A CARNIVAL OF SELF-DECEPTION

Posted by Jim on January 11, 2016

New Year’s Day brought the first official efforts of the year to revise
and sanitise the centenary of the 1916 Rising, with the rebels’ goal of
an Ireland free from British rule getting airbrushed from the official
narrative.

The Easter rebellion of a hundred years ago led to the independence of
the 26 County state, a state which remains accused of turning its back
on the Six Counties of Ireland still under British control. So the
first major official events in Dublin to mark the Rising’s centenary
were always going to be tight-lipped affairs with no reminder of the
state’s failures.

Dignatories incliding President Michael D Higgins, Taoiseach Enda Kenny
and Tanaiste Joan Burton attended the opening ceremony, at which the
three flags which were flown on O’Connell Street during the rebellion
were raised over the castle. The names of all 78 volunteers who died,
including the 16 executed men, were read out.

Kenny told the crowd that the focus of the event was about how Irish
people should “reimagine our Republic” in terms of new international
relations and modernity.

Omitted from the picture was the unfinished business of 1916. Kenny
even suggested the Proclamation of the Republic by the rebels on April
24, 1916 was not an actual declaration of independence, merely “the
moment we have chosen to commemorate”.

Events deteriorated further that evening with a ‘Peace Proms’ event, a
political spectacle which sought to put a positive spin on the
partition of Ireland.

The event at the Convention Centre in Dublin featured traditional Irish
music mixed with the drums and pipes of loyalist marching bands, an
improbable blend of Irish and Scottish highland dancing, a ‘cross
border orchestra’, and, inevitably, U2. Most controversially, it ended
not with the Irish national anthem, but a cringe-inducing rendition of
the rugby theme, Ireland’s Call.

The darker side of the government’s intentions for the centenary was
also made apparent early in the New Year with the announcement that
over a hundred new riot police have been trained, specifically to
suppress any public protests during the main Easter Rising events later
this year.

But after a national and international outcry, the coalition has
officially backed down from a plan to involve members of the British
Royal family to the Easter Rising commemorative events, replacing it
with a campaign of “inclusivity”.

Minister for Culture Heather Humphreys, who is heading up the state’s
commemoration plans, said that she believed the anniversary of the
Battle of the Somme in July, where many Irish soldiers died in World
War One, was as important as the Easter Rising. “It is important to
remember that 2016 will mean different things to different people,” she
said.

Sinn Fein is organising its own events independent of the government’s
official programme. The party is behind an exhibition about the Easter
Rising in a former cinema north of O’Connell Street, and held a party
rally on Thursday to mark the centenary year.

Other independent events have also been organised by a number of
republican organisations, including commemorations in Dublin and
Coalisland, County Tyrone.

In the US, the battle for the legacy of the Rising has also been
intensifying, and the coalition government has been encouraging Irish
Americans to reinvent their Irish identity.

Speaking in New York, the 26 County Minister for Foreign Affairs
Charlie Flanagan said he was aware the Rising and the subsequent War of
Independence were financed by Irish-Americans in the early part of the
last century.

But he suggested Irish-Americans should not concern themselves with
British rule in the north of Ireland, and instead reflect on the
“positive, ever-growing relationship” with Britain.

Launching a programme of commemorations, he expressed satisfaction that
there was no sign of sections of Irish America “seeking to lay claim”
to the legacy of the Rising. He indicated that the struggle for Irish
freedom was at an end, praising instead what he said was the “journey
of one hundred years for a lasting, just and peaceful settlement”.

Back at home, the state’s centrepiece television drama ‘Rebellion’ was
broadcast to a sizable audience, but, tellingly, the drama was
sanitised of rebel sentiment and blocked from being viewed online north
of the border.

In Belfast, unionists were largely dismissive of efforts by the Dublin
government and Sinn Fein to involve them in “respectful and inclusive”
commemorations on the Rising and the Somme.

DUP leader and First Minister in waiting Arlene Foster vowed she would
not be associated with anything to do with marking the centenary of the
Rising, which she described as a “violent attack on the United
Kingdom”.

CENTENARY ‘AN INCONVENIENCE’

At his party’s rally on Thursday in the Mansion House, Sinn Fein leader
Gerry Adams spoke of the need to reclaim the spirit and vision of 1916.

“2016 is a time to celebrate our identity, to commemorate our past and
to deliver on the promise of the Proclamation,” he said. “It is a time
for big ideas. It is a time to stand up and be counted.”

But he noted the Irish revolutionary period was followed by a
counter-revolution and civil war.

“The reality is that when partition was imposed by London there were
activists who rejected it. There were others who reluctantly accepted
it as temporary and hoped that the new southern state would act as a
stepping stone to full national freedom.

“But there were also those who saw it as an end in itself. And there
are many in the establishment today who share that view. They, like the
Taoiseach, believe that our sovereign nation stops at the border. They
just don’t get 1916. It is an inconvenient issue that they want to get
out of the way.”

He argued that one of the big achievements of recent Irish history was
that “there is now a peaceful way to end partition”, but the Irish
establishment had no strategy to achieve this.

“Why would they? They want to maintain the status quo,” he said. “Of
course Ireland and the world is a different place today from when the
leaders of the Rising assembled on Easter Monday. But Irish republican
values and objectives – the core values of the Proclamation – remain as
relevant as ever.

“The Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916 was ‘committed to pursue the
happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts,
cherishing all the children of the nation equally.’

“At its core is a belief that all people are sovereign and equal. That
historic document is a clear statement of intent for an all-Ireland
Republic built on the foundations of civil and religious liberty,
social justice and equality for all citizens.

“It remains the mission statement of modern Irish republicanism.”