Colm Tóibín: Easter 1916

um Tony Blair at the time at the Belfast agreement spoke of the hand of history being on him I don't feel that but it is it but nonetheless there is something odd about that my grandfather was arrested he took part in the rebellion and in the 1916 rebellion and was arrested and was held in frankoc in Wales they were surprised the Irish the people from home were surprised that the guards were all speaking Welsh and the Irish were all speaking English and there was when the beginnings of sort of the ironic they are all the ironies that surround the relationship between the two islands and if anyway it's a interesting to be here in the belly of the whale a hundred years later in in 1867 Jeremiah o'donovan rossa a member of the Fenian movement also known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood that would be also the IRB sir he was serving a life sentence for treason he was moved to Milbank prison in London where he was overseeing with great care with the gaslighting left on in his cell at night according to his biographer he was regarded as the most troublesome prisoner in the institution and news of the little punishments and receiver petty infringement of the rules became an important part of Fenian propaganda and over the next few years and to different inquiries actually took place in two conditions in which he and his fellow Fenian prisoners were being held and after the second of these it was decided that the prisoners would be released on condition that they did not return to Ireland thus in January 1871 o'donovan rossa arrived in New York where he was greeted as a hero among the friends he made in New York with Patrick for the editor of the Irish World newspaper which had a circulation of 125,000 and in 1876 for Dan de Delavan Roscoe set up what they called a skirmishing fund in America to assist in the planning and carrying out of a bombing campaign in Britain and Ford rose language skin color dress general manners are all in favor of the Irish in other words that they wouldn't be noticed as they arrived with this newfangled dynamite that could single individual could bring so using the pages of the Irish world forward and o'donovan rossa collected more than twenty thousand dollars within a year well some of the nationalist Irish American groups they supported the idea of a bombing campaign in Britain they viewed was dismayed the lack of restraint in and caution you know Donovan Ross's violent rhetoric John Devoy who for many years was one of the leaders of a group called clown a gay in the Galle and he was a you know the leader really of the main nationalist group in America and he will appear again he would appear again later he believed that quote o'donovan rossa had given the British ample warning of his plans through a desire for notoriety and theatricality thus jeopardizing any future our current Fenian initiative o'donovan rossa was defiant in the Irish world he wrote quote I am NOT talking to the milk and water people I'm talking to those who mean fight who mean war and who know what war is but an enslaved nation can produce men who are brave and daring enough to risk life and to face death for the mirrored lorry of showing that the national spirit still lives that nation is not dead and those men should be encouraged instead of repressed at the arguments within Irish America became more heated o'donovan rossa began drinking heavily john Devoy who discovered that o'donovan rossa had also misappropriated funds i commented that quote he is now so bad that i fear the only way to save him is to put him under restraint he can't eat or sleep even when sober o'donovan rossa was making himself a nuisance for Devoy m and its colleagues in the united states who were seeking to make an alliance known as the new departure with Parnell and the Irish parliamentary party in Ireland in other words to get all of the groups who favored and independent Ireland together including the groups who favored the use of violence including the ones who favored parliamentary politics to get all of them under one umbrella known as the new departure and threatening to dynamite Britain would not be helpful in the efforts to create a united movement within Irish Nash Donavan Raza increasingly determined bombastic and indiscreet matched his incendiary rhetoric with action in January 1881 his followers exploded a bomb in Salford the first time such a bomb that need the near the new dynamite had been planted in Britain to further a political cause the bomb destroyed some shops injured a woman and killed a seven-year-old boy the British authorities who began to monitor the activities of a Donovan Raza in the United States observed that he had all the ruthlessness of a dangerous conspirator without any of the guile slowly and without much difficulty then the British infiltrated but Alvin Rossiter organisation nonetheless the movement continued to bomb Britain sporadically over the next few years the culmination of the campaign was dynamite Saturday in January 1885 it was noted by Henry James in a letter to his friend Grace Norton in Boston the country is do me anxious and London reflected gloom Westminster Hall and the tower were half blown up two days ago by Irish dynamiters 18 months earlier a young Irishman living in Liverpool Thomas J Clarke was arrested in London as one of o'donovan rossa followers using evidence of an elaborate bomb factory discovered in Liverpool the crown charged him and others with treason the planet seemed was to blow up the houses of parliament Clarke was sentenced to life imprisonment and he would eventually become what the historian Ruth Dudley Edwards has described as quote the spider at the center of the conspiratorial web that would lead to the 1916 rebellion in Dublin more than 30 years later he was in her words able vengeful focused selfless and implacable talk time in prison he began his sentence in Mill Bank in 1883 would include much severe hardship including periods many periods of solitary confinement having served a lengthy sentence in English jails would give Clarke the sort of mystique that arose from having sacrificed much for Ireland and survived in prison he managed to connect and almost associate with colleagues and allies like many revolution Irish revolutionaries of the 19th century including o'donovan rossa himself Clarke would eventually produce a volume of Prison memoirs he described quote the dismal dark side full of wretched wretchedness and misery but even now I cannot think without shuddering and strangers him as it may seem the bright side to the side which I can look back upon now with some degree of pleasure and pride that pleasure and pride included a sense of companionship and understand a sort of arrogance in dealing with the regulations and with prison authorities as with o'donovan rossa during his incurring his incarceration there began a campaign to publicize the sufferings and the ill treatment of the Irish prisoners including Clarke in British jails by 1890 the amnesty Association had two hundred thousand members and slowly the campaign became more vocal and more broadly based pressure on the government to release the prisoners continued through the 1890s until in 1898 Thomas Clarke was released he was 41 years old his years in prison had led him to see that spies and informers as well as careless planning had done great damage to a movement whose aims he planned to further now with determination single-mindedness and seriousness he returned to Ireland he spoke at a few gatherings in his honour he fell in love with Kathleen daily the 20 year old niece of one of his comrades and soon then he went to New York and he continued to conspire against British rule in Ireland there when cutting followed him they got married and having come from a large and noisy family she found that she was living with quote a very silent man those terrible years developed the habit of repressing every sign of emotion I made him suspicious of every stranger Clarke in New York was rescued by that same John Devoy who had disapproved of o'donovan rossa more than 20 years earlier since d'void was setting up a newspaper he appointed