1916
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Pearse remarked in November 1913: ‘I think the Orangeman with a rifle a much less ridiculous figure than the nationalist without a rifle.’ Eoin Mac-Neill’s ‘The North Began’ published some months earlier was a de facto call to arms to prevent the Ulster unionists from opting out of a ‘home rule’ Ireland. That the author recognised that it could reasonably be taken to be such is reflected in the ‘they started the fight’ title, along with the much less credible (but indirectly very revealing) assertion that the Irish Volunteers, founded in response to the unionists’ arming themselves, were not meant to coerce the unionists. See Lee, J.J., Ireland 1912–1985: politics and society , CUP, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 18–19.
To say that there was no such thing as Irish democracy in 1916 because there wasn’t an Irish parliament in Dublin is to identify democracy narrowly with the location of parliament, ignoring on-the-ground democratic culture and practice, of which there was quite a lot in nineteenth century Ireland.
The following story is illustrative: ‘An incident during the Convention [summoned by Lloyd George in 1917 to try to get agreement between Irish political parties on the island’s future governance, but boycotted by Sinn Féin] showed how the political tide had turned against Redmond. One day while walking along Westmoreland Street, after leaving the convention, Redmond was confronted by a group of young Sinn Féin members, including Todd Andrews, and physically attacked. Only for the intervention of passers-by who escorted him into the front office of the Irish Times he could have been badly injured.’ Collins, Stephen, ‘Returning home to hostility’, the Irish Times supplement ‘The Somme’, 27 June, 2006.
Politicians claiming the mantle of 1916 for constitutional republicanism are rarely taken to be serious. Once in a while they are answered. At the 1984 annual Béal na mBláth commemoration of Michael Collins, the then Minister for Justice, Michael Noonan, claimed that Collins’ methods in fighting the War of Independence were different from, and morally far superior to, those of the IRA’s campaign in the 1970s and 1980s. In a letter published in the Irish Times , 17 September 1984, Kevin Burke, then editor of An Phoblacht , refuted the minister’s claim point by point, in devastating detail. The minister made no public rebuttal of Burke’s argument that I know of.
See, for instance, Hart, Peter, The IRA and its enemies: violence and community in Cork 1916–1923 , OUP, Oxford, 1998.
Compare Germany, September 1916 until the end of the war, when the generals, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, overrode successive chancellors and cabinets as regards political decisions. In the Dáil, the military’s influence was more overt and direct, than in the Reichstag. Note too that political instability does not make ‘rule by the soldiers’ inevitable: in the contemporary Russian civil war, the civilian Bolsheviks kept tight control of the Red Army.
See Greenfield, Liah, Nationalism: five roads to modernity , HUP, Boston, 1992, for an interesting study of the variants in nationalism among five of the bigger European nations, and the ways in which its values are often incompatible with those of contemporary liberal democracy.
See reference in note 11. On 10 April 1919, de Valera’s Dáil motion to ostracise RIC members was seconded by Eoin MacNeill, using what Coogan terms ‘inflammatory’ language (‘The police in Ireland are a force of traitors’); Coogan, De Valera , pp. 132–33. The motion was carried unanimously. Given that the killing of RIC men had already started the previous January, MacNeill must have known well what feeling and consequent action he and the Dáil were inciting. The murders of southern Protestants in 1920–22 are also relevant, as is the reluctance to stop them at the time and refusal in later years to acknowledge them.
Bowman, John, De Valera and the Ulster question 1917–1973 , Clarendon, Oxford, 1982, pp. 330–31, citing Frank Gallagher’s draft biography of de Valera. Coogan De Valera , p. 351 has interesting comments on the story.
Fintan O’Toole, article in the Irish Times , 23 May 2006. The same article drew the rather unwelcome conclusion that commemorating the politically significant dead is a zero-sum game. Who is commemorated tells you who will not be commemorated. Commemorating Wolfe Tone requires ignoring Edmund Burke and minimising Daniel O’Connell; if Pearse is a model to follow, then Redmond is not. (O’Toole also noted that, at the time of writing, when there was much fanfare over the ninetieth anniversary of the Easter Rising, the Michael Davitt Memorial Association in Straide, Co. Mayo was having great difficulty in getting any public funding to celebrate the centenary of Davitt’s death.)
