1916

by Gabriel Doherty

  The actual political effect of the Rising was to undermine the Irish party and its leadership or hegemony in Irish nationalist politics. Whether the 1916 leaders were aware that such was its objective thrust does not matter; in any case it needed no profound political insight to see it at the time. Redmond and Dillon instinctively realised what was happening, but could do little about it. In addition, given a context where the Irish party virtually incarnated Irish democracy, such as it was at the time, a political attack on it by such means was an attack on Irish democracy.8

  Here, the Easter Rising did succeed in starting a civil war that has continued for nearly a century, between nationalists who believed that work to achieve nationalist goals had to be subject to constraints of democracy and the rule of law, and nationalists who, following the model of 1916, considered that no such values could override or constrain ‘the march of the nation’.

  That civil war began with the Easter Rising, registering its impact as the Irish parliamentarians felt the tectonic plates shifting under them in the following months.9 It was fought out in the 1918 general election between the Irish party and Sinn Féin, in the ‘formal’ civil war struggle between pro- and anti-Treatyites, and in the low-level but ongoing struggle between the governments of the south and the IRA until the 1990s. The struggle has varied as groups of ‘true believers’ have periodically seen the light and defected to constitutionalism, but it has continued. While its military element has sometimes been important, its political importance has been greater, involving a struggle over the legitimacy of the institutions of the Irish Free State and later the Republic of Ireland.

  Thus, the Rising started a new political culture. As it undermined the Irish party and the political culture and modus operandi it represented, so the Rising’s self-avowed heirs have rejected the compromises and messiness of politics, including any moral imperative to accept the verdict of a popular vote. Britain may have been the avowed enemy in a military sense. But the political enemy was the messy, ambiguous culture of democracy, with its support for political compromise, squeamishness about the rule of law, and respect for constitutionalism.

  Occasionally, constitutional politicians have attempted to claim the mantle from ‘the republican movement’ for the democratic state. It never works, for the reason that the gap between the methods and goals of the insurgents and those of the democratic constitutional Irish state is too great. The gap is highlighted by the fact that such politicians are unable to argue with the IRA/SF supporter who challenges their claim, realising, no doubt, that they can’t win the argument.10

  3. The dictatorship of the voluntariat

  As some of Yeats’ poems (e.g. Easter 1916, Sixteen Dead Men, and The Rose Tree) suggest, the Rising modeled an approach to achieving independence that led to the outbreak of war in 1919. It moved the dynamic aimed at Irish independence from the democratic parliamentary mode to the elitist military mode. When the shooting started in January 1919, it occurred almost accidentally: not on foot of a mandate from the Dáil whose members were elected in 1918, but simply arising from the private enterprise of local volunteers starting to shoot RIC men. It was inspired by and in line with the model of the Easter Rising: individuals feeling called to kill and be killed for Ireland, without authorisation by any elected body.11

  The Dáil assumed a post factum responsibility for this undeclared war in August 1919. By so doing, it indicated that the individuals who had started the war (or this phase of the war) had authority to do so. For a state to allow such authority to private individuals amounts to acceptance of anarchy. It was the logical consequence of its endorsing the political and military model of the Easter Rising. It thereby accepted that its own authority was subordinate to that of the Volunteers, private individuals and groups willing to kill for Ireland according to their own lights.

  In April 1922 prominent anti-Treaty figures announced that they were prepared for military action against the acceptance of the Treaty. One journalist asked Rory O’Connor if that meant he and his associates were imposing a kind of military dictatorship. He reportedly replied: ‘You can take it that way if you like.’ Had Pearse, after he had read out the Proclamation on Easter Monday morning, been asked the same question, the answer could hardly have been different: the insurgents were already shooting civilians who obstructed them.

  As regards the Dáil in 1919, its mentality was not unlike that of people who live under a military dictatorship, albeit willingly. A military dictatorship might have an elected parliament, and the parliament might be supportive of the dictatorship, even voting to legitimate its existence. Yet it is still a military dictatorship and remains so, as long as the military makes major decisions (for instance, about going to war or making peace) in which the parliament acquiesces.12 Not until the late spring of 1922 was there any attempt to break from the model of military dictatorship, an attempt led by Arthur Griffith, who was determined to insist on the subordination of the military to the civilian government. While he and Collins were at one as regards implementing the Treaty, Collins remained ambivalent about subordinating the military to the civilian government.

  4. The romantic revolutionary virus

  The Easter Rising’s biggest achievement over the ensuing decades was capturing the imagination of young (and many not-so-young) people from the nationalist population. Those of us old enough to remember the 1966 commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Rising will recall the inspiring, stirring music of Seán Ó Riada in his Mise Éire and Saoirse. As we were taught history in Irish primary and secondary schools, the Easter Rising had a romance and glow about it that no other event in Irish history could match. The risings of 1848 and 1867 were trifling in comparison, and were mere pale precursors of the Easter apotheosis, a dawn that elevated anyone who had taken part in it.