Clarke his assistant as well as general manager Clarke was effective and self-effacing he was in a good position to us to assess members of the new generation of Irish revolutionaries who came to New York in 1907 he concluded it was time for him to return to Ireland the arrival of the quote ex-convict and dynamiter was noted by the police Clarke in turn noted a new energy in the movement for Irish independence including the political party Xin feigned founded a number of years earlier which would attempt and which is a movement for her self-reliance in Ireland it was founded in 1905 and it was so he wrote to the boys assistant that quote the young fellows who take the lead in the shin Fane movement impress me very much by their earnestness and ability I'm delighted to find them away above what I expected and it's interesting that is that it's that it's that it's that it's 1907 it's the same year as the publication of Joseph Conrad's a secret agent both Clarke and Conrad had the same problem as to what to do with the revolutionary in the city if you want to give them you know a home and of course very luck has a shop for soft-porn in Soho meaning furtive looking men can come and go the police aren't sure whether they're buying porn or whether they're revolutionaries ended up and obviously you couldn't do the porn part soft or otherwise so thomas trout opened a tobacco shop which meant that men could go i mean slightly furtive looking and but nonetheless it could be the traffic all day in the shop and he was determined to do what he could still to fermenter rebellion in Ireland he was dogged and single-minded but his skills were limited although he supported the Irish language movement he was not an Irish speaker or a student of the language although the country he would appeal to was mainly Catholic he was not religious he was not a good public speaker he had no military experience he was naturally secretive and silent he had no personal warmth because he had spent so much time in prison and then in New York he had no set of close friends our trusted comrades his judgment was also flawed for example his initial observation of a new energy in Irish nationalism proved to be actually that and really quite wrong and things were much more complex than he imagined so in other words it's not possible to draw a single line between Clarke's return to Dublin in 1907 and the rebellion taking place nine years later as though one led naturally to the other this this is simply not the case in 1907 politically as much as culturally Dublin could have seemed what James Joyce called a center of paralysis rather than a city preparing for ever both the Fenian movement the old finian movement and the Irish parliamentary party seem to lack energy and the fiends were mostly old the parliamentary party had never fully recovered from the fall of Charles Stewart Parnell and the subsequent split even the young-shin feign movement did not seem to have captured the public imagination but underneath what appeared as stability and lassitude however was an energy in culture life rather than political life that had grown perhaps out of the failure of politics which occurred at the time of the split in the parliamentary party / Parnell one of the people emerging from this sort of new sort of cultural movement was Patrick Pearse it was born in 1879 the Alister for children his father was an English stonemason and charts sculptor who came to Dublin in his twenties as to establish a successful business his father died suddenly in 1900 when Pierce was 21 he had Heaney's younger brother Willie attempted to keep the business going Willie tended to follow his older brothers example in everything including indeed revolutionary later and they spoke to one another throughout their lives in a sort of baby talk Pierce took a degree in languages at University College Dublin James Joyce very briefly actually became one of his students and then he studied for the bar but even as a student he put all his energy into the movement to restore the Irish language in his late teens he became a member of the Gaelic League the organisation founded in 1893 by own McNeill and others to promote the use of Irish as a spoken and literary language by 1904 which is the earth Joyce left Ireland for example the Gaelic League has 600 branches with 50,000 members by the following years had 900 branches and a hundred thousand members before he was 20 Patrick Pearse had been co-opted onto the Executive Council of the Gaelic League and had begun to deliver papers at meetings the league itself was an acrimonious organisation filled with factions Pearce managed to function well within the organisation to some extent because he had no close friends among his members he was a loner he represented only himself also he was a tireless worker by 1903 he was elected editor of the league's weekly newspaper becoming involved in many controversies on behalf of the Irish language not least with the Catholic Bishops over their policy on the language but also with the British government by 1904 the newspaper circulation was a hundred and seventy four thousand so it remained deeply influential some members then of the Gaelic League who were also in the IRB and the Irish Republican Brotherhood and in chin Fane they used the league as a Trojan horse they for them culture nationalism and the language movement itself were just soft ways of assisting with the political movement but Pearce in those early years was however a single-minded language enthusiast and a member of no political organization quote when the position of Ireland's language as her greatest heritage is once fixed she wrote all other matters will insensibly adjust themselves as it develops and because it develops this is the language it will carry all kindred movements with it Irish music our chart ours dancing Irish games and customs Irish industries and and he put at the end Irish politics these are these are worthy objects not one of them however can be said to be fundamental Pierce had open differences of opinion with more advanced and militant nationals when the Irish Council bill was proposed by the Liberal government in 1907 for example the Year Thomas Hauk returned to Ireland it offered a home rule to Ireland which was merely partial and thus unacceptable not only to chin fain but to members even moderate members of the Irish parliamentary party who took their who took their seats at Westminster Pierce however supported it because it offered local control over education and this meant that Irish could be taught he thought in more schools and given more prominence within the education system the English government he wrote is unable to settle our grievances for us for she is unable to understand either us or them let us first get control of the education system then let us set about solving our problems on ourselves we shall find their solutions wonderfully easy for figures such as Thomas Clarke who wanted the British simply removed from Ireland before anything else Pierce's support for small acts of potential reform meant that he could not be trusted and many readers indeed up the Gailey leaked newspaper were horrified by Pierce's support for the Irish Council bill a piece of legislation which was in any case doomed and they called for his resignation Pierce had many opinions some of them bizarre and out of touch and others progressive and liberal he believed for example that emigrants people who left Ireland looking for work were traitors to their country rather than people who could not find work at home and later he opposed the introduction of the old-age pension taking the view that in Ireland the pensioners were selling out to the enemy when there was discussion about the governing body of a new University however Pearce wanted women on the board and he wrote in favor of hub really having a large representation of women on such boards but he approved a women only in theory in practice he was shy with women and uneasy in their company instead he liked boys and as with many before and after him he thus saw fit to set up a school where he could teach boys and spend time with them there's something