The aim of this paper is to document and assess this debate. To this end it is organised into three parts. The first considers some of the factors that explain why this ninetieth (and thus rather unorthodox) anniversary was the occasion for such interest; the second seeks to chronicle the varied forms taken by the debate (with particular emphasis on coverage in the national newspapers); while the third contains an assessment of some of the principal historiographical points of this extended ‘national conversation’ (to borrow a phrase used by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in the course of a speech, itself controversial, delivered when opening an exhibition on the Rising at the National Museum).1 Quite clearly such an assessment, undertaken so soon after the event and before the dust of argument has completely settled, labours under the same liabilities that beset all efforts at ‘instant history’. By the same token, however, it is hoped that the summation will convey to readers the immediate atmosphere of the debate and provide pointers for more considered assessments in future.
FACTORS BEHIND THE COMMEMORATION
One of the most important, but least discussed, reasons for the protracted public deliberations over 1916 in the year of its ninetieth anniversary was the fact that large quantities of original source material relating to the Rising had only recently been made available to academic researchers and the general public. Without doubt the single most significant example of such material came in the form of the holdings of the Bureau of Military History, housed in the Military Archives, Cathal Brugha Barracks, Dublin (with duplicates of the collection also available at the National Archives). This collection, which was gathered together in the decade following the establishment of the Bureau in 1947 by the Minister for Defence Oscar Traynor, aimed ‘to assemble and co-ordinate material to form the basis for the compilation of the history of the movement for independence’ from the formation of Volunteers in November 1913 to the ceasefire in the Anglo-Irish war in July 1921.2 The backbone of the collection was over 1,700 written testimonies (‘Witness Statements’) from surviving members of the republican movement of the period (from all parts of the country and of varying degrees of seniority), who recounted their experiences of political and military developments of the time. These were augmented by large quantities of contemporary documents and more limited collections of photographs, voice recordings and press cuttings. While individual elements of the collection had previously been made available (primarily to relatives of those interviewed), the decision, announced in 2002, to open the collection to the general public gave a fillip to researchers of the period, the first fruits of whose labours could be seen in many of the academic works that have appeared in the last year or two.3
In addition to these historiographical developments, two other long-term factors both facilitated and influenced the debate about the Rising. The first was the phenomenon of the ‘Celtic Tiger’, that is, the transformation of the Irish economy, from the mid-1990s onwards, into one of the most successful in Europe. Falling levels of unemployment, double digit growth figures, reduced levels of national debt, low inflation, record job creation, and unprecedented levels of inward migration, all contributed to the creation of a sense of confidence, pride even, in the national economy which was unthinkable only a decade before. While there is as yet no consensus on the precise causes, extent, ramifications and distribution of this new-found prosperity, it undoubtedly has helped to ameliorate in the public mind many of the criticisms of the performance of independent Ireland, both economically and otherwise. To the extent that the Easter Rising was a catalyst for this independence, such a benign contemporary economic environment undoubtedly formed a more favourable context for the 2006 commemoration than had been the case, for example, for the seventy fifth anniversary in 1991.4
The principal cause of the muted commemoration of the Rising on this latter occasion was not, however, the depressed state of the Irish economy, but the anguish – indeed shame – felt by many regarding the violence in Northern Ireland, which at that time gave little public sign of abating. With the benefit of hindsight it is clear that there were, even then, straws of hope in the political wind that presaged the subsequent peace process. Among the other elements of the ‘peace dividend’ that flowed from this process (which included the final decommissioning of the weaponry of the Provisional IRA in late 2005) there emerged both an opportunity and a determination to re-assess the Rising more thoroughly in its own right and with less regard to the identification of the event with the Provisional movement.5 This identification had been championed by revisionist historians from the 1970s onwards and, ironically, was embraced by that movement as part of its rhetorical and ideological arsenal. This re-assessment was interpreted by some merely as a crude and transparent effort by Fianna Fáil to challenge Provisional Sinn Féin for the republican constituency in the upcoming general election.6 More subtly it offered all political parties the opportunity to re-assess their pedigrees in light of the aims of the revolutionary generation.7 While this ‘northern’ dimension certainly had a bearing on the commemorative process (most notably in the days following the riot in Dublin city centre on Saturday 25 February, which prevented the ‘Love Ulster’ march from proceeding as arranged down O’Connell Street), it failed to eclipse the 2006 event as had been the case fifteen years earlier.8
There were two other developments in the winter of 2005–6 that ensured that the ninetieth commemoration of the Rising would be the object of intense public interest. The first was the announcement, by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in the course of his address to the Fianna Fáil árd fheis on the evening of Friday 21 October 2005, that the anniversary would be marked by a military parade – the first such parade since the early 1970s.9 In the short-term this announcement was over-shadowed both by the death of the controversial former Fianna Fáil TD Liam Lawlor in a Moscow car crash (news of which began to filter back to Dublin on the morning after Ahern’s speech) and by the publication in the week following the árd fheis of the ‘Ferns report’.10 After Christmas, however, and most especially in the run-up to the weekend of the parade itself the decision was the subject of concerted media attention.