Cited in Bowman, de Valera and the Ulster question 1917–1973 , p. 3.
See Lee, Ireland 1912–1985 , pp. 86–87 on the mass politicisation of the Irish public (which happened rather earlier in Ireland when compared to other European countries) and which, fairly quickly, developed along party lines, beginning under O’Connell in the early nineteenth century. Lee remarks (referring to a phrase that appeared in the Freeman’s Journal 17 September 1881): ‘There was some truth, even as early as 1881, in the claim that “If ever a country passed through a parliamentary apprenticeship of the fullest term, Ireland is that country.”’
It is revealing that the involvement of individual Fenians (e.g. Davitt) in such social issues as the tenant–farmers struggle against the landlords was frowned on by the Fenian leadership as a distraction from the transcendent goal of an Irish republic. Their strange idea of a republic was that it transcended crude economic issues and the ‘all-politics-is-local’ aspect of democracy.
Given the uproar over the oath recognising King George V in the Treaty debates, it is curious that some of the 1916 leaders were apparently prepared to contemplate a Hohenzollern monarch for Ireland, as a result of a successful rising and the war being won by Germany, the ‘gallant ally’ of the Proclamation.
For an interesting account of the ethical and political foundations of the concept, see Riordan, Pat, A politics of the common good , IPA, Dublin, 1996.
It’s informative to consider the phrase in the IRB oath, where the oath-taker recognises that the Irish republic is ‘virtually established’. The sense is of it established in the hearts of people like a secret, or established like a Hegelian Geist transcending politics. See Foster, Modern Ireland 1600– 1972 , p. 391 for some pithy remarks on the IRB mindset.
The golden jubilee of the 1916 Easter Rising
Bhreathnach-Lynch, Sighle, ‘The Easter Rising 1916: constructing a canon in art and artefacts’, History Ireland , vol. v, no. 1, spring 1997, p. 40.
Staunton, Enda, The nationalists of Northern Ireland, 1918–1973 , Dublin, Columba, 2001, p. 247.
In his autobiography, Terence O’Neill noted how the improved north– south relations of the period were ‘shattered by the insistence of the Belfast Catholics in celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Dublin rebellion. It was 1966 which made 1968 inevitable and was bound to put the whole future of Northern Ireland in the melting pot.’ David Trimble has also referred to the jubilee events ‘starting the slide which became apparent two or three years later’.
Cruise O’Brien, Conor, ‘From one civil war to the next’, Irish Times , 4 December 1981.
Keogh, Dermot, Twentieth century Ireland: nation and state , Dublin, Gill Macmillan, 1994, p. 289.
For a detailed background to the events in Northern Ireland, see O’Dwyer, Rory, ‘The Golden Jubilee of the 1916 Rising’, unpublished MA thesis, University College Cork, 2003, pp. 44–57.
Girvin, Brian, ‘Uneasy alliance of traditional and modern’, Cork Examiner , 2 April 1991.
Ibid .
Idem., ‘Changing interpretations’, Cork Examiner , 6 April 1991.
Bew, Paul and Patterson, Henry, Seán Lemass and the making of modern Ireland, 1945–66 , Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 1982, p. 184.
Ibid .
Coiste Cuimhneachán, report of first meeting, 19 February 1965, D/T 97/6/57, National Archives, Dublin.
Ibid .
Irish Times , 19 February 1965, D/T 97/6/157, National Archives, Dublin.
Dep
artment of Justice to Taoiseach, 22 February 1966, D/T 96/6/161 S17607E, National Archives, Dublin.
Irish Press , 9 February 1966.
Evening Herald , 13 March 1965.
Coiste Cuimhneachán, report of meeting, 18 November 1965, D/T 97/6/159 S17607C, National Archives, Dublin.
Ibid .
Ibid .