both peculiarly innocent and oddly revealing about some of his writings in a poem from 1909 for example written in both Irish and English called little lad of the tricks Pierce wrote and I'm not making this up little lad of the tricks full well I know that you have been in mischief confess your fault truly I forgive you child of the soft red mouth I would not condemn I will not condemn anyone for a sin not understood raise your Coney head to like kiss your mouth if either of us is the better of that I am the better of it there is fragrance in your kiss that I have not found yet in the kisses of women or in the honey of their bodies when former pupil of the school which Pierce eventually sent us and set up st. Anders said Pierce used to kiss the young boys he tried to kiss me but I would not have it another people wrote Pierce was under a cloud because it was known that he used to kiss boys in his school and then added Pierce made love to his boy pupils and since he liked boys then besides writing about them and and kissing them Pierce took a serious interest in their education and their welfare he wrote to me a boy is the most interesting of all living things and I have for years found myself coveting the privilege of being in a position to mold or help to mold the lives of boys for noble ends in February 8 1908 Pierce sent out a letter looking for financial support for a project of a high school for boys in Dublin on purely Irish Ireland lines the building he wanted to use for this purpose was in rental in Dublin the school st. enders opened in September 1908 by the end of the year II at 70 boys including 20 boarders and 24 girls as numbers increased he employed more teachers including the poet and nationalist Thomas MacDonagh and he had studied education systems in places like Belgium child centered education and new ways of teaching and he was by many accounts a man inspired teacher he disliked corporal punishment which was mildly used elsewhere one student who had previously been a Jesuit schools wrote in st. enders there were no prefix you were not watched or kept under constant observation you were put on your honor and on your first transgression Pearce called you to his study you gave your word not to offend again and you usually kept your word although there was religious training in the school the ancient mythical Irish warrior cou Colin was the presiding deity so much so these army present calls visitors to remark that called the kids in there being taught according to the commandments of qu Cullen rather than the 10 commandments of God each day after religious devotion Pierce told a tale from the qu Cullen cycle of stories you have filled with violence and in plaque and the implacable heroic activities of qu Cullen operating alone ready to sacrifice himself against anyone who came his way really and the boys joked that the pervasive presence of this hero made him an important if invisible member of staff as with his work for the Gaelic League Pearce devoted himself totally and wholeheartedly to the school he didn't draw a salary himself and being highly impractical impractical constantly had to cajole others to invest money in st. andis to keep it going or convince his debtors that the cause for which he owed the money was worthy and no of all the decisions Pierce made perhaps this decision to move the boys scoot from Oakley Road near the center of Dublin to rest Farnham on the deep outskirts was the most significant and far-reaching Oakley Road a situated between renlund Rathmines and he would have witnessed the ordinary and busy city his school was a part of a bustling suburban Dublin the heroism and example of Cru Colin might have been important in the school itself but it would have been met with indifference on the road The Hermitage in rats Farnum on the other hand where he Pierce moody school in 1910 was in 50 acres of woodland and parkland with a river and a lake near its boundary it had four Pierce a to Tory Spurs other than kou : this was the ghost of Robert Emmet who had led an ill and ill-fated rebellion in Dublin in 1803 and been publicly executed in the city afterwards Emmett's death was memorialized in songs by Thomas More upon by Shelley and even an elegy written by Berlioz Emmett's speech from the dark which ended when my country takes its place among the nations of the earth then and not till then let my epitaph be written was considered a classic of its kind we all learned it in school legend then had it that Emmett and his girlfriend Sarah Sarah Curran used to walk in the grounds of the hermitage in rat Farnum so Pierce Hayes ghosts in the center of Dublin at the same time 1910 Thomas Clarke at 62 had two young sons and had opened a second tobacco shop in Parnell Street at the top of a cow Street or sacral Street as it was then it became clear to him by now what a Mara Bond organization the Irish public Republican Brotherhood really was and John Redmond who was the leader of the Irish parliamentary party because he was beginning to talk about that and once more the possibility of achieving Home Rule and he had begin to he'd begun to dominate political debate in Ireland to such an extent that it starts biographer has written Dublin Castle believed that no secret society was active in Ireland at that time and wanted the police to concentrate instead on open organizations like the Gaelic League the Gaelic Athletic Association and she in other words the authorities believed in around 1910 that the Irish Republican Brotherhood the Finian's they were not even worth spying on Clarke began to associate with a few younger members of the Brotherhood most notably Shawn McDermott the 26 years his junior whose gregariousness masked his ability like Clark to be secretive and determined slowly and with difficulty and with some luck indeed Clark and McDermott said about moving into positions of authority within the IRB Clark almost accidentally slipping into the position of Secretary of the Supreme Council in 1910 McDermott became national organizer early the following year when McDermott suggested to Thomas Clark that Patrick Pearse could be used to deliver a narration about Robert Emmet Trump was uneasy Peirce he said he might be a good Gaelic leaguer but he had never been identified with the separatists he saw no reason to trust Pierce but McDermott according to Clark's wife told Clark if you give him the lines you want he will dress it up in beautiful language this speech was Pierce's first truly nationalistic speech Allah doth sprang from his devotion to Emmet rather than to any revolutionary program it demonstrated to men like Clark in the IRB but especially to Clark that peers had talents that could be useful to them so he proclaimed in this speech quote that Dublin will have to do some great act to atone for the failure to produce even one man - - his head against a stone wall in an attempt to rescue Robert Emmet Thomas chock was impressed by Pierce's performance saying I never knew there was such stuff in Peirce what Clark was watchful as a taciturn determined on self-conscious Pierce liked the sound of his own voice and was becoming fascinated by his own image and indeed his own destiny Desmond Ryan who studied as a student at st. Enders remembered Peirce being taunted at a meeting but once more operating almost in the center politically while you know being much more interested in the cultural issues and he asked for a more chair attitude towards the Irish parliamentary party and having been taunted his response was yes give me a hundred men and I will free Ireland on the way home to st. Anders in Wrath Farnham he said let him talk I am the most dangerous revolutionary of the whole lot of them Pierce's rhetoric then thereafter became more messianic and reckless but he was still aligned with no party and even as late as 1912 could speak in favor of home rule which would be a gradualist approach to Irish independence and would be what would be still under the crown and he could speak in favor of this on a platform at John Redmond of the Irish parliamentary party but there was a menace in his tone he ended his speech with this if we are tricked again there is a