The centenary of the Easter Rising is surrounded by myth, moral ambiguity, historical revisionism, and by political re-interpretation and re-invention.
For those, like myself, who unambiguously value and cherish the establishment of an independent, sovereign Irish republic, 1916 is the starting point of its existence, albeit that it was not brought to fruition for years afterwards.
It is not that we glory in violence or in death; it is that we honour and celebrate those who set the achievement of our liberty in train.
The First Myth
1916 was not the start of a century of political violence in Ireland as is sometimes claimed; when the British Tory establishment from 1912 to 1914 backed the creation of the UVF, armed to the teeth with German weapons, and approbated the establishment of a provisional government in Ulster sworn to resist by violence both the will of the Irish people for Home Rule and the authority of the Westminster parliament, the use of force and threat of civil war was deliberately introduced into the politics of 20th century Ireland.
Those actions demonstrated beyond contradiction that the ambition of the great majority of Irish people to achieve some form of self-determination would be countered by force at the hands of those who controlled the largest empire on the face of the earth.
The Second Myth
Contrary to what is claimed, Irish independence was never available through the Home Rule Acts.
All one has to do is to look at the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, the high point of Home Rule legislation, to realise that a divided Ireland was to be offered, within the United Kingdom, two assemblies posing as parliaments, each with very limited domestic autonomy, a council of ministers chosen by the Lord Lieutenant, no fiscal autonomy, no capacity to conduct international relations, no control over its armed forces, and subject to having any or all of its laws over-ridden at will by Westminster.
It is also utterly false to claim, as happened this week, that Home Rule under the 1920 Act was indistinguishable from independence under the 1922 Constitution. The two were radically different.
To quote John Redmond, speaking at a St Patrick’s Day dinner in London in 1913, on his ambition for Home Rule:
“We will under Home Rule, devote our attention to education, reform of the Poor Law, and questions of that kind which are purely domestic, which are, if you like, hum-drum Irish questions, and the only way we will attempt to interfere in any Imperial question will be by our representatives on the floor of the Imperial Parliament in Westminster doing everything in our power to increase the strength and glory of what will then be our empire at long last; and by sending in support of the Empire the strong arms and brave hearts of Irish soldiers and Irish sailors to maintain the traditions of Irish valour in every part of the world. That is our ambition.”
That “ambition” cannot be airbrushed from history; Redmond was entitled to hold it, but it ceased to be (if it ever was) the ambition of most Irish people within 24 months of the Rising. While we can honour Redmond as a patriot, we do not have to share or re-instate his particular ideas of patriotism or his ambition.
Furthermore, in relation to Redmond’s ambition, anyone who believes that Home Rule would have avoided partition need only read Ronan Fanning’s Fatal Path to be disabused of that delusion.
A Third Myth
A third popular delusion is that the Rising had any chance of short-term military success. Some have argued that the Rising might somehow have succeeded were it not for the loss of the Aud arms ship or the making of MacNeill’s countermanding order.
Perhaps the most closely guarded myth is that Casement came ashore at Banna strand to help the Rising. On the contrary, his diaries and papers show that his only aim was to make contact with MacNeill and others with a view to stopping the Rising which he correctly viewed as doomed to failure – with or without the cargo of the Aud.
Casement understood, as did MacNeill, the O’Rahilly, Hobson and others, that the Volunteers outside Dublin were utterly under-equipped and un-prepared, and that British military strength in Ireland would crush the Rising with ease.
That did not bother Pearse. He was intent on self-sacrifice to re-light the flame of Irish freedom.
Most interestingly, Casement actually pleaded with intelligence officers on the Easter weekend in London after his arrest to be allowed communicate with MacNeill to prevent a Rising but his interrogators intimated to him that they thought it better to allow a Rising happen so that its perpetrators could be excised from the body politic. There, if you want to find it, was perfidious Albion at its most cynical; and there, if you want to find it, was the greatest self-inflicted shot in the foot to the British interest in Ireland.
A Fourth Myth
It is sometimes claimed that the Rising somehow validates the Provo campaign from 1969 to 1998.
While there are some small elements in common between the two (chiefly the absence of any democratic mandate), there are also radical differences. The issue in Northern Ireland was and is, at its heart, an issue between Irish people.
Since 1949, the UK has legally acknowledged the principle of the right of a majority in Northern Ireland to decide whether to remain in or leave the UK for a united Ireland. The use of violence since 1969 to decide that constitutional issue is the use of violence to coerce the will of a majority in Northern Ireland.
It can be argued that Sunningdale would never have happened without the threat or use of violence; but it cannot be argued that a united Ireland could occur without the consent of a majority of Northern Ireland’s people or without civil war.
Quite unlike MacNeill and Pearse who were careful not to threaten the northern unionists with violence, the Provos used shocking violence, bombing of civilians, and terror to attempt to subvert the will of their fellow Irishmen, and to attempt to force them into a united socialist Ireland.
Independence Is No Bad Thing
Without being unfair to anyone, I detect an attitudinal coincidence between hostility to the 1916 Rising and a hankering for Redmond’s ambition which nowadays takes the form of an ambition for a strongly federal EU super-state instead of sovereign independent nation states.
Fair enough. You may have such ambitions if you like.
For my part, I believe that becoming and remaining a sovereign independent republic has been, and will be, good for Ireland and for the Irish – economically, socially and culturally. I do not believe that Ireland would have equally prospered if it had remained a province of the United Kingdom –as Wales, Scotland,Northern Ireland, and Northern England demonstrate.
Nor do I believe that we should, after one hundred years, fold up the proclamation and become to an EU super-state what North Dakota is to the US.
With due regard to all the moral ambiguity that necessarily attends every revolution in history, I celebrate 100 years of independence sparked into life by the Rising. We should honour our patriots, however they viewed the Rising, and we should celebrate their achievements this Easter Day