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This essay repeats and expands on a 2006 essay published online with the Ireland Institute in 2006: “1916 and All That — A Personal Memoir”
http://www.theirelandinstitute.com/institute/p01-ballagh_memoir_page.html.

Texte intégral

1The British occupation of Ireland down the centuries was once seen as exploitative and repressive. However, according to “responsible” historians, this British presence in Ireland should be seen as an act of benign generosity. We should accept that the United Irishmen were fanatical bigots and the 1798 rebellion was a sectarian blood bath, that the famine was simply an accident of nature and that the resultant human catastrophe was not the fault of those who controlled the country and its resources, namely the British. The Fenians were violent bunglers; Parnell was a dangerous subversive who toyed with unconstitutional methods, and the Easter Rising was an unnecessary, even ungrateful, orgy of violence, as the British were on the point of ceding national democracy. Anyone who still clung to the point of view that branded British imperialism in Ireland as either a fact or a bad thing was dismissed as old-fashioned, narrow-minded, and, of course, soft on violence.

2In the 1980s, those who were engaged in the creation of this anti-national bias were greatly assisted by Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, the most draconian piece of political censorship operating in Europe at the time. The strict application of Section 31, namely the banning of interviews with spokespersons from named organisations, would have been bad enough, but the real situation was much worse than that. The practical operation of Section 31 extended way beyond simply excluding spokespersons, since the guidelines imposed a blanket ban on all members of named organisations irrespective of the subject of the interview. Inevitably, this blanket ban had ludicrous consequences. On one occasion, RTÉ broadcast Mass from a church in Belfast. One of the readers of the lesson was a member of Sinn Féin.

3After the broadcast, back at the station, there was an investigation into this “dangerous” breach of the order. Because of the activities of the Stalinist thought police, who prowled the corridors of the TV station, few broadcasters were prepared to risk the hassle involved in trying to piece together a programme on a “difficult” story, so the story remained untold. This is the explanation why all the programmes on such serious issues as the unjust jailing of the Birmingham Six and the Guilford Four and the bombings in Dublin and Monaghan, were made by British TV companies and not by our national broadcaster. This practice quite naturally led to the unconscious development of the most insidious kind of information control possible, self-censorship. Everything that could be viewed as nationalistic was deemed suspect. No more rebel songs or ballads on the radio or TV; Irish speakers and GAA supporters were frequently seen in a negative light; and anyone who subscribed to a “non-revised” version of Irish history was instantly labeled as a fellow traveller of the provisional IRA.

4The final straw, and there always is a final straw, came for me when a Belfast actor I knew told me that he had auditioned for a part in an drama produced by the national broadcaster RTÉ, but had been turned down on the basis that the TV people felt that a northern accent was too threatening! I thought “enough is enough” and decided, there and then, to do something about this ridiculous situation. I felt certain that the impending seventy-fifth anniversary of the Easter Rising could provide me with a unique opportunity to challenge such feelings of guilt and self-hatred.

5As an artist, I was always fascinated by the 1916 Rising, by the fact that it involved so many poets, writers, musicians, actors, and artists and as such viewed the “Reclaim the Spirit of Easter” project as a perfectly reasonable vehicle for cultural and historical reclamation that, in my opinion, was not only necessary, but also totally within the law. Imagine my surprise when someone quite casually remarked during the course of a committee meeting that the Special Branch were outside. As a political tenderfoot, I was flabbergasted that our perfectly innocent meeting should be under police surveillance, so, seething with righteous indignation, I marched out to the unmarked car and demanded to see some identification. I got my answer from those particular public servants pretty quickly–just two words: “Fuck off”!

6On another occasion, I once more approached them, only this time to invite them to attend our meetings so that they could learn at first hand what we were planning. Sadly, once again, I received the same two-word response. However, it was when the one car surveillance was increased to a two-car team, with an obvious increase in the number of detectives involved, that I decided to go to a higher authority. I wrote to the chief superintendent of the Gardaí to say that, while the police had the right to maintain surveillance on certain groups in certain circumstances, what we were experiencing was, in my opinion, more to do with clocking up overtime than in maintaining the security of the State. This seemed to have had some effect because, even though I received no acknowledgement of my complaint, our constant companions from the Branch disappeared for a time. But, return they did and, unfortunately, caused much more serious grief.

7In the meantime, we set about our work, my first task being to design a logo for the campaign. The resultant effort featured a dove, symbolising the idealism of the Rising, emerging from the GPO. Very quickly, we decided that, even though there was little time before the arrival of Easter that year, we should organise a small commemorative rally in Dublin that might test the waters before we attempted to realise our grand ambitions for the following year. Remembering the Rising that had been called the “Poets” Rebellion’, the committee decided to ask Tomás Mac Anna from the Abbey Theatre to devise a small cultural presentation to kick start the rally outside the GPO. This drew on the writings of Pearse, Connolly, MacDonagh, and W.B. Yeats, and featured musicians from Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann and actors Donal O'Kelly, Eithne Dempsey, Séamus MacMathúna, and Breandán Ó Dúill. After the music and poetry, a series of speakers were invited to address the crowd. These included Íte Ní Chionnaith, past-president of Conradh na Gaeilge ; Sean Redmond, trade unionist; Paul Hill from the Guilford Four; Kadar Asmal, anti-apartheid activist; Neil Blaney TD and Bernadette McAliskey, civil rights activist.