Two questions formed the core of this discussion. First, whether the Taoiseach, by announcing the parade at a party political event, had compromised its function as a symbol of national unity and pride; and second, whether a military parade was the most appropriate manner in which this national pride could be expressed. Both points are considered below. One of the more interesting aspects of this latter issue was the explicit manner in which the Taoiseach, in his address, went out of his way to identify the Irish army as ‘the only legitimate army of the Irish people’, ‘the true successors of the Volunteers’ who participated in the Rising who thus alone had the right to style themselves Óglaigh na hÉireann – thereby, of course, both repudiating the claim of the Provisional IRA to be the linear descendants of the Volunteer movement in its 1916–21 incarnation, and challenging the broader Provisional movement’s proprietorial attitude towards the Rising.
Such developments – the availability of new source material, the impact of economic prosperity, the peace process, and the reinstatement of a military parade – would, on their own, have been sufficient to ensure that the ninetieth anniversary of the Rising would be marked in a manner not seen for some years. As indicated above, however, it was the speech by President McAleese at the end of January, and the wide exposure it received (primarily as a result of being reproduced in full in, and the lead story of, the following morning’s Irish Times)11 that transformed what might otherwise have remained a rather elitist debate into a national colloquium that was prolonged, extensive and searching – the principal aspects of which form the remainder of this paper.
THE COMMEMORATIVE PROCESS
The President’s speech
Given the centrality of the President in the debate over the Rising it is fitting that her comments be the point of departure for this section.12 The address, which in keeping with protocol had been cleared
with the Department of the Taoiseach,13 began with a reference to the pitiful plight of many mothers in Ireland in 1916, whose sons were soon to die in appalling numbers ‘in some army’s uniform, in a formidably unequal country’, where women in particular had ‘no vote or voice’. The next part of the speech drew more attention, when the President invited her audience ‘to ponder the extent to which today’s freedoms, values, ambitions and success rest on that perilous and militarily-doomed undertaking of nine decades ago’, and on the words of the Proclamation. She suggested that the ‘long-term intellectual power’ of the Rising – with its promise of a free republic, committed to a ‘philosophy of equality and social inclusion in tune with the contemporary spirit of democracy, human rights, equality and anti confessionalism’ – had been initially and unfortunately overshadowed by its emotional legacy, but that in recent years this vision had come closer to realisation.
The response to the speech was mixed, albeit there was clear evidence of increased public support as the formal state commemorative ceremony came and went. To her critics the speech was ‘misguided’ and ‘anachronistic’, and ‘allowed her political enemies to question the sincerity of her reconciliation efforts towards unionists’. More trenchant criticism labelled it ‘deeply flawed and quite improper’ and ‘a surprisingly crude piece of myth-making, breath-taking in its revisionism of recent history’. One commentator invited the nation to be ‘ashamed’ of the President, while another went so far as to suggest that her words had ‘done dire damage to Irish democracy’.
Praise for the speech was expressed in calmer and ultimately rather more convincing tones. For the President’s admirers it was ‘difficult to overstate the importance, even profundity’ of her speech, which was ‘measured and constructive’ not least in its emphasis upon a ‘shared pride’ in the valour of those Irishmen who fought in the various theatres of war in 1916. This ‘calm and considered objectivity’ ensured that ‘the inclusiveness she has voiced since her election’ had not been abandoned.14
Two ideas put forward by the President proved particularly contentious. The first suggested that the administration of the country at the time of the Rising was ‘being carried on as a process of continuous conversation around the fire in the Kildare Street Club by past pupils of minor public schools’. ‘It was,’ she said, ‘no way to run a country, even without the glass ceiling for Catholics.’ The comment drew a response from several quarters, with the most considered analysis provided in several opinion pieces by Professor Paul Bew of Queen’s University Belfast.15 He argued (within the evidential constraints imposed by the journalistic medium) that, contrary to the President’s claim, the British government had been appointing Catholics ‘to the most senior positions’ in the Irish administration since the 1830s.16 Further, and taking his cue from a speech by John Dillon in the aftermath of the Rising, he argued that if the concept of government by members of the Kildare Street Club had any real meaning at the time of the Rising it was more as a consequence, rather than cause, of the event.17 Both points should be read in light of Professor Bew’s broader, favourable assessment of the Redmondite tradition – which, he suggested, had simply, ungenerously, and unwisely been ignored by the President. There is much to commend this line of argument – in particular the pertinent observation that it had been the Liberal party that had governed Ireland during the decade prior to the Rising. It was, however, weakened by the absence of any reference to the creeping demoralisation of the Redmondite camp that was evident long before the Rising, or to the equally pertinent observation that, in spite of the claimed long-standing good government intentions, Catholics in 1916 remained excluded from the most senior positions in the Irish administration, the offices of lord lieutenant and chief secretary. Honours, on this point, seem to have been equally shared between the President and her critics.
