Lessons of 1916
Yesterday my daughter came home from school. She’s doing the Leaving Cert in a few months and had been covering the 1916 Rising in her history class. “Dad”, she said, “I felt so sad in school watching a documentary on the leaders of the 1916 Rising. They knew it was a futile gesture, but they went ahead with their plans because of their commitment to the idea of a Republic. And did you know that when they were being led away afterwards by British soldiers, the people in the streets spat on them and shouted at them. They didn’t live to see that their efforts were not entirely in vain.”
My daughter’s ready engagement with the Rising of 1916, her empathy with the lost leaders of that botched revolution, got me thinking.
Once again, we are at another crossroads in the history of our country. The people are rightly angry, they are disaffected. I know this from talking to them, and from encountering those who are beyond talking. Whose stony silence and averted eyes speak volumes. People who just want the whole debacle of the last few years to go away.
But we can’t afford to give up. In five years time we celebrate the centenary of 1916. Will we do so as a failed democracy? Or as a country that, brought to the brink of disaster, found a way back? We need to re assert the principles that underpinned our founding democracy. We need to restore the belief in the virtues of a Republic where all are cherished equally and where trust, honesty and dignity are hallmarks of how we do business in government and beyond.
Sometimes, even when things seem futile, we have to keep going. We don’t really have a choice. When the history of this era is written are we to be the people spitting from the footpaths, or the people who committed to building an alternative? Let’s pledge ourselves to building a new Republic, one that my children and your children can be proud of. Hope must triumph over despair in 2011.
It’s a beautiful sentiment, but as long as political parties are fighting amongst themselves for position, and refusing to grab the bull by horns, Irish politics will always be one, where one party spits at the other. With noted exceptions of one or two people, I am at a loss to remember a true Irish statesman, a leader, and someone Ireland could be proud to vote for. Those noted exceptions in my lifetime are Micheal D , and David Norris. Regardless of peoples views on either individual, they have held themselves up as models of humanity respect and humility in a torrent of toe rags.
Delighted that your daughter has engaged with our greatest story. As she discovers more about the advanced feminist, egalitarian and progressive nature of the revolution the story will open up before her.
Please put her mind at ease about the much exaggerated spitting incident which was largely confined to the Thomas Street area in which many of the British Army garrison families lived. The revolutionary forces could not have held out without the active support of a significant proportion of the people of Dublin, and there are records of the republican prisoners being applauded as they were brought to Richmond Barracks, apart from in the garrison families’ area. ‘Agony At Easter’ by Thomas M Coffey is a very well researched narrative of the revolution in Dublin city.
Encourage your daughter. The contract with the citizen contained in the Proclamation of the Irish Republic was made to her as well. It is up to us to see that the beautiful and progressive Irish Republic - Connolly’s Workers’ Republic - is finally reawakened and put to the service of the people.
Thank you for your comment, Tom. Most insightful. I have passed it on to my daughter Maeve. Keep the faith.
Alex