band in Ireland and I am one of them who will advise the Irish people never again to consult with the Gaul meaning the foreigner but to answer them with violence and the edge of the sword let the English understand that if we are again betrayed there shall be red war through our Ireland on a fundraising tour in America for saint Enders in the spring of 1913 Pierce was treated by the radical nationalists in America as an important figure not just in Irish education but in the Irish freedom movement nobody went with good references and in one speech he considered how easy it was to imagine how the spirit of Irish patriotism called to various Irish Patriots and he named them and then said heroic effort claimed the heroic man but then he considered the case of Robert Emmett and he made a distinction an interesting one between Emmett and the other Patriots a distinction that he might also have made between himself and her figures such as Thomas Clarke in Emmett he wrote it was called to a dreamer and he woke a man of action it called to a student and a Rekluse and he stood forth a leader of men and called to one who loved the ways of peace and he became a revolutionary gradually as Pierce was becoming more political and militant in his rhetoric Thomas Clarke was building up a power base within the Irish Republican Brotherhood but the IRB remain the minority group once the possibility of home rule by legislation began to emerge more clearly clark was worried about being further marginalized however when the Ulster Volunteer Force in what we might call Northern Ireland were set up to oppose Home Rule there was a movement Dublin led by own McNeal who had founded the Gaelic League in other words once more were seeing an example of somebody coming in from the cultural side into the political militant side in November 1913 to set up the Irish Volunteers it would match the Ulster Volunteer Force their declared aim would be to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland but essentially they were a nationalist force Clark and his comrades put all their energy then into trying to control the volunteers of the provisional committee at the beginning thirteen out of the thirty were actual members of the Irish Republican brother Brotherhood and three including Patrick Pearse would soon be sworn in to the Irish Republican Brotherhood Patrick Pearse was sworn in to the Brotherhood in September sorry in December 1913 the rest of course were members of Shin fain or there were followers of John Redmond and the Irish parliamentary party by the spring of 1914 the Irish Volunteers had 14,000 members but membership increased to naught to a hundred thousand once the Ulster Volunteers force smuggled close to 225 thousand rifles and a large quantity of ammunition into Larne in County Antrim Thomas Clarke wrote to John Devoy in America John du Bois still operating as the leader of RTI the art - national in America quote the country is electrified with the volunteering business never in my recollection have I known in any former movement anything to compare with the spontaneous rush that has been made all over to get into the movement and start drill and get hold of a rifle young fellows who had been regarded as wastrels now have changed to energetic soldiers and are absorbed in the work and taking pride at last they feel they can do something for their country that will count which it's good to be alive in Ireland these times and the police now on began to began to keep a close watch on who was coming and going in Clarks tobacco shop I mean the archives give you each time they got a vantage point from ups at the shop and noted each person going in and out including people going in and out to buy cigarettes and tobacco when the guns have been smuggled in to Larned by the Orangemen in the north Patrick Pearse wrote this famous article about arms that made clear how far he had moved from his life as a language enthusiast this is Pierce I am glad that orange men have armed for tis a goodly thing to see arms in Irish hands I should like to see any and every body of Irish citizens armed we must accustom ourselves to the thought of arms to the sight of arms to the use of arms we may make mistakes at the beginning and shoot the wrong people but bloodshed is a cleansing and sanctifying thing and the nation which regards it as the final horror has lost its manhood there are many things more horrible than bloodshed and slavery is one of them just as Clark wanted to exercise control over the Irish Volunteers at the beginning as I said he managed to do this John Redman from the Irish parliamentary party managed realised that if this moved out of his control everything but we were out of his control so he proposed a smaller executive for the volunteers that he believed his supporters could dominate to avoid a split they suggested a compromise that would give effective control of the volunteers to Redmond and the Irish parliamentary party this was vehemently opposed by Clark and most of his followers including Peirce and while favored by some weaker are members of the IRB who were ready to compromise including one of Clark's most trusted allies when Clark lost a friend witnesses response I had never seen him so moved he regarded it from the beginning as cold-blooded and contemplated treachery likely to bring about the destruction of the only movement in the country which brought promise of the fulfillment of all his hopes during his life he had many many very Grievous disappointments but this was the worst and their bitterness Albert was increased by the fact that it was brought about by a trusted friend in July 1914 when guns were smuggled into house north of Dublin for the Irish Volunteers by this time numbering a hundred and eighty thousand men Clark and McDermott his ally they twice filled a taxi with rifles when the first world war broke out soon afterwards it was clear to Clark now that this would be the opportunity for a rebellion in Dublin the slogan being used regularly was England's difficulty Ireland's opportunity between between August 1914 and February 1915 however fifty thousand Irishmen volunteered to join the British Army there was never a conscription in Ireland in the First World War everything was everything was by volunteers and on the 20th of September 1914 in a famous speech John Redmond called on all Irishmen to join the British Army and fight wherever the firing line extends in defense of right freedom and religion and of course as a result of John Breton speech the Irish Volunteers then split the supporters of Redmond who became the National Volunteers where the vast majority about 10,000 men remained active or semi active in the Irish Volunteers the other was the ones who had remained with under say Clarke's control or semi control as the war in Europe began to intensify the battle that Clark and his followers now had on their hands was to control this group and use whatever influence they had to move towards an armed insurrection in Ireland within the leadership of the volunteers especially but also within the IRB itself there was some who did not share Clark and McDermott's radicalism so wasn't so there was a single split that on one side joined the British Army and the other side have an insurrection even within the other side the idea of having an insurrection remained a minority idea but this seemed if anything to sharpen the determination of Clark and McDermott truck was slow to make allies he found making enemies easier and these enemies now included figures in his own movement who were still not sure that the best strategy would be open rebellion a conference was arranged between leading members of the volunteers and the IRB and James Connolly who controlled the Irish citizen army which was a small militant left-wing group Kali was a Marxist and he saw the war as an opportunity for the Irish working class to liberate itself from Britain both cleric and Pierce attended a meeting which discussed seeking help from Germany for the Irish cause but it was clear from the enthusiasm which the war effort was greeted in Ireland that I mean the I mean the first world war effort the parts of the