8The committee also established a tribunal, which charged “that the nation had failed to cherish all its children equally”. Submissions were made by the unemployed, travellers, youth groups, environmentalists, and others. In addition, a debate, with the motion “that the concept of a United Ireland is an impediment to peace”, was held in the Mansion House. Jim Kemmy TD and Senator John A. Murphy supported the motion; Senator Éamon Ó Cuiv and Bernadette McAliskey opposed.

9To underscore our stated intention of highlighting the cultural nature of the Rising, we organised, in conjunction with the National Museum, a facsimile exhibition of Leabhar na hAiséirighe (The Book of Resurrection) in the Dublin Central Library. The Free State government had commissioned this remarkable artwork from Art O’Murnaghan to commemorate those who had fought for Irish freedom in the 1916 - 1921 period. It represents a unique manifestation of the calligrapher's art. Mike Murphy opened the exhibition and was so impressed by the work that he featured some original pieces on his arts programme on television. Art O’Murnaghan was also an actor and designer and later worked with Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards in the Gate Theatre.

10Even though the programme of commemorative events in 1990 was quite modest, the Reclaim the Spirit of Easter committee felt that the effort involved was definitely worthwhile. Important lessons were learnt, and valuable contacts were made. For example, after experiencing the outright hostility of the Special Branch, we were somewhat surprised, but obviously delighted, by the professional and courteous approach of uniformed Gardaí to our activities.

11The rally itself however clearly demonstrated that the attention span of any crowd is taxed to the limit by a plethora of speakers. Also, even though we attempted to create as broad a platform as possible, we still managed to exclude Sinn Féin, thus unintentionally engaging in the kind of self-censorship that we ourselves criticised in others. Another consequence of the 1990 activities was that the committee became convinced of the need to broaden and extend its membership; so, with this in mind a public meeting was organised for October 1990 in Liberty Hall, Dublin. About 500 people turned up on the day, and, after considerable discussion, elections were held to form a new, larger, and more representative committee. To my great surprise, at the first meeting of this new committee I was elected to the office of chairman. I was surprised because I still considered myself a novice at what some might call political activity. In fact, at the time, I harboured the perception that I was engaged in a cultural and historical undertaking. The coming months would disabuse me of such a notion.

12For a start, our “friends” from the Special Branch returned and ominously began to ratchet up their hostility to our activities. One evening, on noticing that an enthusiastic young committee member had missed a few meetings, I remarked, “has anyone seen Brian?” “Did you not hear?” replied a colleague. Apparently, the Special Branch had visited his school to inform the headmaster that the boy in question was a member of the IRA. The young lad’s parents were summoned to the school and told that their son faced expulsion. Since it was his leaving certificate year, they were left with little choice. Another committee member discovered, on turning up for work on a Monday morning, that the Special Branch had suggested to her employer that she was involved in subversive activities. Fortunately, he judged the claims to be preposterous and took no action. Others might not have been so lucky. I myself had several unpleasant experiences at the hands of these guardians of the peace.

13The most bizarre occurred one day when I was walking home along Parnell Square. Without warning, an unmarked police car mounted the footpath and barred my way. Two detectives jumped out, spread-eagled me against the railings and began to frisk me. Soon a crowd had gathered, obviously trying to catch a glimpse of the “dangerous criminal” who had been successfully apprehended. However, having discovered that I was “unarmed”, the detectives then demanded to see some identification. After I showed them my driver’s license, they jumped back in the car and drove off as rapidly as they had first appeared. As I said, bizarre, but nonetheless fairly intimidating! I should say that I officially complained about many such examples of harassment and intimidation to the Garda Complaints Board - none were upheld!

14Yet, in spite of such hostility, perhaps even because of it, the committee set about its task with increased vigour. Realising that the events of 1990 were exclusively Dublin based, the committee felt that local commemorative events about the country should be encouraged. With this in mind, members of the national committee travelled to many locations to attend meetings where local committees were established. The success of this endeavour was borne out by the final list of activities published in the seventy-fifth anniversary calendar of events. The locations for such locally organized events included Dublin, Meath, Leitrim, Tipperary, Wicklow, Derry, Mayo, Clare, Waterford, Kilkenny, Cork, Belfast, Kildare, Galway, Donegal, and, across the water, London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow.

15Another initiative to gain greater recognition for the impending anniversary was to encourage local councils to pass motions of support. We devised a sample motion and sent it to all local authorities. Over a dozen councils passed a version of this motion! At this stage, recognising that we were beginning to create a national profile for the anniversary, we decided to circulate a series of newsletters in order to propagate information about ourselves and our activities. In the first issue, we listed forty-three members of a Cairde Cuimhneacháin , which was fully supportive of our aims and objectives. These included such public figures as Ulick O'Connor, Michael D. Higgins, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Senator Éamon Ó Cuiv, Theo Dorgan, and retired Comdt. P.D. O'Donnell. We had invited all party leaders to support the initiative, but only one responded positively, the president of Sinn Féin and it was the presence of Gerry Adams’ name on the list that provided an opening to those in the media who were opposed to our efforts. Several journalists deliberately misinterpreted the facts in such a way as to suggest that Gerry Adams was a member of the organising committee and, as a consequence, implied that the whole endeavour was little more than a front for Sinn Féin. This was an early indication of the kind of media misrepresentation we could expect. Yet, in spite of such negativity, we remained convinced that the majority of Irish people shared our belief that it was only right and proper to celebrate one of the most vital events in our history. Our task, as we saw it, was to create an exciting programme of commemoration and celebration that, if successful, would inevitably enjoy the support of most Irish people.

