Paul Bew, Baron Bew

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Paul Anthony Elliott Bew, Baron Bew (born 1950, in Belfast)^[1] is a Northern Irish historian. He has worked at Queen's University Belfast since 1979, and is currently Professor of Irish Politics, a position he has held since 1991.^[1]

1 Career
- 1.1 Academic career
- 1.2 Political involvement
2 Personal
3 Published works
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Career

[edit] Academic career

Bew attended Campbell College, Belfast as a youth, before studying for his BA and PhD at Cambridge University. His first book, Land and the National Question in Ireland, 1858-82 was a revisionist study that challenged nationalist historiography by examining not only the clash between landowners and tenants, but the conflict between large and small tenants as well. His third book, a short study of Charles Stewart Parnell, challenged some of the arguments of the award-winning biography of Parnell by F. S. L. Lyons, though Lyons, one of the "doyens" of modern Irish history, acknowledged the young historian's arguments by stating that "Nothing Dr Bew writes is without interest."^[2]

In 2007, Oxford University Press published Bew's Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006, which forms part of the Oxford History of Modern Europe series. The book has received positive reviews.^[2]^[3]^[4]

Bew also acted as a historical advisor to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry between 1998 and 2001.^[5]

[edit] Political involvement

Bew's political stance has changed somewhat over the years. In a 2004 interview for The Guardian, he stated that "While my language was more obviously leftwing in the 1970s than today, that sympathy has always been there".^[1] As a young man, Bew participated in the People's Democracy marches and was occasionally identified with the Workers' Party. Later, Bew served as an adviser to David Trimble.^[1] Trimble and Bew are both signatories to the statement of principles of the Henry Jackson Society,^[6] which has been characterised as a neoconservative organisation.^[7]

Professor Bew's contributions to the Good Friday Agreement process were acknowledged with an appointment to the House of Lords as a life peer in February 2007.^[8] He was gazetted as Baron Bew, of Donegore in the County of Antrim on 26 March 2007, and sits as a crossbencher.

[edit] Personal

Bew is married to Greta Jones, a history professor at the University of Ulster, with whom he has one son.^[1]

[edit] Published works

(1979) Land and the National Question in Ireland, 1858-82. Gill & Macmillan.
(1979) The State in Northern Ireland, 1921-72: Political Forces and Social Class. Manchester University Press.
(1980) C.S. Parnell. Gill & Macmillan.
(1982) Sean Lemass and the Making of Modern Ireland, 1945-66. Gill & Macmillan. (with Henry Patterson)
(1985) The British State and the Ulster Crisis: From Wilson to Thatcher. Verso Books. (with Henry Patterson)
(1987) Conflict and Conciliation in Ireland, 1890-1910: Parnellites and Radical Agrarians. Clarendon Press.
(1989) The Dynamics of Irish Politics. Lawrence & Wishart. (with Henry Patterson and Ellen Hazelkorn)
(1997) Between War and Peace: The Political Future of Northern Ireland. Lawrence & Wishart.
(2002) Northern Ireland 1921-2001: Political Power and Social Classes. Serif.
(1994) Ideology and the Irish Question: Ulster Unionism and Irish Nationalism, 1912-1916. Clarendon Press.
(1996) John Redmond. Dundalgan Press.
(1999) Northern Ireland: A Chronology of the Troubles, 1968-99. Gill & Macmillan. (with Gordon Gillespie)
(2007) The Making and Remaking of the Good Friday Agreement. The Liffey Press.
(2007) Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789-2006. Oxford University Press.