ABSTRACT
Few Irish historians have challenged the state of affairs, because to do so would be to challenge the ‘deep structures’ not only of Irish history, but of Irish historical scholarship and of Irish culture. But for Irish history to deprive itself of the history of science is also to deprive itself of some valuable tools for critical reflections on the nature of power and authority, and the capacity of man to gain that power and authority through contact with sources which, like the natural world, stand outside the human group. Such diversion of time and energy onto discussion of a tiny segment of the natural order has had an important and conservative function in Irish politics. It also forcefully demonstrates the failure of the Irish state to achieve the autonomy from discussions of individual morality which most would see as one of the hall-marks of modernity.