16However, to succeed in this endeavour we recognised that some serious finance was required. Already, we were organising such staple fundraisers as raffles and pub quizzes, but these only realised limited amounts. We felt we needed a big idea. One notion from 1990 that I was determined not to repeat was the promotion of a sponsored parachute jump. Back then; we nearly killed Paul Hill, who, after so many years in prison, was game for anything! After a lot of thought, the committee finally came up with the idea of producing a limited edition print, and, since I was the only artist involved, I was volunteered for the job. The image I came up with met with some resistance initially. A few questioned my inclusion of Constance Markievicz; others wondered if ideological bias had caused me to place James Connolly centre stage–nonetheless, the image met with popular acclaim and featured not only on the front pages of newspapers and magazines but also on gable walls in the North.

17As we advanced into 1991, the pace and range of our activities picked up considerably. For example, when I discovered through contacts in An Post that the government had no intention of issuing a commemorative stamp to mark the anniversary, we engaged in extensive lobbying behind the scenes, which, thankfully, saw the government overturn its original decision.

18Unfortunately, we were not so successful with another endeavour. Believing that a commemorative float in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin could prove an excellent way of reaching the general public, we decided to request permission from the organisers, Dublin Tourism. I have to say that I was not too surprised when our initial submission, which we had commissioned from a group of art students, was rejected. In the political climate of the time, the design could have been considered provocative in that it portrayed Ireland as an ostrich with its head buried in the ground. However, undeterred, we re-contacted the organisers to suggest that we were quite willing to create a float to any specification that they might deem appropriate. Their final rejection stated that any float commemorating 1916 would be inappropriate. This embarrassed attitude stood in stark contrast to that of the organisers of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City, who included an essay titled “What Anniversaries Tell Us” by Dr. Eoin McKiernan, the founder of the Irish American Cultural Institute , in the official programme. In the essay, he bemoaned the silence of the Irish government on the seventy-fifth anniversary of Easter Week and asked the question: “Has Charlie Haughey himself acquiesced in the new revisionist philosophy that seems apologetic about Irish nationhood?” On the other hand, he noted that others had moved to fill the void, principally the Reclaim the Spirit of Easter group. He praised the planned cultural programme and called on Irish Americans to support the initiative through purchasing the limited edition print published by the campaign. Finally, he suggested that such “an undertaking, rising out of the heart of the people, convicts the government of lukewarm national aspirations–if not a betrayal of the vision of the founders of the State”. The quantity of print sales in the United States would suggest that Eoin’s appeal did not fall on deaf ears.

19Because of the nature of the teaching of history in our schools, we were aware that many young people were either ill-informed or misinformed about many aspects of our history. We felt that a nationwide schools competition on the theme of 1916 could contribute to a better understanding of this particular period. At a social function, I met Mary O’Rourke, then Minister for Education, and told her of our plans. She agreed that the competition was a good idea and said that the Department of Education might include an information flyer in its next mail out to all national schools. However, when I tried to follow up on this offer with her officials, I was met with obstruction and inaction. I was about to give up when I received a phone call from a senior civil servant in the department who said that he was very disappointed by what had happened and confessed that he didn’t know whether the failure to deliver on the offer had been caused by politicians or bureaucrats, but that he was willing to pass on addressed envelopes for all the national schools in the country as long as I didn’t say where they came from. By the way, this was an attitude that frequently cropped up in the course of the campaign. Senior members of the Defence Forces, civil servants, and even a few journalists declared their support to me in private, but confessed that they were nervous about going public for fear of damaging their career prospects. The schools’ competition was a great success. We received thousands and thousands of entries, from all over the country, in all three categories: an essay, a poem in Irish, and a poster. The judges were Ulick O’Connor, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and yours truly; and one of the few politicians to come out and support us, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Michael Donnelly, presented the prizes.

20At this stage, with Easter not so far away, public interest in the 75 th anniversary began to swell, stimulated, I would suggest, by our robust defence of 1916 and our determination to organize an adequate commemoration. However, this public influence came at a price. Our enemies were so fearful of any attempt to celebrate the Rising that they endeavoured to discredit the whole idea by daubing those involved with the blood spilt by the IRA. Senator Shane Ross stated that the Reclaim the Spirit of 1916 group was “menacing”, and that the Provisional IRA or one of its front organisations could hijack the1916 celebrations. The seventy-fifth anniversary committee, he claimed, was “heavily infiltrated by fellow-travellers”. Desmond O’Malley, a minister in the government, suggested that “Mr. Ballagh’s committee serves the interests of the Provisional IRA”. Never having been involved in anything like this before, I was shocked at the ferocity of those who attacked us, Also, the poisonous atmosphere that was being engineered created an amazing divide between most Irish journalists and journalists from outside the country. I did interviews with all sorts of people: NBC in America, Sydney Morning Radio , the Boston Globe , the Glasgow Herald , and so on. The first question the foreign journalists asked was “why is the Irish government so embarrassed to celebrate its own past?” The first question, and usually the only question, most Irish journalists asked was “Doesn’t what you’re doing give aid and succor to the IRA?”

