th Century.

He often appeared in debates on the BBC during the Thatcher era and occasionally engaged in private conversations with Mrs Thatcher, a former Methodist “while not being particularly sympathetic to her politics yet always humane about trying to understand the person”. 

He was an internationally acclaimed preacher and served as chairman of the World Methodist Council.

He was the only minister ever to have been asked to serve two separate terms as president of the British Methodist Conference. Richard describes him as “a great man who had a profound influence on me”. 

Prof. English’s mother, Bertha (nee Ludlow), a Methodist lay preacher who once taught religious education at Methodist College Belfast  had family in both parts of Ireland.

Limitations

He attributes his fascination with Irish republicanism to his mother’s Irish roots remarking that if she had been an Italian he would probably have ended up studying the Red Brigades.

Like his father, Richard is a gifted communicator who contributes regularly to the national and international broadcast and print media including a recent major BBC Radio 4 series on the history of terrorism presented by Fergal Keane. 

He is a modest and engaging man of exceptional ability who doesn’t takes himself too seriously.

He speaks of a tradition in Methodism of “not thinking too highly of your own contribution to things”.

“I have a profound sense of the limitations of what academics can do so whatever tiny contribution you can make is part of a bigger process of dialogue between staff and students, and between the person who writes the book and the people who respond to it.”

He writes books “not just for students and academics but also for the general public to stimulate debate and discussion on issues that concern everyone”.

Questioned on how his Christian faith may influence the way he approaches his work as an historian he recalls “a theme coming out of the New Testament  to try to respond to the individual person, where they are, in their context”.

He says his book about the IRA “was about people with whom my family would have strongly disagreed”.

“For all the many failings there are in the work you try to look at people whose dignity you respect even if you disagree with them.

“I probably do not need to be brought up a Methodist to do that but it does no harm.”

He is aware that some thought the book “too empathetic to terrorists” but he stresses that anyone who reads his works will see he is not remotely sympathetic to violence.

“I don’t think there was a single paramilitary killing in Northern Ireland that was justified by what preceded it or followed it and I have always been clear about that.

“With something like terrorism or cancer which is utterly malignant you expect a professional to explain why it happened and what you do about it.”

He sees his mission as being to “provide a context where students can develop their ideas” and to write books that “put forward fresh arguments which are links in a chain  that has gone on for a very long time”.

Right direction

Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams, he says, have played “a decisive role with courage and at personal risk in shifting the Republican Movement to a different type of politics” and that Mr McGuinness’s positive response to gestures of reconciliation from Queen Elizabeth have “moved us to a more harmonious state symbolically”.

Northern Ireland is “moving jaggedly in the right direction and is incomparably different to what it was like 25 years ago and in another 25 years will be more stable and more harmonious than it is now”.

Asked to cite a cogent reason for his belief in God Prof. English gives an interesting response.

“My sense is that there is a resonance between particularly New Testament teaching and what I would present as human nature which is more powerful than most rival interpretations.”

The teachings of Karl Marx “are far less resonant with human life in its messiness than it turns out the teachings of Christ were”.

“New Testament teaching seems to me to be impossibly difficult to live up to but much more in tune with how things could be better  than most other rival ideologies. “

That reference to “messiness” reminded me of Pope Francis so what does he make of the Holy Father?

“Fantastically impressive, is the way I would put it. There has been a striking honesty about the way he has addressed things. It is not the easiest time to be Pope and all sorts of right notes have been struck, a lot of dignity and authenticity.”

Humility

Prof. English says as he is not a Catholic he feels a humility about saying anything about what the Church should or should not do  before making an important point.

“Some people think that the diminution of Irish Catholicism means that Catholicism is on the wane. Well it doesn’t look like that from a lot of other countries.”

“It seems to me the Catholic Church is far too important a global institution not to keep re-thinking things along lines that are going to make it what it wants to be.”

Before I left I wanted to know if there are any particular figures from philosophy or literature or religion who have influenced and nourished him.

He immediately cites Fr Hans Küng,  two of whose most famous books On Being a Christian (1974) and Does God Exist? An Answer for Today (1980) he inherited from his father who kept them on his desk and read them regularly.

“Although written a long time ago I keep going back to those books and I am always struck when I read them by what a formidable intelligence there is in them.”