country remained must weren't ambiguous about Britain or at least much more nonchalant about the struggle for Irish independence than any members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood or the Irish citizen army had presumed once a crisis broke out many young men in Ireland saw no great reason not to join the British Army Britain was merely the supposed enemy the population of the two countries spoke the same language after all they had the same education system and the same administrative system so many Irish people move back and forth between Ireland and England seeking work many in Ireland also had family in England while most in the south of Ireland actively are tacitly supported Home Rule home rule was postponed until the war had ended it looked now as are the two islands were going to join forces in the war efforts more than 200,000 Irishmen eventually volunteered so it appeared as you can imagine to the groups such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Shin fain and indeed the Gaelic League that they were going to become increasingly marginalized as the war took its course and as the war news captured the imagination of the people not to change this was going to require acts that were radical themselves and imaginative the transformation needed would in would involve a full merging of the single-minded diehard politics which Clarke stood for with their roots in the Narrows of sacrifice and violent actions of the dynamiting Fenian movement of the 1860s of the 1880s with Patrick Pierce's inspirational culture and nationalism his brilliant oratory and his increasing interest in following both of his heroes kou : and Robert Emmett into early death and martyrdom it would need then for starters anyway three things a dead body a spectacle and a speech Clark Thomas Crockett noted how large the funerals were for the three civilians shot by troops at the time of the host gun running in July 1914 the court age with the three coffins headed by 40 priests and controlled by the Irish Volunteers took 70 minutes to pass any given point the funerals seemed to create rapture and a sense of unity among the people of Dublin it was the greatest outpouring of grief since the death of Parnell on the 29th of June 1915 Jeremiah o'donovan rossa you remember the guy who was drinking and who was sending the dynamiters over to England he died in his 80s in New York when John Devoy was more still there running things cable Clark came from New York to Dublin Ross are dead what shall we do Clark replied sent his body home at once in a memoirist Clark's Widow reported him saying if Raza had planned to die at the most opportune time for serving his country he could not have done better in the years since talk had seen the old Fenian in New York o'donovan rossa had been given much much given two tours when he recalled his prison days he'd even returned to Ireland for a time to take up a sinner cure offer to him by County Council the day after his death the Irish Times wrote there was a time in Ireland when he death would have created a sensation but it's no exaggeration to say that today there are many who had almost forgotten his existence Thomas Clark understood however what could be done with the last of the original Finian's especially one whom very few people in Ireland had known personally ya know Donovan watts had not been involved in the bitter local disputes there was people hadn't learned to hate him personally that dogged the republican movement in ireland over the previous decade once he was dead he could become all legend he could be remembered as the man who had served years in an English prison he could be commemorated as someone who had held out for Irish freedom in a dark time those who knew her Donovan Rosser better than Clark did are a better memory such as John Devore himself in New York whoever made the reservations clear about the old Fenian even after his death he began to sacrifice himself devote his family and his interests at the very inception of the movement and he continued it to his last conscious hour often the sacrifice was wholly unnecessary even unwise but Rosser believed was called for and never hesitated or counted the cost the Clark was having none this prevarication as he began to prepare a spectacular funeral he set up subcommittees to organize the event and the head at the heads of those included many of the men who would the following year become leaders of the 1916 rebellion Clark moved Thomas MacDonagh who had been a teacher at st. Enders but was now a lecturer in English at University College Dublin into the essential position as organizer of the funeral it was agreed that the funeral procession would include not only the Irish Volunteers and they are citizen army and members of the Gaelic Athletic Association but also Redmon's national volunteers maybe the last time these four organizations would march together the coffin arrived in Liverpool which was a problem so it was arranged that it be carried from the ship to the boat on Irish shoulders thus ensuring that it would not touch English soil even for a moment McDonough magically had arranged after an argument with the Archbishop of Dublin that the coffin would be brought first to the pro' Cathedral in Dublin on Tuesday 27th of July where prayers would be said followed by mass the next day even though the Finian's with their oath of secrecy were anathema to the Catholic Catholic Church and were excommunicated no one could be left out of this solemn stage management the body was brought there on Tuesday the mass was on Wednesday morning then the body was brought to City Hall and Dame Street and was draped with the tricolour of the Irish Republic where I was held uh and the body was held there until the funeral on Sunday the 1st of August so from Wednesday to Sunday it was held there there was a glass opening in the coffin so that the estimated hundred thousand people who came to pay their respects could see the dead man's face there were queues from City Hall on Dame Street as far as Georgia Street the coffin was protected by a guard of honor led by Edward Daly the younger brother of Kathleen Clark wife of Thomas Clark when Clark invited Patrick Pearse to give the aeration over the grave of a Donovan rasam the response confirmed qua Shawn McDermott who was by the way at this time in prison under the defense of the realm act because he'd been arrested from a platform for saying openly he said England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity instead of thinking it he had said it and they arrested him so and what he had told Clark in 1911 he said to Clark if you give Peirce the lines you want he will dress it up in beautiful language Pierce asked Clark what tongue he should take in his oration and Clark told him that he wanted the Eurasian to be quote as hot as hell Pierce he suggested should quote throw discretion to the winds on leaving City Hall in Dublin the funeral cortege took the most circuitous route the day was warm it was estimated that two hundred thousand people lined the streets of Dublin to see it pass there's no trains had been arranged for those who wished to travel to Dublin for the spectacle I mean if anyone thinks that this sounds like an episode from Joyce of Cyclops and chapter of Ulysses it does because Joyce obviously was completely alert to this as he was writing Cyclops where he even mentions the name of o'donovan rossa in the Cyclops episode and special trains he mentions special trains and Cyclops two wishes see the spectacle when the leaders of procession arrived at last Nevins cemetery the sight of the graves of Parnell and and also of some of the Fenian leaders which of course the opening chapter or the story the second chapter of Ulysses the funeral is also going to Glasnevin it took two hours more for the coffin itself to enter the graves to enter the gates of the cemetery now there are many accounts of the day in the Bureau of military history in Dublin the purely military history has become the sort of M things everybody uses we're in the 1940s de Valera was concerned that the memory of what happened between 1916 and 922 would so soon move out of