21Now, it’s obvious that the purpose for all the mudslinging was to compromise our campaign; but the collateral damage caused was far more alarming. Indeed, it was only a matter of time before somebody decided to take action on the basis of the smears that were being put about. As Liam Fay wrote in Hot Press at the time, “somebody out there has let it be known that he would like nothing more than to kill Robert Ballagh”. Apart from such murderous threats, I was also subjected to a barrage of abusive phone calls, which resulted in the Gardaí advising me to go ex-directory. Again to quote Liam Fay, “Robert Ballagh has had to pay a very real price in terms of his career. Going ex-directory has made him virtually un-contactable by anyone wishing to commission work from him”.

22I remember wondering at the time, why are so many elements of the Irish establishment so virulently opposed to any remembrance of 1916? Certainly, the constantly repeated mantra that sought to connect the events of 1916 with the activities of the Provisional IRA seemed entirely bogus to me. According to Declan Kiberd, “what created the modern IRA was not any cultural force, but the bleak sectarian realities of life in the corrupt statelet of Northern Ireland”. During Operation Motorman in Derry in 1972, a dying IRA volunteer assured The Observer journalist Mary Holland that “Mother Ireland” or “Cathleen Ní Houlihan” meant nothing to him; he was dying simply to defend his neighbours in the street on which he had grown up. Yet, in spite of such self-evident truths, some continued to argue that historical commemoration would, to parody WB Yeats, send out certain men to shoot the English. A recent example of such nonsense was contained in an article by Mary Raftery entitled Dangers of glorifying the Rising . In it she wrote: “There can be little doubt that the smug and wholly uncritical public glorification of violent nationalism in 1966 played a significant part in the emergence of the violence in Northern Ireland three years later”. What she had in mind here was the drama series Insurrection produced by RTÉ and broadcast each night during Easter week 1966. According to her thesis, we should accept that the young volunteers who joined the IRA in the early 1970s were not driven to do so because they and their neighbours were burnt out of their homes by loyalist thugs, aided and abetted by the security forces, but, rather, because of a TV series that they couldn't possibly have seen because few Northern homes were able to receive the RTÉ signal in 1966. What rubbish! In fact, if forced to proffer a historical precedent for the armed struggle of the modern IRA, you would not look to the military tactics of the 1916 rebels, deprecated by Michael Collins, who was in the GPO, as having the “air of a Greek tragedy”, but to the more ruthless guerrilla campaign he waged in the War of Independence.

23Those of us involved in the Reclaim the Spirit of Easter campaign were convinced that those who kept bleating on about the connection they saw between the events of 1916 and the violence of the modern IRA were, in reality, erecting a diversion in order to avoid dealing with the obvious contrast that existed between the vision of the men and women of 1916 and the narrow-minded, greedy, and self-seeking attitudes of those in positions of power and influence in contemporary Ireland.

24You will find that vision laid out in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, a remarkable democratic document, rightly belonging alongside Jefferson’s Declaration of American Independence and the Declaration of the first Assembly of the French Revolution. In March 1991, the Glasgow Herald quoted me as saying that most Irish politicians “know full well that they have failed to enact the aspirations of the Proclamation, and so any public reading of it is a grave embarrassment”.

25It seemed to me that the overwhelming concentration on the “undemocratic, violent nature” of the Rising, in the fractious debate about the contemporary relevance of 1916, was a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from what we, in the Reclaim the Spirit of Easter campaign, considered truly relevant and worthy of commemoration, namely the progressive ideas that inspired the Rising.

26It was with this in mind that we prepared our programme of events for Easter week, 1991. Once again, we co-operated with the National Museum to put on an exhibition of watercolours by Constance Markievicz in the Irish Labour History Museum. Bertie Ahern, the Minister for Labour, performed the official opening. This proved singularly appropriate since Markievicz was Minister for Labour in her day. We also organised a lecture series, a debate in the Mansion House, a symposium entitled Women in Irish History, and a week of film. All of these events culminated in a day of action on Saturday, April 6, with a live concert, a massive parade, and a spectacular pageant at the GPO, followed in the evening by a Ceílí Mór in the Mansion House.

27However, at this stage, before I describe the events of April 6, I think that it is only right and proper to acknowledge the work done by others to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of 1916.

28The National Museum of Ireland mounted an exhibition entitled The Road to Independence , which covered the period 1916 to 1921, and a book of the same title written by Michael Kenny accompanied it.

