There is a lot for a monarchist and a nationalist to say about the Easter Rising. Indeed there are even things for them to criticise, analyse, explain and yes, perhaps even to moan about. There is something good to be said for a society where the journalistic class, had they been doing what their vocation demands of them and holding the nation to account and ponder sceptically over its national myths. Perhaps there is even a religious concern about whether or not the Easter Rising and its subsequent rebellion and war was truly a Just War.
But I will not be entertaining such thoughts today.
On this day, the centenary of the Easter Rising, the event is the de facto founding of the Irish State. It is the proof of a hundred years of Irish mastery over the destiny of their own nation. It is the memory of the blood and fire that is the birth pang of nationhood. And it is hated from all quarters.
The Guardian newspaper hates this day. It hates it because it is Christian and Irish, it hates it so, that it dredges up a Jesuit Theologian by the name of Seamus Murphy, who condemns the rising as anti-Christian because it was not a Just War, claiming he is a leading theologian. I had never heard of the man until today and I discovered he had not problem backing unjust wars over ten years ago when the West invaded Iraq to topple Saddam. And at the same time this same said newspaper, eager to convince its readers all the smart and important people were on its side of the debate produced another article condemning the Easter Rising's Catholicity and for bringing in a century of 'Catholic Darkness'. It is telling this newspaper is all too ready to bash Ireland and the Church but does not hesitate to use the Church's men to do damage to one or the other when it suits them. Hypocrites.
The Independent bemoans the celebration and attacks the proclamation as being completely antithetical to the Ireland of today. It is entirely correct. Where this newspaper rages that the proclamation which announced the nation's birth promised equality of opportunity instead of equality of outcome, it is completely correct. Where it hates that the proclamation is not a left wing document because its promise of equal rights to men and women is not a fundamentally left wing idea, it is completely correct. Where it sneers that the proclamation is not socialist, nor even social democratic but rather it is fundamentally nationalist in character, it is entirely correct. The Independent is entirely correct that the proclamation has nothing to do with the modern slave state the Irish Republic has become, how could it be?
The proclamation announces nationhood, it announces the Irish people as distinct among the nations and peoples of the world, it proclaims its glory and right to veneration and promotion, it claims ownership and the loyalty of its sons and daughters and its exiled children and descendants in far off lands, it proclaims the right of its laws and culture its ownership of territory, its sovereignty, it divides the entire human race into its two primary component parts when it says 'Irishmen and Irishwomen', it invokes God the most High and Ireland's honoured ancestors within its first sentence. It announces these things with pride and vigor, written by men who were ready, and did, to draw the sword to defend their words and to die like men.
It announces nationhood, when the 'modern' man hates nations.
It announces pride, when the modern man hates pride in anything other than himself and his filth.
It announces loyalty, the modern man rebels against anything but the tyrant who feeds him his filth.
It announces tradition, and history, the modern man despises the past for he has no future.
It announces kinship, the modern man hates family and children.
It announces manhood and femininity, the modern man is effeminate and hates both.
It announces strength, the modern man is pathetic.
It announces God, the modern man is the devil.
It is everything the Irish nation was, everything the Irish nation should be, and everything the Irish Republic is not. No wonder the West Britons, the Europhiles, the Internationalists, the Socialists, the Traitors and amorphous morlockian dredges of filth masquerading as men hate it so. It is a memory of what once was, and what one day may become so again in a still yet more glorious dawn one fair Easter morn.
I will not countenance such treason, not today, I will hold my peace. Today is a day to be proud, today is a day to remember and never to forget that Ireland was once upon a time proud, rich in heritage where it was poor in the pocket. Strong in the arm when it was not strong in industry. Faithful and unwavering in its vision for the future when all around it stronger powers played their games. Remember that, keep that flame alive and that Ireland will never die so long as you and yours shall live. For more miraculous resurrections have occurred over Eastertide, the revival of a nation is a pittance in comparison to the Empty Tomb, however bleak the night may seem.
For one hundred years the Irish flag has waved, remember that when you watch the military might and splendour of our fair isle on parade through our capital and the flag will yet wave a hundred more. Remember where you come from and damn any man a coward and a traitor this day should he sneer at our country and its pride. Demand satisfaction for their words, they will not dare face you nor chance your wrath, for they are not men. Teach your children the price of blood paid in their name, God's own and that of our forebears so that the Easter fire may burn in their hearts and steel gird their souls. Teach them the language of the Gaels and the language of the Romans, so that Gaelige may again become the language of men's laws and Latin the language of men's souls.
Raise the sunburst banner, the four provinces, the royal blue and gold harp of Ireland, stand at attention for the anthem, salute the flag, march and sing and dance and pray for you are a living people, an Easter people, sons of Heaven, of Mary, of St. Patrick and Milésia. He is risen, and today is a new day for us all. Slan go phoile.