The other principal focal point of dispute that arose from the President’s address was in response to her suggestion that the fact that the vast majority of nationalists were members of ‘a universal church’ (i.e. Roman Catholics) ‘brought them into contact with a vastly wider segment of the world than that open to even the most travelled imperial English gentleman’. This challenge to the paradigm that counter-pointed British cosmopolitanism and Irish Catholic parochialism sufficed to drive several of the President’s long-time critics into rhetorical paroxysms.18 Few, however, addressed the substance of the claim in any sustained manner. Most merely either lamented what they saw as the deleterious consequences of the ‘hegemony’ of the Roman Catholic church in post-independence Ireland, or mis-interpreted the President’s comments to suggest that she had implied that Protestants were, in some respects, less than fully Irish.
An example of the former approach was to be found in a letter from Robin Bury of the Reform movement to the Irish Examiner, 13 February 2006. Therein he alleged that Protestants in the south of Ireland ‘were cleared out during a campaign of intimidation and persecution’ from 1920–24. In his view the legacy of 1916 ‘was an independent Ireland that was economically, culturally and intellectually stagnant’ as a result of the dominant position of the Catholic church, which, in his words, ‘controlled social and cultural life’ in the state.19
The most egregious example of the latter was provided by historian, biographer of Pearse, and Sunday Independent columnist Ruth Dudley Edwards, who, quoting a conversation with a friend, suggested that the inference drawn by the latter from such ‘dogma’ was that ‘non-Catholics feel a sense of “not belonging” to Ireland – of being outsiders who can never really belong’.20 The non-sequitor involved in such a conclusion is apparent.
There were, of course, a large number of other points raised by the President which gave rise to public comment, some of which are examined in a different context later in this paper. In the opinion of this author, the most insightful immediate response to her comments came, not in the national print or broadcast media, but in a thoughtful article in the Tullamore Tribune by Conor Brady, former editor of the Irish Times.21 Therein he lauded the President for having the courage to address what he described as a national sense of self-doubt regarding the state’s origins, which was as unwarranted as it was debilitating. He also suggested that the speech – ‘a timely portrayal of a proud and independent people’ – should be interpreted in the context of a possible state visit to Ireland by Queen Elizabeth II, a visit he regarded as imminent. While at the time of writing no such visit has been announced, the observation is an intriguing one.22
GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
Even though, as noted above, Taoiseach Ahern’s announcement of the reinstatement of the military parade to mark the Rising was overshadowed by contemporary events and by President McAleese’s speech, the significance of his address is clear. His speech, of course, was wide-ranging, and the announcement of the reinstatement of the parade but one among many items that drew applause from the audience. The relevant section of the speech spoke of the ‘need to reclaim the spirit of 1916’ from those who had ‘abused and debased the title of republicanism’. To that end, in addition to the reinstatement of the parade in 2006, he also announced the creation of a committee with responsibility for preparations for the centenary of the event.23
Inevitably there was speculation amongst political commentators as to the identity of the individual who first came up with the idea. Gene McKenna of the Irish Independent subsequently claimed that Rory Brady, the attorney general, was the individual in question,24 while Matt Cooper, writing in the Irish Examiner, suggested that Ahern himself deserved the credit for what Cooper described as ‘the main creative vision of his second term of office’.25
Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea provided additional information on the background to Ahern’s announcement, in response to a Dáil question on 3 November 2005. He informed the chamber that the initial cabinet discussion of the matter had taken place the previous July. This was followed by consultation with the chief of staff of the defence forces, with the parade tha
t marked the army’s withdrawal from its UN deployment in the Lebanon utilised as one possible model. Interestingly, he professed that he was ‘amazed’ that the matter had not leaked into the public domain prior to the árd fheis. He added that while the centenary seemed some years off, preliminary planning for it was not premature.26
Reaction to the idea varied. While a small body of opinion remained irrecoverably opposed to the concept, most welcomed the opportunity to mark the Rising and debate its legacy. There was obvious dissatisfaction amongst the opposition parties as to the nature of the announcement, and broader discussion as to the most appropriate form that the commemoration should take. As Easter weekend approached, however, criticisms became more muted, and once the parade itself had taken place a broad consensus emerged that the event had been, in the words of the journalist, Miriam Lord, ‘celebratory, yet reverential, good-natured and good-humoured, patriotic but not triumphalist’.27
The initial response to the announcement focused primarily on Ahern’s motivation, with several suggestions that his goal was simply and cynically to bolster Fianna Fáil’s ‘green’ credentials in its forthcoming electoral contest with Sinn Féin for the state’s nationalist vote (‘the Ghost of Elections Future’ as the Irish Independent described it).28 This discussion quickly gave way to a debate on the commemoration process itself. One correspondent to the Irish Times disparaged sentimental attitudes towards the Rising as a ‘national toy box’ that was better left closed.29 Writing in the same paper the columnist Kevin Myers, a long-time, vocal critic of the republican tradition, suggested that for the state to officially commemorate the Rising inevitably implied some degree of celebration of what he described as the consequent ‘catastrophic six-year fratricidal war’ and the ‘illegal and unconstitutional means to political ends’ that defined it.30 Eoghan Harris, another critic, also disparaged the parade as a ‘bad idea’, on the basis that it was merely designed to allow Fianna Fáil ‘appropriate for itself an important part of our past history’. He differed from Myers, however, in his support for some form of commemoration of the Rising, but suggested that a public debate on its legacy was more suitable than a military parade.31
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