29On Easter Sunday, March 31, John Stephenson, a well-known arts activist, on behalf of Poetry Ireland, organised an exciting all-day event called The Flaming Door . It began with a bus tour of the main sites of the Rising and continued with an historic gathering of Irish writers for a constant flow of poetry and prose inside the GPO. The writers included Anthony Cronin, Seamus Deane, Brendan Kennelly, Máire Mac an tSaoi, John Montague, Paula Meehan, James Plunkett, Francis Stuart, and many more. The day concluded with poetry, prose, drama and music in Kilmainham Jail. Dublin 91 , the European City of Culture organisation, sponsored the event. By the way, Dublin 91 was the only official body that supported the Reclaim the Spirit of Easter group. It provided funding for A Dublin Itinerary , a cassette tape history trail of the Dublin sites of 1916, with narration, music, poetry, and song. It was devised and produced by Tomás Mac Anna and Gerard Keenan, and featured the talents of Donnacha O’Dúlaing, Bosco Hogan, Eithne Dempsey, Joan McDermott, Cormac Breatnach, Niall Ó Callanáin, and Sean Óg Potts.

30There is one more event that must be mentioned, although the casual observer could have missed it completely, namely the ceremony organised by the government.

31Scott S. Smith, in the Irish Edition , a Philadelphia newspaper, noted that “at the last moment due to the public uproar over the attempt to ignore what amounts to Ireland’s equivalent of our Fourth of July, the Irish government hastily organised a twelve-minute military ceremony in front of the GPO”. According to Anne Simpson of the Glasgow Herald , it was “an event of simple brevity, no parade, no speeches. Instead, an occasion marked by military ceremonial, a guard of honour inspected by President Mary Robinson, and the hoisting of the national flag above the General Post Office”. The government invited some surviving veterans of the Rising, but managed to insult them by making no travel arrangements for them to attend. Some, in fact, were infirm; also, one stayed away as a protest at what he saw as the current politicians’ betrayal of 1916. At the end of the short ceremony, as the President moved to depart, I noticed some of the veterans struggle to their feet in order to shake the hand of their President, only to be disappointed by officials whisking her past to her state car.

32In the words of Declan Kiberd, the official “ceremony was spare” and differed sharply from the Reclaim the Spirit of Easter events that unfolded a week later on April 6. As Eilish O’Regan wrote in the Sunday Independent , “the guarded gestures of commemoration which marked last weeks official remembrance of Easter 1916 were ousted yesterday in favour of a rousing and unfettered celebration of the Rising” and Trish Hegarty in the Irish Times observed that “even the rain could not dampen the spirit of 1916, as thousands took to the streets on Saturday to celebrate and commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Easter Rising in a lively, colourful, dramatic, musical manner, which contrasted starkly with the State’s short and sombre event on Easter Sunday”.

33The day got off to a damp start with an open-air concert at the top of Parnell Square. This event featured many of Ireland’s leading musicians: Jimmy McCarthy, Donal Lunny, Mary Stokes, Paddy Glackin, Declan Masterson, Noel Hill, and Tony Mac Mahon, and was presented by Marian Richardson. The musicians entertained the groups and individuals from all over Ireland, from Britain, and from the US, before the parade itself set off down O’Connell Street, led by a full pipe band. As it progressed along its route, actors proclaimed extracts from the speeches of many leaders of the period at various points along the way. Jer O'Leary climbed up beside the statue of Big Jim Larkin to exhort the working classes to “rise up,” while, on O'Connell Bridge, Brendan Caldwell took on the persona of James Connolly. At the bottom of Grafton Street, Olwen Fouéré and Ailish Connolly played Constance Markievicz and Maud Gonne; and outside the Dail, Paul Bennett as Patrick Pearse read out the 1916 Proclamation.

34When the full crowd was assembled in front of the GPO, I delivered an address on behalf of the organising committee. Because of our experience in 1990, we decided on the strategy of just one speech. Steve S. Scott wrote: “committee chairman Robert Ballagh gave a fiery speech, condemning the political, business and media establishment which had tried to block the event at every turn. He said they had underestimated the patriotism of the people. Ballagh told the crowd that by their presence they had clearly demonstrated their pride in their history and culture. Calling the Proclamation a remarkably inspiring and democratic document, relevant to the problems besetting the island today, Ballagh said current leaders were afraid of it because they had betrayed its ideals”. The speech was followed by a satirical pageant written and produced by Tomás Mac Anna. According to the Irish Times , it was “the highlight of the day, giving a dramatic and humorous presentation of what the organisers saw as the concerted attempt to write 1916 out of Irish history. A mock funeral procession, led by a piper, with Éire R.I.P. inscribed on the coffin lid, marched slowly on stage. Actors symbolising the political, legal, and academic elements who wanted to bury Irish nationalism were portrayed in a biting satire that had the huge audience in stitches”. “I’m personifying all of the TDs who have diluted the Proclamation, consigning Cathleen Ni Houlihan to the grave” said an uncannily Dev-like Frank Kelly, while waiting to go on stage. Mark Lambert played a revisionist professor, who suggested that “our school history books should contain a short paragraph to show coming generations how destructive and, indeed, un-Irish the whole event was”. The final speaker was a judge, played by Kevin Reynolds, who confirmed that the Rising was completely “illegal”. But, they were all silenced as the coffin burst open and a woman symbolising Ireland emerged in a bright costume. The proceedings ended with the singing by the large crowd of Amhrán na bhFiann , which echoed the length of O'Connell Street and beyond. Later that evening, thousands packed the Round Room in the Mansion House to enjoy one of the biggest Ceílís held in Dublin for many a year.