  The romance, of course, was similar to that of other late nineteenth and early twentieth century European nationalisms: far too fond of war, insufficiently fond of democracy, and ignorant of the rule of law. It elevated the idea of giving one’s life for one’s country, usually in violence.13

  There was a second romantic element, viz. the romance of millenarian revolution, expressed in the secret underground society, made up of enlightened and utterly dedicated individuals, with a bright vision of a radically transformed future. This group of the enlightened stood in contrast to the great mass of relatively ignorant and materialistic people, who could not be trusted to know what was good for the nation.

  It is worth drawing attention to the Catholic church’s opposition in the nineteenth century to secret oath-bound revolutionary societies. Its reasons were many, some of them connected to its unpleasant experience of revolution in France and Italy. Of interest here is its opposition to the secret and oath-bound nature of such organisations. Being secret and oath-bound hermetically sealed such societies off from being influenced or ‘contaminated’ by others, so that the Church – or anybody else – could neither influence nor enter into dialogue with them. This intellectual ‘purity’ (or closed mentality) of the secret society also appears among the cultural nationalists. It would not be far-fetched to see in both the secret-society IRB and the high-minded ‘spirituality of the Irish soul’ in Pearse and the other cultural nationalists a kind of gnosticism. Gnosticism was a tendency in early Christianity, found among those who believed that they had received special enlightenment not vouchsafed to others, revealed only to them because they were pure of spirit and high of mind. Any who disagreed with them had thereby shown themselves not to be among the ‘Wise Ones’, and hence could be ignored. Such cognitive elitism might be relatively harmless but for the fact that the secret revolutionary group aimed at seizing power and imposing its will on society as a whole.

  Part of the romance for the Rising’s spiritual descendants was the idea that Easter 1916 was not just a model, but a kind of sacred, holy thing. The way the Rising played, following by the executions, gave a sacrificial and hence sacred aura to the event and to its lead
ers.

  Such nationalist romanticism generated hate. A significant amount of hatred was already present due to centuries of past oppression, and it was a causal factor leading to the emergence of the secret revolutionary society. The romanticist glorification of the nation, magnifying its suffering, heightened by the febrile atmosphere of the underground holding to the overriding importance of never compromising with the Other who was seen as the source of all the nation’s ills, aggravated the sense of grievance and injustice, and reinforced hate.14 Hate tends to war, and war encourages hate. From a Christian viewpoint that which encourages hate is seriously unethical; from a pluralist democratic viewpoint, it undermines tolerance, acceptance of the Other, and acceptance that we are not all going to hold the same values. Getting yourself martyred is a great way to arouse the kind of sympathy that can lead to the hatred of those who have been stupid enough to facilitate your martyrdom.

  We are still today trying to get the romantic virus out of our system. In early 1923, after having assiduously cultivated the virus in earlier years, de Valera started to moderate it slightly. He had persuaded a reluctant Liam Lynch, the IRA chief of staff, to dump arms and end the armed struggle against the Free State forces. Much later it was reported that Lynch wondered aloud what Tom Clarke (senior IRB figure in the 1916 Rising) would have thought of the decision, and de Valera allegedly replied: ‘Tom Clarke is dead. He has not our responsibilities. Nobody will ever know what he would do for this situation did not arise for him.’15 In other words, the views of Clarke or the spirit of Pearse were not necessarily normative or invariably action-guiding for later nationalist leaders.

  Nevertheless, the idea that they were normative for us had become strong and has remained so. During the commemorations of 1916 in 1966, the kind of question school-children were asked to address was ‘What would Pearse think of contemporary Ireland?’ The underlying message was clear: what Pearse would think ought to count for far more than what anybody else might think.

  5. Censoring memory

  It is sometimes said, as a reply to critics of the Easter Rising, that it is ‘part of what we are’ and hence ought not be criticised. It is indeed part of what we are, just as the Nazi period is for Germans ‘part of what we are’: the fact that some historical event or era has shaped a country’s identity indicates nothing at all about its moral quality. If it is morally objectionable, then the fact that it is ‘part of what we are’ means that we, whoever we are, have all the greater moral obligation to counter its influence among ourselves. As successive Irish governments since 1922 have found, to maintain their authority they have had to struggle against the glamour and seduction of ‘the republican movement’.

  However, they have struggled against that seduction only when it led to things like murders and bank robberies within the state, the kind of actions that the electorate doesn’t like. For the rest, Irish governments have been keen enough to celebrate the Easter Rising, without examining too closely what it represents.

  Last Easter, with much fanfare and stirring music, the 1916 Rising was celebrated by the Irish government, with participation by many people and probably the support of the majority of the indigenous population of the Republic. It is likely that even more laudatory celebration will occur in 2016 for the Rising’s centenary. The probability that it will be used by certain political groups for their own purposes constitutes a further ethical reason for clear-eyed moral evaluation of the Rising and its contemporary significance.

  What is the purpose of such commemoration? It could be merely to remember dead notables of bygone ages. On that interpretation, Pearse and the other 1916 figures are being remembered much as Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh O’Donnell, or Brian Boru might be remembered: Irish heroes of another time, but not leaders with contemporary political significance, or models whose goals or methods might be relevant today. Models, by definition, are for imitating.