Amen
ReplyDeleteGod bless you on this Holy Easter day, Servant.
Easter blessings to you. Your writing is so mature, a pleasure to read, thank you.
ReplyDeleteJust a few points on the Rising:
ReplyDelete1. I think that there is a tension between Our Lord's sacrifice in Calvary and the "blood sacrifice" of Pearse in that Christ explicitly rejected the idea that he was a national Messiah. There is also the matter that Pearse himself declared the grave of Wolfe Tone, who declared that he wanted to free Irish Catholics from the "thundering decrees of Rome", to be holier than that of St. Patrick!
2. I think that the Catholicity of the Rising has been overplayed: it must be remembered that James Connolly in particular was a Marxist. There is no guarantee that should the Rising had succeeded that the position of the Church would be safe, especially if the nationalism of the Rebels trumped their Catholicism.
For the record, I believe that the pursuit of Irish independence was justified, but not through the use of force. I also disagree that any Irishman or woman who criticises the Rising is therefore a traitor. If anything, it is much more patriotic to criticise wrongs in love than it is to celebrate them without thinking through its implications, as has been the case with most of the coverage of the Rising (though no one here has done this). Further thoughts of mine on this can be found at my blog:
youngirelandsblog.blogspot.com
I would like to point out that the rising did not start the use of violence in Ireland. the British used violence as well (actually the British kill a higher percentage of people who are not government officials and soldiers than the IRA!) the two differences between them are, that one side was more organized than the other (the British side was more organized) but being more organized confers zero moral superiority (if it did, it would be immoral for Jews in Nazi Germany to resist Hitler, but moral for the SS to respond). the other thing was that the British government continuously used violence against Irish civilians. the rising targeted soldiers, not civilians. if you are to condemn the rebellion you must also condemn the British government's use of violence. there are things that are justified to engage in, but not to start. I would engage in those things if someone else did them to me first, but in no other case. the NICEST British policy in Ireland ever got was a system that, according to Daniel François Malan (the prime minister of south Africa in the late 1940s) was the model for Apartheid. there were elements of the behavior of the British government that were the model for the holocaust. (not only did Hitler get the idea of concentration camps from the British, but the British government ground up the bones of Irish people they had killed for use as a fertilizer ingredient) (one British fertilizer company used to advertise the fact that they had ground up Irish bones in their product on the packaging)(that is way you can still get 21 years in prison for buying or selling British fertilizer in Ireland) (I have done years of research on this, in addition to the fact that my great grandfather knew people killed in that manner). the fertilizer thing was before the rising even. another horror about the British government was that they eventually started killing people just so they could bomb those people's funerals! bombing funerals is horrible enough, but killing people just to enable the bombing of funerals is essentially, video game/ comic book/ action movie villain evil, if not a step above that. it is behavior that sounds like a caricature of evil. so you will also talk about how unjust the British use of violence was, right? people who are not consistent cannot ever be right. if you are not against that violence, you are obviously for fertilizer that has ground up human bones in it and the killing of people just to enable the bombing of funerals. what is worse, killing attacking a few soldiers, or that level of atrocities. the only justification for saying what the Irish did is wrong, but what the British did was right is if you are British and your morality consist simply of "we good, they bad." if you are against both that is fine, but under any other circumstance, you cannot condemn the rising.
DeleteThe Rising did not start the violence in Ireland, but it certainly made it much much worse. As for the fertiliser, it is of course an appalling disrespect for the dead, but the only record of that happening that I can find is the Battle of Waterloo, when they use the bones of their *own* soldiers. There does not seem to be any evidence for your claim that they used Irish bones, so it would be great if you could provide their source for that. Your analogy with the Holocaust is not a valid one IMHO in that the Irish were not being rounded up for execution or targeted for genocide (unless you consider the Irish Famine to be such; I do not believe it was, since the British did not stop the flow of food and aid into the country like Stalin did in Ukraine, not for the fact that when famine struck again in 1879, they acted much more quickly, which they would not have done had they wanted to exterminate the Irish.) Now I accept that Cromwell's invasion was probably a genocide, and it would be just to resist that, but those conditions did not exist in 1916, and to compare Ireland in 1916 to Nazi Germany is imho hyperbolic and trivialises the Holocaust. Just because I believe 1916 to be immoral does not mean that I believe that everything Britain does to be good e.g they could have handled the North much better than they did. That however does not justify unprovoked aggression that would only make things even worse, as 1916 did.
Deleteabout mr murphy, no one who was in favor of Iraq can ever claim to be against unjust wars, I generally have more respect for people who are wrong but consistent than I do for hypocrites, figuring that correct options are consistent, therefore if a person's opinions are not consistent, they must be wrong on at least some matters
ReplyDeleteThis is absolutely beautiful to read. Well done to you, sir!
ReplyDelete