35Media response to the day’s activities was intriguing, to say the least. As Steve S. Scott put it, the “media coverage of the event was cursory – it was too large to ignore and too embarrassing for the powers that be to give it much attention”. Irrespective of the obvious success of the day, many media outlets still persisted with the kind of misrepresentation that had become their stock in trade. As Declan Kiberd wrote of the day of action: “Thousands of families took part as did poets, musicians, face painters, and so on. RTÉ’s Six O’clock News reported the event for thirty-two seconds as its final item; and the camera focused not on the crowd of families, but on one face in the crowd, the Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams MP.”

36Perhaps, the most bizarre intervention came from the eminent historian Roy Foster, who wrote the following: “When the seventy-fifth anniversary arrived in 1991, it was treated by the Irish Government as a sensitive issue, to be approached in a deliberately restrained way–very different from the unequivocal old-Republican reaction–featuring not historians but out-of-office politicians, free lance journalists, ex-1960s activists (including quaintly, a Pop Art painter), and the members of the Short Strand Martyrs Memorial Flute band”. I suppose the most charitable response I can make to such a chronically inaccurate description is to acknowledge that Dr. Foster appears to think that what was organised for 1990 was what happened in 1991; but, even at that, every single part of his assertion is fallacious.

37Yet, in spite of all the intimidation, harassment, and misrepresentation, I’m proud to say that the Reclaim the Spirit of Easter initiative succeeded admirably in its main objective to ensure that the seventy-fifth anniversary was celebrated in an appropriate fashion.

38Furthermore, we can claim some success in stemming the tide of the more eccentric expositions by anti-national historians. However, perhaps our greatest achievement lay in underscoring the efficacy of non-violent political action, which, in my opinion, played some small part in convincing those who were involved in the physical force tradition in Irish politics to consider a viable alternative.

39The very last event that we organised was on April 24, the date of the commencement of the Rising in 1916. We felt that a wreath-laying ceremony in the Garden of Remembrance would be an appropriate gesture and consequently requested permission from the Office of Public Works. Our application was flatly rejected. However, being the rebels that we were, we simply went ahead anyway and asked seven young lads from nearby St. Mary’s Place National School to lay seven Easter lilies by the pond in the garden. That was all: no speeches, no other ceremony. Beforehand, we had issued a press release, but, sadly, only one journalist turned up, Kevin Cullen from the Boston Globe . His subsequent article expressed amazement at the absence of any official marking of the day in question, whilst also noting that, in Washington DC, Congress had observed a minute of silence in honour of those who fought for Irish independence seventy-five years before.

40In the quarter century since the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Easter Rising, the most significant achievement has unquestionably been the establishment of peace on the island of Ireland. However, it must be accepted that this achievement was extremely hard-won. The torrid atmosphere that prevailed in the 1990’s did not allow for the discussion and disputation necessary for opposing forces to reach any compromise.

41Politics of marginalisation and censorship, encouraged by Margaret Thatcher’s official line of “not talking to terrorists”, only resulted in political paralysis and a continuance of intolerable levels of death and destruction. I remember my personal frustration at being publically labeled a supporter of violence when, at the same time, I, with other concerned citizens like Michael O’Riordan, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland and Sean Redmond, a trade union activist, were meeting in private with senior republican figures to discuss the efficacy of non-violent political action. Obviously I could not cite such confidential conversations in my defence and as a result had to bear the consequence of public vilification for many years.

42Someone else who suffered greatly at the hands of the character assassins was John Hume, the leader of the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party, who courageously entered into private talks with Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Féin. Hard to believe but when news of what became known as the Hume/Adams initiative broke, this good man was subjected to such a disgraceful level of media abuse for daring to break the official consensus of not “talking to terrorists” that his health was seriously affected. Nevertheless Hume was unswerving in his dedication to peace and the Hume/Adams initiative provided the break-through that eventually lead to the development of a successful peace progress.

43Of course, in the years that followed, there were many others who made essential contributions to the fragile process, including a significant intervention by Michael D. Higgins, the relevant minister in government, who lifted the strictures of Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act.

44I remember receiving a call from Michael D during which he articulated his conviction that the removal of political censorship could only make a positive contribution to the peace process but that he was having some difficulty in convincing the majority of his cabinet colleagues. He said that he needed all the help he could get and asked if I would consider proposing an appropriate motion at the upcoming AGM of Aosdána, the self-governing trust of Ireland’s most distinguished artists.

45I mentioned that Aosdána had already passed a motion opposing Section 31 at a previous AGM but added that I would be quite willing to put down a new motion calling on Aosdána to reaffirm its opposition. When I turned up for the next AGM I harboured the not unreasonable expectation that my motion would be accepted without much difficulty; however I hadn’t taken into account the presence of several new members who carried serious political baggage. This became apparent when, immediately before it was my turn to speak, a new member and fellow painter demanded that before my motion be considered, I apologise for the murder of women and children! This calumny was swiftly followed by a suggestion from a writer that a thorough discussion on my politics take place before any votes on the motion be cast. After a pretty disagreeable argument I found myself faced with the choice of not speaking at all or, in order to be allowed to speak, of making a declaration that I opposed political violence.