Department of External Affairs, Cuimhneachán 1916–1966, Commemoration: a record of Ireland’s commemoration of the 1916 Rising , Stationery Office, Dublin, 1966.
Irish Times , 19 February 1966.
Boyce, D.G. ‘“No lack of ghosts”: memory, commemoration, and the state in Ireland’ in McBride, Ian (ed.), History and memory in modern Ireland , CUP, Cambridge, 2001, p. 267.
Irish Times , 1 April 1966.
See O’Dwyer, ‘The Golden Jubilee of the 1916 Rising’, pp. 44–45.
Lemass, Seán, ‘The meaning of the commemoration’, Easter commemoration digest , Graphic, Dublin, 1966.
Irish Independent , 8 April 1966.
Department of External Affairs, Cuimhneachán 1916–1966 , p. 23.
The remains had been buried in a quicklime plot within Pentonville prison.
Department of External Affairs, Cuimhneachán 1916–1966 , p. 24.
Ibid .
The tricolour has been flown from the GPO every day since, following a government decision in 1966; Ibid ., p. 28.
The Four Courts, the Mendicity Institution, Jacob’s factory, Boland’s mills, Mount Street bridge and the South Dublin Union were the principal sites in question.
The Kilmainham Gaol Restoration Committee was a voluntary group that had commenced the restoration of the historic old building in 1960.
Department of External Affairs, Cuimhneachán 1916–1966 , p. 33.
Ibid ., p. 43.
Ibid ., p. 45.
Ibid ., p. 47.
Ibid ., p. 48.
Ibid ., p. 54.
The Times (London), 16 April 1966.
Department of External Affairs, Cuimhneachán 1916–1966 , p. 64.
Ibid .
Details are to be found in ‘Government Reception, Dublin Castle’, D/T 97/6/490 S17955 & 97/6/583 S17955 (annex).
Ibid .
Department of External Affairs, Cuimhneachán 1916–1966 , p. 71.
Ibid ., p. 72.
Ibid .
This was revealed in an interview with Liam Sutcliff, one of three IRA dissidents responsible for the destruction of the pillar, featured in a television documentary on Nelson’s pillar. (Tall Tales: From pillar to spire, Stopwatch productions, 2003.)
Belfast Newsletter , 9 April 1966.
Irish News , 7 April 1966.
See ‘Berry explains his job’, Magill , vol. ix, no. 3, June 1980.
‘IRA organisation’, 10 December 1966, D/T 98/6/495 S16571H, National Archives, Dublin.
Ibid .
Tuairisc , (newsletter of the Wolfe Tone society), p. 5.
United Irishman , vol. xx, no. 5, May 1966, p. 5.
Irish Times , 11 April 1966.
Ibid .
Ibid .
Ibid .
The correspondence between the two committees is included in D/T 97/6/162 S17607F, National Archives, Dublin.
Ibid .
Department of Justice to Lemass, 22 February 1966, D/T 97/6/161 S17607E, National Archives, Dublin.
Ibid .
Ibid .
Lemass to Childers, 23 February 1966, D/T 97/6/161, National Archives, Dublin.
Lemass to Childers, 23 February 1966, D/T 97/6/161, National Archives, Dublin. For more details on the security committee see O’Dwyer, ‘The Golden Jubilee of the 1916 Rising’, p. 47.
The historians involved were F.S.L. Lyons, F.X. Martin, T. Desmond Williams, R. Dudley Edwards, Maureen Wall, G.A. Hayes McCoy, Donal McCartney, J. Boyle and Brian Ó Cuív.
Martin, F.X., ’1916: myth, fact and mystery’, in Studia Hibernica , no. 7, 1967, p. 39.
Caulfield, Max, The Easter rebellion , Frederick Muller, London, 1964.
O’Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle and the 1916 Rising , Sedgwick and Jackson, London, 1966; Mac Giolla Choille, Breandán, Intelligence notes 1913–16 , Stationery Office, Dublin, 1966.
McHugh, Roger, Dublin 1916 , Arlington, London, 1966.
Martin, ‘1916: myth, fact and mystery’, p. 48.
