Bengal tiger, Celtic tiger: The life of Sir Antony Patrick MacDonnell, 1844--1925

Sir Antony MacDonnell served in late-Victorian India as one of the most eminent and accomplished members of the Indian Civil Service. From 1881, when MacDonnell was promoted to the post of accountant general and revenue secretary in Bengal, he figured prominently in most significant provincial legislation until his departure from India in 1901. MacDonnell was known throughout his Indian career as a staunch champion of the ryots, India's peasantry. His attention to detail and indefatigable energy rendered MacDonnell an authority on tenant right and famine relief. He served as administrative chief of four provinces in India (acting Chief Commissioner of Burma for three months in 1889, Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces from 1890 to 1893, acting Lieutenant Governor of Bengal for six months in 1893, and Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Provinces from 1895 to 1901). Knighthoods and distinctions were conferred on MacDonnell, culminating with his elevation as GCSI (Garter Companion of the Order of the Star of India) in 1897 and chairmanship of the Indian Famine Commission in 1901. Yet it was during a second administrative appointment as permanent Under Secretary for Ireland between 1902 and 1908 that MacDonnell's attempts at land reform were realized in the Irish Land Act of 1903, on which he worked closely with the Conservative Chief Secretary, George Wyndham. Several failed schemes to erect a Catholic university in Dublin, a near-debilitating scandal over devolution as well as a scuttled bill for Irish local government, however, led to MacDonnell's resignation in 1908, and in the same year he received an Irish peerage as Baron Swinford. While the de jure British state and the de facto Irish state made the slow transition to Home Rule, the real reason for MacDonnell's downfall was his inability to appreciate the differences between the Indian and Irish political systems.