46Now the required declaration did not pose a problem but the fact that no other member had ever been forced to make such a personal disclosure rankled. However since I considered the issue to be of some importance, I made the declaration and as a result was able to put the motion to the meeting. When the votes were tallied, over 80% of the members supported the motion and consequently reaffirmed their opposition to Section 32 of the Broadcasting Act. The entire experience however left me feeling that I had endured something akin to the Senate hearings on un-American activities conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy! Some time afterwards I wrote to the registrar of Aosdána expressing my disquiet at the treatment I had received, stating that unless I received an apology, it would be impossible for me to play any future role in the organisation. Since no apology was forthcoming, I have had nothing to do with Aosdána for over twenty years. Whether Aosdána’s opposition to censorship proved helpful or not, Michael D Higgins eventually succeeded in suspending the operation of Section 31 which in turn encouraged fresh dialogue and debate and unquestionably contributed to a developing peace process.

47As the years rolled by and the centenary of the Easter Rising approached I hoped that this time around things might be different, after all in 1991 official Ireland’s declared reticence in celebrating the event was based on fear of giving “aid and comfort to the Provisional IRA”. Today, however, with the guns of the IRA silent that particular argument has become incontestably redundant. This in turn begs the obvious question, why does official Ireland still remain ambiguous and uneasy about commemorating the most seminal event in modern Irish history?

48Certainly a small chorus of strident voices continue to embrace a thoroughly negative appraisal of the rebellion and embarrassingly the Irish government seemed to have adopted that particular point of view when, on an infamous November evening in 2014, it launched its commemorative programme in Dublin’s General Post Office. The centerpiece was a video presentation entitled Ireland inspires that literally airbrushed the men and women of 1916 out of history in the very location where they had made history. No images of the signatories of the Proclamation–Pearse, Plunkett, Connolly, Clarke, McDonagh, McDermott and Ceannt–were on display; the founding fathers of our nation ignored as if they had never lived, as if they had never died. Instead someone seemed to think it would be a good idea to replace them with images of Queen Elizabeth II, David Cameron, the Rev. Ian Paisley, Bono and Brian O’Driscoll.

49Public reaction was immediate and totally hostile, forcing the government to feverishly embark on a damage-limitation exercise. The offending video was immediately taken offline and new structures were swiftly put in place with instructions to devise programmes that might be more in tune with the public mood. Yet in spite of this, strange and inappropriate attitudes persisted. For example, certain influential voices continued to insist that, at this point in our history, we, the Irish people, should be “mature” and “commemorate” all who died in a “shared history”. This concept is entirely fraudulent; the African slaves brought to North America to work the cotton plantations would hardly have described their experiences at the hands of their masters as a “shared history”, why should the Irish colonial experience be viewed differently? Unfortunately, the Irish government appears determined to pursue this bogus and inappropriate course.

50What other explanation is there for its decision to hold a state ceremony at Grangegorman military cemetery in May 2016 to exclusively honour the British soldiers who died during the Rising, this at a time when most Irish people will be marking with dignity and respect the execution of the leaders of the Rising in Kilmainham Jail?

51There can be no equivalence between those who died in the struggle to create an Irish Republic and those who perished in crushing that very republic. Can you imagine the British authorities erecting a plaque at the cenotaph in London to honour those “brave” members of the Luftwaffe who died in bombing raids over London during the Second World War? Of course not! Self-confident nations do not engage in such nonsense, such national self-abasement. In honouring everyone in general we commemorate nobody in particular. Another act of equivalence is the memorial wall erected in Glasnevin cemetery and unveiled on 3rd April 2016 with the names of all those who died in 1916 inscribed in alphabetical order.

52Unbelievable! the names of Connolly, Pearse and many others who sacrificed their lives for the Irish Republic inscribed alongside those British soldiers who expired while in the act of destroying that same republic.

53In Washington DC there is an elegant memorial wall inscribed with the names of the US soldiers who died in the course of the Vietnam War. Families of the dead draw great comfort from visiting the wall and laying flowers beneath the names of their loved ones. Obviously the US authorities considered the inclusion of Vietnamese names as inappropriate, because if you walk from one end of the wall to the other you will fail to come across the name of a single Vietcong soldier. Yet once again official Ireland seems to be of the view that the Irish experience is different and therefore we should do things differently.

54In this scheme of things, the Easter Rising is presented as “just another event” in a series of events making up a “decade of commemoration”. This is a distortion of history, a deliberate and desperate attempt to distance citizens from the aims and ideals of a golden generation, the likes of which we have not seen since. Among their number were poets, writers, playwrights, teachers, musicians, journalists, trade unionists, actors, artists and ordinary working men and women–citizens–all striving to create a society of equality with no citizen left behind. The men and women of 1916 were prepared to sacrifice their lives for their country; in stark contrast to those in our time willing to sacrifice their country for their life-styles! As such it is only right and proper that we, as Irish citizens, be prepared to mark the bravery and sacrifice of that heroic generation. Furthermore, it would be a disservice to their memory if we fail to recognize and acknowledge the real motivation that lay behind their action. After all, these people were not merely rebels–they were visionaries! What they desired was not simply a government in Dublin, a green flag over Dublin Castle or a harp on the coinage. They were calling for a complete transformation of Irish society and the blueprint for that transformation was set out in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, first declaimed by Patrick Pearse outside the GPO on 24 th April 1916.