Martin, F.X. (ed.), Leaders and men of the Easter Rising: Dublin 1916 , Methuen, London, 1967.
Boyce, D.G., ‘1916: Interpreting the Rising’ in Boyce, D.G. and O’Day, A. (eds), The making of modern Irish history: revisionism and the revisionist controversy , Routledge, London, 1996, p. 165.
Dudley Edwards, Owen and Pyle, Fergus, 1916: the Easter Rising , Mac-Gibbon and Kee, London, 1968.
Ibid ., pp. 223–40.
Martin, ‘1916: myth, fact and mystery’, p. 50.
Cruise O’Brien, Conor, ‘The embers of Easter’, Irish Times , 8 April 1966.
Coogan, Tim Pat, Ireland since the Rising , Greenwood, Connecticut, 1966.
Foster, R.F., ‘History and the Irish question’, in Brady, Conor (ed.), Interpreting Irish history: the debate on historical revisionism 1938–1994 , IAP, Dublin, 1994, p. 141.
Quoted in Boyce, ‘1916: Interpreting the Rising’, p. 179.
Murphy, John A., Ireland in the twentieth century , Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 1975, p. 145.
Department of External Affairs, Cuimhneachán 1916–1966 , p. 74.
Arnold, Bruce, ‘The arts’ in 1916–1966: 50 Years On , np, Dublin, 1966, pp.12–14.
Martin, F.X., The Easter Rising, 1916, and University College Dublin , Browne and Nolan, Dublin, 1966.
Greaves, C. Desmond, The life and times of James Connolly , Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1961.
Dáil Debates , vol. 241, 30 October 1969, col. 2281.
As recalled in an interview with Pádraig Ó Cuilleanáin, a fellow member of the Coiste Cuimhneachán.
Irish Independent , 22 March 1966, D/T 96/6/162 S17607F, National Archives, Dublin.
‘Better than Bunting’, Irish Times , 14 April 1966.
Address by Lemass at dinner arranged by Dublin Comhairle Dáil Cheantair Fianna Fáil in honour of the twenty first anniversary of the election to Dáil Éireann of Patrick Burke, TD, Spa hotel, Lucan, 9 October 1965, D/T 96/6/159 S17607C, National Archives, Dublin.
Lemass to Aiken, 7 March 1966, D/T 97/6/162, National Archives, Dublin.
Irish Times , 18 April 1966.
Belfast Newsletter , 19 April 1966.
Ibid ., 21 April 1966.
The commemoration of the ninetieth anniversary of the Easter Rising
The full text of the speech can be found on the website of the Department of the Taoiseach (www.taoiseach.gov.ie). Excerpts are contained in reports in the national press on Monday 10 April 2006.
Report of the director of the Bureau, 1957, as quoted in Doyle, Jennifer, Clarke, Frances, Connaughton, Éibhlís and Somerville, Orna, An introduction to the Bureau of Military History, 1913–1921 , Military Archives, Dublin, 2002, p 1. See also Ferriter, Diarmuid, ‘“In such deadly earnest”: the Bureau of Military History’, Dublin Review , vol. xii, 2003, pp. 36–65.
It should also be noted that small quantities of original material for other aspects of the Rising have recently been made available to researchers, with the discovery of a cache of letters from Roger Casement in the archives of Clare County Council in 2003 being but one example. See Irish Times 26 April 2005.
An interesting exchange of views on the economic legacy of the Rising took place in the columns of the Irish Times between Dr Garret FitzGerald and Ian d’Alton of Naas, Co. Kildare. See the original contribution on the topic by Dr FitzGerald ( Ibid ., 12 April 2006) and the instructive subsequent exchange of letters between the two, beginning with Ian d’Alton’s initial reply on 19 April, with further correspondence on 24, 28 and 29 April.
See the article ‘1916: the debate continues’ by Professor Dermot Keogh in The Word , April 2006, pp. 4–5.
; See, for example, the article ‘Ahern’s Rising’ in the Sunday Times , 5 February 2006.
The party-political dimensions of the commemoration are explored in more detail later in the article.