Introduction
By
Gerry O’Shea
Speaking in his native Wexford in 1914,
John Redmond was loudly cheered when he pointed to the successes of the Irish
Parliamentary Party which he led in Westminster. "Let us remember,"
he said, "that we are a free people. We have emancipated the farmers; we
have housed the agricultural laborers; we have won religious liberty; we have
won free education . . . we have laid broad and deep the foundations for
national prosperity, and finally we have won an Irish parliament".
The 1912 Home Rule Bill, which was the
basis for Redmond's enthusiasm, was indeed a major success for constitutional
progress. The Bill promised a parliament in Dublin with two chambers that would
be responsible for legislating in limited but important areas for the whole
island. It would, however, be subject to the imperial parliament in Westminster
in foreign policy and in most areas of taxation. London would also maintain
control of the Royal Irish Constabulary for six years. Even advanced
nationalists like Patrick Pearse and Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa welcomed it as
real progress, but Pearse warned that if the British Government failed to
deliver its promises—as they had in their response to previous Home Rule Bills—they
would face baleful consequences.
Unionists in the north east of the country
vehemently rejected any kind of rule from Dublin. They had no doubt that Home
Rule would be Rome Rule. Almost half a million signed a Covenant, a solemn
pledge to "use all means that may be necessary to defeat the present
conspiracy to set up a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland". The Covenanters
formed the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), an illegal militia whose sole purpose
was to resist militarily the implementation of the Home Rule Bill. The British
authorities turned a blind eye when large quantities of arms were imported from
Germany to ensure that the UVF was ready to resist by force.
In response to the Ulster threats
against Home Rule, the Irish Volunteers were started in Dublin to insist on the
implementation of the Westminster Act. It is highly ironic that Irish
Nationalists were organized to support the enactment of a law passed in London
while their counterparts in Ulster, all professedly Loyalist, were ready to use
force to prevent it. There was a further noteworthy twist in developments in
Ulster when a clear majority of British army officers, stationed in the Curragh
outside of Dublin, declared in an unprecedentedly mutinous statement that they
would resign rather than go north to confront the rebellious UVF and enforce a
Home Rule Bill that had passed all stages in parliament and had the Royal Assent.
While the plans and strategies of John
Redmond's constitutional nationalists were center stage in Dublin, there was an
increasing number of young Irish men and women who adhered to the Fenian
tradition and belief that the only just and lasting peace must involve the full
political separation of the two islands. They espoused a philosophy and
tradition advocated by Theobald Wolfe Tone, who in 1798 fought for a free and
self-governing country that in his words "substituted the common name of
Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and
Dissenter". The belief of these young Fenians in British malfeasance and
untrustworthiness was strengthened when the original Home Rule Bill was changed
to include a parliament in Belfast as well as Dublin and implementation of even
these arrangements was delayed until the Great War in Europe ended.
In addition to their political dominance
of Ireland, the British, like all colonial powers, believed that their culture
- their music, their language, their games and their literature - was superior
to the native language, beliefs and traditions. This assertion of cultural
superiority by the powerful elites, the ruling English and mostly Protestant
Establishment, with the consequent disrespect for all facets of Irish nationalist
culture, was a major irritant in relations between the people of the two
islands. Joseph Lee, Professor of Irish
History in New York University, pointed out
trenchantly that "Irish Catholics conformed in Protestant minds to
the classic stereotype of the native which settler races find it psychologically
necessary to nurture", a sense of "inalienable superiority" that
permeated all of their dealings with Catholics, who in their eyes were
"lazy, dirty, improvident, irresolute, feckless and made menacing only by
their numbers".
Yet, two powerful organizations were
started in Ireland towards the end of the nineteenth century to show how wrong
the British assumptions were and to enhance the confidence of the Irish in
their own culture and heritage. These organizations are widely spoken of as the
principal components of the Celtic Dawn and seen as the main expressions of
Irish pride in a powerful movement of cultural nationalism. The Gaelic League,
founded in 1893 by a Protestant academic, Douglas Hyde, focused on the revival
of the Irish language, and the Gaelic Athletic Association, founded in 1884,rejected
the garrison games of rugby and cricket in favor of native pastimes, Gaelic
football and hurling. Six of the seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation
were members of the Gaelic League, and five of the sixteen who were executed
were avid supporters of the GAA.
In 1913 Tom Clarke, a prominent Fenian
who spent many years in America but who returned to Ireland in 1907 to help
lead a separatist revolution, wrote jubilantly about the emergence of the
Celtic Dawn to his friend Joe McGarrity, the Clan na Gael leader in
Philadelphia, that "It is worth living in Ireland in these times. There is
an awakening - things are in full swing on the upgrade. We are breathing air
that compels one to fling up his head and stand more erect."In the same
letter, Clarke, who was in his mid-fifties, refers to himself humorously as
"the old chap" by comparison with the young idealists who were
committed to plotting a Fenian-style revolution. The likes of Padraic Pearse,
Thomas McDonagh, Joseph Plunkett, Eamonn Ceannt and especially Sean MacDermott
looked up to Clarke as a hero and mentor, a man who served long years in
English prisons but who still remained true to the old Fenian belief in
revolutionary struggle to achieve an independent Irish republic. Some
historians argue that Clarke's return to Ireland with his family may have been
partly due to the encouragement of the leadership in America who believed that
the movement at home needed the revolutionary skills and exceptional
determination of a man who gave unqualified allegiance to the core Fenian
principle of achieving freedom through physical force.
As well as Joe McGarrity, also part of
that older leadership in America were John Devoy and Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. They
shared Tom Clarke's belief that England at war in Europe was vulnerable in
Ireland, and they supported the plan for an insurrection that they hoped would
shatter the Empire in its own back yard. It was John Devoy who arranged for the
body of O'Donovan Rossa to be transferred from New York for burial in Dublin in
August 1915, and it was Tom Clarke who called on Patrick Pearse to give a
graveside oration that focused on the burgeoning revolutionary agenda:
"Ireland unfree will never be at peace."
Any successful revolution in Ireland depended
on the moral and financial support from America. The emigrants who left Ireland
during the Great Famine and afterwards were scarred by the terrible suffering
that they had seen and heard about, and they passed on a deep hatred of England
and its laissez-faire policies that caused such death and destruction
throughout the country. These men and women and their descendants responded
generously to fundraising by Clan na Gael and similar organizations. The Rising
in 1916 might never have happened without the tens of thousands of dollars that
came from the United States and especially from the big cities in the north
eastern part of the country.
In this book we explore some of the
connections between the two countries a century ago, during a historic week in
spring, when in William Butler Yeats' powerful words "a terrible beauty
was born".
Works Consulted
Kee, Robert. The
Bold Fenian Men, Volume Two of the Green Flag, Quartet books 1976
Lyons,
F.S.L. Ireland Since the Famine,
Fontana Books 1973
Beckett,
J.C. The Making of Modern Ireland,
Faber and Faber 1981
Foster,
R.F. Vivid Faces Penguin Books 2015
Lee,
J..J. Ireland 1912-1985 Cambridge
University Press 1989
Ferriter,
Diarmuid. The Transformation of Ireland
1900-2000 Profile Books 2005
Coogan,
Tim Pat. 1916:The Easter Rising
Weidenfeld and Nicolson 2010
Golway,
Terry Irish Rebel: John Devoy and
America's Fight for Irish Freedom St. Martin's Press 1998
Caulfield,
Max The Easter Rebellion A Four
Square Book 1963
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