living memory and so he organized the army the Irish Army to go around Ireland taking down statements of any length anyone wanted who had been involved of what they saw what they remembered and they would be locked away until everyone was dead they were opened about ten years ago so this is a sort of treasure trove of information and and if you just google in the I mean I mean they emphasize things like the significant that the extraordinary perfection of the organization and the fact that the Irish Volunteers meaning meaning the old you know non ones who didn't support the First World War they were actually armed going through the city and the national volunteers the Redmond volunteers on the other hand were not armed Joseph McCarthy from Wexford for example noted quote the slow march of the volunteers passing through the city convey to everyone the significance of a real national army the wail of the laments from the Pipers bands and the music of the brass bands mingled with the slow and rhythmic beat of the steps of the marching men reoccurred up the quiet streets to joining the route and through the open squares Pierce Patrick Pearse wrote his oration in Russ Mauch in calamara in the West of Ireland for a built a cottage in 1909 by August the first he had learned by heart it ended as follows life Springs from death and from the graves of Patriot men and women spring living nations the defenders of this realm have worked well in the secret and in the open they think they have pacified Ireland they think they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half they think they have foreseen everything think they have provided against everything but the fools the fools the fools they have left us our Fenian dead and while Ireland holds these graves Ireland unfree shall never be at peace when piers had finished a voice from the crowd shouted say it again and then doesn't he speak like a priest the Eurasian one witness one witness remembered soon became the favorite recitation at concerts and social entertainments all over the country I have this is the quote still quoting I've heard it recited in railway journeys to hurling and football matches but what happened to immediately after the Eurasian was it seems when you look at the depen you look at the documents in the Bureau of military history as impressive as the speech itself volleys were fired over the grave this must have been one of the very few occasions one witness said in which this military demonstration took place in our lifetime and that too in its way made a deep impression not alone on all those who were present but who heard the news afterwards the following day the irish independent newspaper wrote the old order changes father michael careened the secretariat of the archbishop of dublin remember the event as the date that publicly revealed that a new political era had begun he believed that the supremely impressive moment with the triple volley fired by the volunteers this represented more than a farewell to the old Fenian it was a defiance to England by a new generation in Ireland desmond ryan who at merit pierce remembered him as a speech came to an end quote beside the grave he stood impressive and austere and green with slow and intense delivery as he as he and as he cried aloud upon the fools he threw back his head sharply and the expression seemed to vivify the speech which ended calmly and proudly another image with which Ryan ended that chapter of his book which is a memoir however seems even more significant than this description of Pierce's performance itself this is Ron this appears he Pierce walked home alone and certainly study at last he had spoken the just word he sought to immortalize a man less great than himself in other words when Ron saw Pierce that evening at st. andis Pierce was alone after the speech he had not associated with any group or gone to eat or have a drink with others he'd returned to ratify on him on his own he did not have a group of peers or supporters and when Ryan found him Pierce asked him for a loan of ten shillings Pierce's impracticality only added to his mystique his solitude he's not leading a faction within the volunteers or the Irish Republican Brotherhood gave him even more power as he determined that they would soon be a rebellion he was not interested in anyone else's opinion but he had begun to plan in fact was his own death early in 1916 when he was asked for a portrait of himself for the cover of a pamphlet about Robert Emmet which supporters in Enniscorthy wanted to publish he wrote I think a portrait of Emmet would be better as well as handsomer on the cover after I'm hanged my portrait will be interesting but not before I should say this business of being hanged is interesting that in the gpo in 1916 when they finally did have the rebellion there the rebels were unsure whether they're going to be shot or hanged at the end and one of them went around to everybody said you think would be shot or do you think would be hanged between the o'donovan rossa funeral in mind in August 1915 and Easter week 1916 an internal dispute went on within the ranks of the volunteers and the IRB in January 1916 James Connelly of the citizen army was co-opted under the military council of the IRB a body that had come into being the year before Clark McDermott and Pierce were also members the plan to organize a rebellion on Easter Sunday 1916 was not shared would seek with senior members of the Irish Volunteers such as Owen McNeill who I mentioned earlier in relation to the valley the Gaelic League and the founder the actual founder of the Irish Volunteers and he because he would have opposed such an idea rather it was shared among people whom Clarke and Pierce believed they could trust most of whom had been sworn in to the IRB preparations for the rising remained then for the most part and that a rumor or a kept secret this became both a strength and a weakness it meant that the news of plans was unlikely to reach dublin castle with any degree of certainty or indeed reached those within the volunteers who could put a stop to these preparations but it also meant that the numbers involved in any rebellion would be low and a murder what happened there would be confusion over who had control the plan depended on arms from Germany arriving in Ireland on Good Friday theatres 1916 the authorities intercepted the landing of arms of the coast of County Kerry from Germany and they arrested Roger Casement who had arrived from Germany by submarine during the three or four days before the rebellion on McNiel who again was chief of staff of the volunteers he sought constant clarification about the intentions of his most exposed more extreme colleagues when he discovered that there was a plan for general mobilization on Easter Sunday at 4:00 p.m. he held a meeting on the Saturday evening and which he announced that he had come to the conclusion that the enterprise was madness would mean a slaughter of unarmed men and that he felt it his bounden duty to try and stop it he issued a countermanding order which was reported in the press on Easter Sunday morning those who had favoured the rebellion occurring on Easter Sunday were devastated one volunteer reported he was the first and only time I saw Sean McDermott really upset angry and upset James colonies daughter remembered her father's response the tears ran down his face are we not going to fight now he said the only thing we can do is pray for an earthquake to come and swallow us up in our shame at a meeting of the Military Council held on Easter Sunday morning Thomas Clark implacable as ever wanted to go ahead with a rebellion as planned but it was agreed that it should be postponed by one day Thomas MacDonagh who was a poet and and and could deal with these things better than most was detailed to go to see own McNeill and to dupe him into believing that the plans for the rebellion had been completely canceled and 8:00 p.m. and Easter Sunday Patrick Pearse dispatched couriers throughout the country with a simple message we start operations at noon today Monday carry out your instructions on Easter Monday then the rebels took the general post office