55This document was a visionary statement of ambition that rightly belongs in the pantheon of human achievement alongside other exceptional documents like the Magna Carta, the American Declaration of Independence, and The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine. The Proclamation of the Irish Republic is far more than simply a call to arms; it represents the articulation of a progressive programme for an enhanced future for all Irish men, women and children.

56Surely it’s more than reasonable to ask, almost one hundred years later, the question, “Where today stands the republic for which so many sacrificed so much?” Sadly, the vision of 1916 has never been fully realised and the Irish people north and south have been forced to bear the consequences of political, social, economic and cultural failure. The highest suicide rates in Europe, intolerable levels of homelessness, unacceptable rates of poverty and unemployment, a health care system not fit for purpose, catastrophic emigration figures and an economic collapse brought about by greed and corruption clearly point to a state that has consistently failed the majority of its citizens. Unfortunately, failure is not just a contemporary phenomenon; rather it has been tragically woven into the fabric of the state since its very foundation. In his book Ireland, a Social and Cultural History , Terence Brown asks how “a revolution fought on behalf of exhilarating ideals, ideals which had been crystallised in the heroic crucible of the Easter Rising, should have led to the establishment of an Irish state notable for a stultifying lack of social, cultural and economic ambition?”

57Undoubtedly a partial explanation can be found in the dismal economic situation inherited by the new state, yet those same conditions prevailed before independence when Ireland experienced unprecedented levels of social and cultural development! So what changed? The answer can be found in the social forces that came to dominate the new state, social forces that were determined by two disastrous events, partition and civil war. James Connolly accurately predicted that the partition of Ireland would lead to “a carnival of reaction north and south”. The emerging northern state became a sectarian time bomb simply waiting to explode, while in the twenty-six counties, the field lay open for the Catholic majority to express its will unhindered by any significant opposition. On the other hand, the outcome of a bitter civil war was not so much that the republicans lost but that the counter-revolution won! The new southern state was dominated by an emerging conservative Catholic middle class in alliance with the powerful institution of the Roman Catholic Church. As Terence Brown remarked “It was a social order largely composed of persons disinclined to contemplate any change other than the political change that independence represented”. W.B. Yeats so feared this political development that he re-employed lines from his poem September 1913 to speculate that the new state would become a “huckstering nation forever fumbling in the greasy till”.

58Essentially the conservative forces that created the Irish Free State established a system of governance that was designed to serve the interests of the few rather than the needs of the many and that inequitable system has prevailed, more or less unchanged, to this day.

59Clear evidence of this unhappy predicament is to be found in the many disgraceful episodes in our recent past that could only have occurred with the connivance or collusion of that state apparatus. The abdication of responsibility for the care of poor, vulnerable and marginalised children through their consignment to institutions run by the Catholic Church where distressing levels of mental, physical and sexual abuse took place. The complete dominance of one particular religious ethos, obsessed with the imposition of sexual continence that condemned half the Irish population, namely women, to second-class status. The outrageous levels of corruption that were exposed in the various tribunals which caused a loss of public confidence in Ireland’s political structures and the rule of law and in governance in general. And finally the recent economic collapse, caused by the greed of a private banking élite, a developer élite and a political élite that brought the state to its knees and unjustly placed on the shoulders of its citizens an unsustainable debt, a debt run up by the gambling of an unaccountable golden circle and a debt that will condemn Irish citizens, their children and their grandchildren to economic bondage in perpetuity. So it does not seem to be overstating the case that the state that was established in the aftermath of the revolutionary years has hardly proved to be an unqualified success; yet there is one achievement that must be acknowledged and that is the fact that, against all the odds, the state has survived, but at a price, a price paid in full by the majority of its citizens by the betrayal and abandonment of the dreams and aspirations of a heroic generation, the men and women of 1916.

60The centenary of the Easter Rising provides all citizens with a unique opportunity to gather in celebration of that extraordinary moment in Irish history and in so doing create a platform to reflect, consider and act upon the aims and ideals of those who in their time decided to act in the cause of freedom; after all their vision remains the yardstick by which we can measure the current state of the nation.

61For that reason Reclaim the Vision of 1916, an independent, non-party-political citizens’ initiative is organizing a major gathering in Dublin on April 24 th 2016, the actual anniversary of the rising, consisting of a parade themed on the Proclamation, which will progress through the streets of the city in a lively, colourful, dramatic and musical manner along with a pageant, staged in O’Connell Street where some of Ireland’s leading talents will celebrate, with poetry, song, dance and drama the vision of the men and women of 1916.

62Let us dare to dream!

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Robert Ballagh, « Who fears to speak of the Republic? »Études irlandaises, 41-2 | 2016, 51-68.

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Robert Ballagh, « Who fears to speak of the Republic? »Études irlandaises [En ligne], 41-2 | 2016, mis en ligne le 30 novembre 2018, consulté le 29 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/4979 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesirlandaises.4979

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