SOURCE: "Fabricating History, or John Banim Refights the Boyne," Eire-Ireland, Vol. XVII, No. 1, Spring, 1982, pp. 39-56.

In the following essay, Friedman contends that John Banim's The Boyne Water (1826) represents Banim's effort to correct the English and Protestant historical view of a particular period in Irish history.

In The Politics of Irish Literature, Malcom Brown observes that, during the 19th century, literary pleaders of Ireland's case against England devised a special mode of indirect discourse, pretending to engage in a dialogue on Ireland between Irishmen while intending to "be overheard by hesitant English well-wishers."¹ Though Brown devotes scarcely a word of his book to the Banims, the delightfully disingenuous letter from "Abel O' Hara" (Michael) to "Barnes O'Hara" (John) introducing The Boyne Water (1826) nicely exemplifies this indirect discourse at work. One eye fixed on their eavesdropping English well-wishers, Michael Banim records his brother's part in the dialogue as well...