in Dublin a republic was declared 50 years later Kathleen Clark the widow of Thomas Clark who was still alive wrote that it was her husband not Pierce who was president of this short-lived Republic Pierce she said quote had wanted to grab what was due to others surely Pierce should have been satisfied with the honor of commander chief where he knew as much about commanding as my dog it was Pierce however a dog or no dog who read the proclamation a thousand copies of which had been printed that morning in front of the general post office in Dublin it's seven signatories include Pierce Clark McDonough McDermott now that he had moved into the real world of military action and out of the realm dominated by his imagination Patrick Pierce's are at oratorical skilled seemed to fail him or maybe just his audience was different one witness recalled there was very little noise in the street as he read the proclamation practically silent the crowd numbered about two hundred and I'm sure that many of them didn't recognize the significance of what Pierce was saying his voice didn't carry too well and it was difficult to hear him he had the document of the proclamation in his hand standing between the columns of the general post office in the middle on what I judged to be a chair but there were but there was no reaction when he had finished the crowd melted another witness reported slowly the crowd broke up quite a few bored with the whole affair let me turned and wandered away the writers Stephen McKenna recorded that people simply listened and shrugged their shoulders or sniggered a little and then glanced around to see if the police were coming within a week however the Chicago Tribune reported that when Pierce had finished thundering shouts rent the air lastly for many minutes the cries were taken all along Sackville Street and the adjoining turfers now what happened on Easter Monday as we know is open to interpretation as a military event it almost makes no sense taking st. Stephen's Green for example which is surrounded on four sides and not Dublin Castle suggests poor planning and lack of strategic thinking as Fergal McGary asks in his book the rising what was the rising an attempted coup d'etat or irrational blood sacrifice in other words did what happened arise from Clarke strategy however ham-fisted and badly thought out to take power in Ireland by use of arms or did it take his bearings from Pierce's more messianic and dreamy allusions to have a small number sacrificed themselves at Easter thus to inspire a larger number to have resonance other than resolution over the last 100 years there have been much discussion about the rebellion in Dublin that began on that Easter Monday and ended with unconditional surrender on the following Saturday and involved the destruction of the city centre and the deaths of almost 500 people the majority of them civilians some of them children very quickly after the rebellion ended what Fergal McGarry calls quote a powerful narrative emerged the rising was seen as an heroic fight by selfless Patriots whose recklessly taken on the might of the British Empire the nobility of their cause and vindictiveness of the British response resurrecting a quiescent origination from the 1916 rising this narrative rent came the rise of shin Fane the Freedman party to a spectacular victory in the 1918 election where they wiped out the arch parliamentary party and of course the guerrilla war against Britain and then Irish independence more recent historians have offered other narratives Peter Hart for example called the rebellion quote a unique example of insurrectionary abstract art and went on the surprise the proclamation the tricolour the seized buildings of barricades were all there but the target seemed almost purely symbolic or even arbitrary instead of the Arsenal City Hall or barracks they occupied a post office a bakery a public park there was probably some military rationale involved it's hard to tell since no record of the plan has survived but there was certainly no intention of seizing power another historian David Fitzpatrick has commented under civilian casualties quote by raising their tricolour in the centre of the main shopping area and close to Dublin's Northside slums the rebels insurer ensured massive human and material losses once their position was attacked it is difficult to avoid the inference the Republican strategists were intent upon provoking maximum bloodshed destruction and coercion in the hope of resuscitating Anglo Irish angler phobia and throwing back popular support for the discredited military program the British were surprised by the rebellion later it would emerge the quality of the intelligence they had about the leaders was to say the least on impressive this will become apparent very quickly and say their efforts to interrogate Owen McNeil the very wanted to try to stop the rebellion whom they arrested on the charge of being a rebel they they followed even though he'd signed the Contra Manning order even though it had been in the newspaper they still arrested him on the charge of being a rebel they followed earlier failure then with a sudden burst of energy handing over effective power in Ireland to the military arresting three thousand four hundred and thirty men and seventy nine women and raiding many houses throughout the country in a series of court martials they sentenced ninety rebels to be shot fifteen of these sentences were quickly carried out the charge for this was that the rebels had been waging war against his Majesty the King with the intention and for the purpose of assisting the enemy among those so in other words they saw it entirely in the context of the First World War among those shot by firing squad were Pierce Clark McDonough McDermott Edward Daley the brother of Clark's wife the day after they shot Patrick Pearse they also threw in and shot his brother Willie even though Willie Pierce had not been a leader of the rebellion and the authorities had no particular evidence against him as a leader they this is significant more than anything perhaps they did not return the bodies to the families instead he'd buried them in quicklime and without coffins as early as a third of May which is the day that Clark Pearse and McDonagh were shot John Redmond of the Irish parliamentary party he keeper Chester to ask Ruth the Prime Minister that quote if any more executions take place in Ireland the position will become impossible for any constitutional party or leader on the 8th of May the Viceroy nordwind Bern warned Major General Sir John Maxwell who had come to Ireland on the 28th of April as military governor has never had full authority he warned him a possible disastrous consequences arising from the executions on the same day John Dillon who after the death of John Redmond he would become the last leader of the Irish parliamentary party and as I said will be wiped out in the 1918 election he told general Maxwell quote it it really would be difficult to exaggerate the amount of mischief the executions are doing on the 10th of May the Prime Minister asked what sent instructions to Dublin that no further executions are to take place until further orders in the House of Commons on the 11th of May John Dylan told the government what would happen next you were doing everything conceivable to Madden Irish people he said if Arlen burg governed by men out of bedlam you could not pursue a more insane policy as Charles Townsend has written in his book Easter 1916 quote in terms seldom have ever heard in Parliament Dylan reiterated and amplified the warning he issued to Maxwell you are washing out our whole life work in a sea of blood well is poisoning the mind of Ireland and rapidly poisoning it is the secrecy of these trials and the continuance of these executions thousands of people in Dublin Dylan said who were bitterly opposed to the whole Shin Spain movement and the rebellion are now becoming infuriated against the government Dylan asked the prime minister to stop the executions this series of executions he said is doing more harm than any English man in this house can possibly fathom the men being executed he said were not