And this passion unearths a world of colonial knavery. Time and again, we learn of juries stacked against Nationalists, of an Establishment so incensed by Irish claims to self-determination that the Law, held rigorously apart from policy in Great Britain, becomes an instrument of oppression when Ireland is involved and extrajudicial considerations are brought into play. In Dungan’s words, “the establishment sought to subvert its own laws for political purposes”–much as we saw a later empire/democracy of similarly split character, George W. Bush’s United States, treating Guantanamo inmates as “enemy combatants” to sidestep a Due Process that, properly observed, is the envy of the world.