  If we replace Sarsfield and the others with Davitt, O’Connell, Redmond, or Larkin, all of whom can have contemporary political implications, our contemporary political mentality is such that they will not be celebrated in any fashion comparable to that provided for the Easter insurgents. The message is clear: they are not admirable, they are not models, in the way that Pearse and his comrades are. Given all this, I cannot see how one can avoid the conclusion that Pearse and his comrades are being held up as models for imitation with respect to political aspiration and action.

  That recent political culture has not regarded the others as models is evidenced in such instances as the following. On Seán T. O’Kelly’s becoming President of Ireland in the late 1940s he had the bust of Daniel O’Connell removed from its prominent place in the foyer of Aras an Uachtaráin and consigned to obscurity in the basement. Many years later, when de Valera was asked about the negative attitude of dominant post-independence political circles to O’Connell, he allegedly replied:

  You must think, you must consider our feelings at that time. We firmly believed that the Irish people could only be ‘jolted’ from their lethargy and Irish freedom and liberty achieved by force of arms. How then could we promote the memory of the man who achieved so much by parliamentary means with no loss of life? To praise him would have made it impossible for us to justify armed insurrection.16

  In this instance, the seductive glamour of the Easter Rising is still so powerful that we are unable as a nation to do what Mr de Valera more or less did in that instance, viz. look at the ethical implications of exalting the Easter Rising, particularly in its distortion of what we should value in our history.

  It also suggests an unethical desire to forget what we have learned from experience. The great political achievement of this state has been to maintain itself as a constitutional democracy precisely against those who, in 1922–3, in 1939–45, in 1956–62, and from 1969 to the present day wanted to imitate the 1916 leaders. Ireland did not have independence in 1914, but, unlike other parts of the empire such as India, it had full legislative representation at Westminster, and was governed by the rule of law. Neither meant a thing to the 1916 leaders, certainly not to the IRB men, since they dismissed the first as irrelevant and directly attacked the second. The trauma of the Civil War was all about the pain of discovering that we needed those values after all.

  Yet today, we are trying to maintain a view of the Easter Rising as, not merely good, but positively glorious, and the 1916 leaders as models in ways that no others in Irish history could be. Why? There is no rationality in doing so. Some would indignantly reject the idea that the Rising should be judged at all by the canons of rationality, since their appeal is to national feeling. It’s as though the 1916 insurgents have guilt-tripped us. They died for us, and we petty mortals couldn’t live up to their ideals, so the very least we can do is bend the knee to the ideals.

  The ethical implications are striking. Holding up the Easter Rising as a model for political action means rejecting the goals and methods of O’Connell and Redmond. In the light of the ethical–political values of liberal democracy, it can’t be justified. Easter 1916 is ethically unacceptable because its acceptance as model commits us to actions incompatible with democracy and requires us to reject other models from Irish history more in tune with democratic values, respect for human rights, and the rule of law. De Valera didn’t go so far as to say as much; but it is a conclusion consistent with what he is reported to have said.

  6. The rejection of politics

  Like France’s soixante­huitards (the young activists in the Paris upheaval of 1968), Ireland’s ‘sixteeners’ were not elected politicians: hardly any of them, except Connolly, had ever stood for election, and few of them (except MacDermott) had had much involvement in fighting local or parliamentary elections. They didn’t seem to think that mattered much. They had no sense of the give-and-take of normal politics as being the substance of the political community’s life. While they were all politically active in their own internal debates, they did not involve the general public in these debate
s. In the case of the IRB, the real driving force behind the Easter Rising, they did not believe in public debates of any kind: in short, they did not believe in politics.

  One gets the impression, reading what they wrote in the years 1912–16, that they did not think that there would be any further ‘politics’ once the millennium of the independent Irish republic had arrived. They thought of politics – arguments, lobbying, having public demonstrations, etc. – as a mere means to an end. In their book it wasn’t the only means, since if it failed there was always armed revolt. But politics was still only a means to an end that transcended politics.

  It does not seem to have occurred to them that the debates and political activism of the polis might be part of a good, not just as a means, but also as an end in itself, in the sense that normal political life in a democracy functions like that: messy, characterised by divisions and partisan self-interest, always aiming at persuasion, accepting that nobody or no one group has the sum total of human wisdom, and that compromise is inherent in such politics. Pearse and his friends had gradually been drawn towards the IRB way of seeing all that as corrupt, useless, time-wasting, and soul-destroying. The fall of Parnell, the long-drawn out and tortuous process of achieving home rule, and the disappointment at the Ulster obstacle all no doubt contributed to disillusionment with politics in cultural nationalists such as Pearse, MacDonagh and Plunkett. Again, in this they were typical of many of the younger generation of their time: in many central and eastern European countries, the latter years of the Great War and the 1920s witnessed the emergence, on the left and on the right and particularly among nationalists, of the great impatience with the endless talk of politics and the (to-their-eyes) mediocre and tawdry spectacle of parliamentary democracy.