guilty of murder rather they were insert quote insurgents who have fought a clean fight a brave fight however misguided as English MPs began to heckle him in Parliament Dylan who was a constitutional nationalist and had no connections with the rebels and he was as absolute supporter of the first world war effort said it would be a damn good thing for you if your soldiers were able to put up as good a fight as these men did in Dublin he was he said proud of their courage and if you were not so dense and stupid as some of you English people are you could have had these men fighting for you despite his warning and the Prime Minister's instructions James Connolly and Shawn McDermott were shot on the 12th of May the following day since Connolly had been injured in a rebellion they had to put him sitting in a chair to shoot him and as we know Irish people here we could all sing you the ballots about Connolly being shot in the chair and as late as the 3rd of August Roger Casement was hanged in London and 1,600 prisoners were removed from Ireland to England they were being held as quote enemy aliens which was some considered strange since there were indisputably British citizens or would-be until six years later when the British left Southern Ireland having made every further mistake possible losing the support of the Catholic Church continuing the threat of conscription and sending a force known as the Black and Tans who were not known for their restraint or discipline to attempt to pacify the country as early as mid May 1916 as Charles Townsend writes the forces of law and order in Ireland began reporting quote a significant sign in sudden unfriendliness or even hostility towards the police throughout Leinster they noted popular sympathy for the rebels is growing and in monstrous sympathy among all nationalists is becoming intensified in favor of the rebels arrested or sentence on the 17th of May haven't been provoked by general Maxwell Bishop O'Dwyer of Limerick made clear that the British had lost whatever support they had from the Irish Catholic hierarchy you took great care that no plea of Mercy should interpose on behalf of those poor fellows who surrendered to you in Dublin he wrote to Maxwell the first information we got their fate was the announcement that they had been shot in cold blood the bishop condemned the deporting of hundreds and even thousands of poor fellows without a trial of any kind which he called an abuse of power as fatuous as it is arbitrary he added your regime has been one of the worst and blackest chapters of the MIS government of the country early in June Maxwell general Maxwell told the prime minister of quote a growing disposition on every possible occasion in favour of Sinn féin ism or republicanism at masses for the repose of the souls of the executed rebels at the arrival or departure of released or deported suspects on their return to their native towns that people are seized upon to demonstrate he was particularly bothered Charles Townsend writes by the extremest ladies who with priests he said quote were difficult to handle he told a squits private secretary the Irish are impossible people even if they were to get Home Rule there will always be a large number agin the government whatever it may be by the time they sat in their prison cells in the early hours of May the 3rd 1916 awaiting execution it was clear that Clark Thomas Clark Patrick Pearse had divided England and Ireland in ways that would come to matter they appeared to the British as supremely treacherous they'd stabbed the country in the back during a time of war causing immense destruction to life and property they had made their willingness to treat openly with the enemy against whom so many Irishmen had volunteered to fight and in a war in which so many were still dying in his court-martial statement Patrick Pierce said quote I admit having opened negotiations with Germany we have kept our word with her and as far as I can see she did her best to help us she sent a ship with our arms and in that week of rebellion to take just one example five hundred and seventy men from the sixteenth Irish division were killed at Halak on the western front is hard to imagine if viewed from the British side what else could have been done with the leaders of rebellion it must have seemed not only natural but just and right to shoot them but the rebels appeared to the Irish side in a totally different light the stark divergence in this after image the creation of this deep fissure between England and Ireland was perhaps the rebels real achievement Thomas Clarke was seen in Ireland as a man prematurely aged from his years in English prisons a man who had remained dedicated to her cause that was often unpopular Patrick Reece was a poet language enthusiast and a teacher Clarke and Pierce and their followers despite their fanaticism had somehow managed to present themselves in Ireland as noble spirits serious people who had made no personal profits from their politics and then lost everything their fellow citizens had grown used to them they were almost familiar and once they were shot they became as WB Yeats suggested changed utterly or oddly heroic the their last words and deeds were recorded and became part of our culture in his cell on the night before his execution Peirce composed a poem about the beauty of the world which we all learned in scroll fifty years after his death he also wrote a letter to his mother and in the latter he said I have just received Holy Communion I'm happy except for the great grief a party from you this is the death I should asked for if God had given me the choice of all deaths to die soldiers death for Ireland and for freedom by the time Thomas Clarke was sentenced his wife had also been arrested and was being held at Dublin Castle some hours before he was to be shot she was taken to his cell outside a priest asked her to allow him to see her husband he seemed to have been put out of the cell and she said I haven't I've never interfere with my husband in anything he thinks right she said and I'm not going to begin now if he will not see you he has his reasons she spent an hour with Clarke in a Cell illuminated by a candle held by a soldier she wrote in her memoirs that when she asked her husband what happened with the priest he told me that the priest had wanted him to say he was sorry for what he had done if he did not of course say sorry the preset was going to refuse him absolution Clarke said she rose I told him to clear out of my cell quickly I was not sorry for what I had done I'd law read in it and the men had been with me to say I was sorry would be a lie and I was not going to face my God with a lie on my tongue Thomas Clarke however was attended by two priests before being shot and he died a Catholic but he was as resolute as ever in his die-hard nature as he gave his last wishes to his wife and one of them was about Owen MacNeil the head of the Irish Volunteers who had countermanded the order for the 19th further further and further the rebellion on Easter Sunday quote I want you to see to it his wife reported him saying that our people know of his treachery to us he must never be allowed back into the national life of the country for so sure he is so sure he will act treacherously in a crisis he is a weak man but I know every effort will be made to whitewash him all the families gave accounts are the last hours of the rebels they made sure to emphasize that her loved ones including the Marxist James Connelly had seen priests before they were shot they also included as much sad detail as they could I had to stand there at the cell door Kathleen Clarke wrote while the soldier locked the door of what seemed to be my husband's tomb how I held myself together with my head up I do not know I must have been turned to stone but the sound of that key in that lock has haunted me ever since thank you you

Channel: London Review of Books (LRB)

Views: 13,344

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Colm Tóibín, patrick pearse, james joyce, W. B. Yeats, Sean O'Casey

Id: 1t-L8HozVEw

Length: 66min 53sec (4013 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 05 2016