17.Pat English (neé Napier) on her wedding day. Jack White’s niece, she was his most frequent correspondent in the last few years of his life. (Family photo)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Probably the hardest part of a book to write is the acknowledgments section. How can I thank properly all those who were of assistance in putting this together? An elegant quip, a gracious nod, a suggestion of a shared secret joke and a singling out of someone from the collection of names would be delightful. But the strain of putting it all together, indeed the ability even, can be beyond the best. How can I describe the tit bit of information that had the effect of clarifying months of work? What about the late night conversation that gave encouragement to take up the task once more, or the remark that inspired? And what about the forgetfulness?
I’ve been blessed with a number of friends that engaged with me, that tolerated me and that most of all showed me aspects of this journey that doesn’t just end with the publication of a book. There are others, of course, whom I’m either forgetting to mention, or have not been involved with the book. I list the participants, not in any particular order, but just as they come to mind. Some are very close friends, some old friends and some are friends that I’ve made since I started this project; all have been involved peripherally or otherwise. All are a testimony to the human spirit that refreshes one when the daily outpourings of political and economic grief and military strife sap the spirit –
There are others very dear to me, but these were the ones directly involved with the book: Aengus Daly, Trish Holmes, Ellen McGaley, Joe Hogan, Madeline O’Neill, Joe Chambers, Mark Phelan and Risteard Crimmins.
There are then those that gave me the opportunity to do this. Who gave me refuge, so to speak, and the freedom to research and examine wherever I willed in a spirit of remarkable openness. Nowhere else could one meet such a group as the Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway, Louis De Paor, their director and the core of four, Nessa Cronin, Meabh Ni Fhuarthain, Samantha Williams and Verena Commins. The man who introduced me to all this was of course the inimitable Professor Tadhg Foley who has continued to give support with his famed generosity. I would also like to thank two academics who gave me help beyond measure – John Cunningham and Angus Mitchell.
There is also my good friend and editor and erudite conversationalist Maurice Sweeney.
To those who helped me with my research: it is a remarkable testimony to humankind that there is such helpfulness in the promotion of what I hope is some tiny contribution to history. Katy English, Jack White’s grand-niece, is the person who stands out above all. She made available to me a vast haul of family papers ranging from the middle of the nineteenth century up to the time of White’s death. Only for her there would be very little insight into his life outside the public writings that are available. The rest of the White family are owed my deep gratitude as well. His two sons, Alan and Derrick, provided me with every assistance at their disposal and it is worth remarking that not once was there a suggestion that I should alter matters that might feature unflatteringly – in fact I can say I was positively encouraged to examine warts and all. The remainder of the White family that I met in Edinburgh demonstrated what in Ireland is termed a decency about them and is almost impossible to translate. To Bernice, Ann, Jennifer, Andrew, Eleanor and the others I am so thankful for their hospitality (and thank you again Bernice for those photographs). I was privileged as well to meet Noreen (née Shanahan) White’s relations Patricia Wheeler and her brother and sister Laura and David Webster who provided some fascinating background information. Sadly the occasion of this meeting was Derrick’s memorial service. He died in September 2007. I can pay him no greater compliment than to say he was his father’s son – ar dheis Dé go raibh an anam.
There were others who provided information, again, in this great spirit of co-operation. Rory Campbell had reminiscences from his grandmother and other relations. Jean Rose, Jonathan Cape’s chief archivist, provided a find that was completely unknown. Dr Tony Redmond, G.P. and historian from Broughshane supplied me with an absolute trove of documents and accounts of the White family. Other assistance and kindnesses for which mere acknowledgments are so inadequate came from Morine Krissdotir, John Cowper Powys’ biographer.
Finally, to my family, to my wife Anna, a woman with a lot to put up with and to Louise, Aoife, Maeve, Li Kai and David.
Introduction
Jack White was born in the very heart of the greatest socio-economic structure the world has ever known. Blessed both physically and intellectually, he enjoyed every privilege, from education at Winchester, England’s oldest public school to access to the highest and mightiest of the British Empire. A man both of wit and charm, brave and bold like a knight of old, with a beautiful wife by his side, he projected a glamour that even still emanates from the dusty old manuscripts and letters of the archives.
But, there were extraordinary contrasts in White’s life. He was a decorated soldier embroiled at the start of the revolution that eventually expelled the British from Ireland; at one point his every move was followed and reported like a forerunner of the celebrity cult of today. His writings portray a fascinating intellectual insight into the struggles of his day, and he had a considerable grasp of the subtleties of political philosophy.
For all that I met a very eminent local historian, a great admirer of Jack’s father, Field Marshal Sir George White VC, who said to me, ‘Frankly, I think he was a bit of an eejit.’
White came to blows, literally in some cases, with every single institution and organisation he was involved with, except the anarchists and some extremely radical movements. Similarly he fought with all the law enforcement bodies and was locked up, at various times, by all four jurisdictions on these islands. He ended his life selling vegetables in his local village of Broughshane to support his family and left an estate of just £80.
Although having a vast number of acquaintances, there appears to be little indication of a close friendship with anyone; he enjoyed a long correspondence with the novelist John Cowper Powys who greatly admired White, but there is no evidence of them actually meeting.
An outsider, with an unbending adherence to an idealism that disqualified him from the cynical pragmatism of politics, he had an inherent scepticism of all authority.
His insights into the strategies of illusion employed to buttress hierarchical structures sadly allowed him little or no tolerance for the opposition and earned him a reputation as a fiery and temperamental foe. Influenced by Tolstoy, his eventual recourse was to a transcendent solution for the woes of humankind but untrammelled by the garb of organised religion.
His life and outlook provides, I would suggest, a distinctive alternative to the conventional narratives of early twentieth-century histories, in particular those relating to the whole island of Ireland.
* * *
When I started researching Jack White, his only generally available writings were his autobiography, Misfit, and six political pamphlets. These had been collected by Kevin Doyle, the anarchist writer from Cork, and were available online. Phil Meiler of Livewire Publications published a new edition of Misfit in 2005 and included most of these pamphlets. Doyle had literally kept White’s memory alive for a number of years and he wrote a brief but accurate biography of White, and this is also available online (he also wrote a play on the tragic loss of White’s papers). Andrew Boyd wrote a more detailed pamphlet on White’s life, which was published in 2001. Apart from Boyd and Doyle I could find little comment on White’s actions and no analysis of his thinking.
It is regrettable that White’s personal papers are missing. It was generally believed that his family had destroyed the manuscript of a second volume of Misfit and other
