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.”
Posted by Jim on January 9, 2016
One Ireland One Vote Historical Background
If you asked the people of Ireland what plan they would accept, by an emphatic majority, they would say ‘We want independence and an Irish Republic.’ There is absolutely no doubt about that. The elected representatives of Ireland, now by a clear majority, have declared in favor of independence.
British Prime Minister Lloyd George, March 1920.
On January 21, 1919 Dail Eireann, the National Parliament of Ireland, had approved the Declaration of Irish Independence. The Dail had been established after the General Election of December 1918, the first held under the post World War expanded franchise, gave supporters of Irish Independence an overwhelming victory at the polls. The British Government responded to this exercise in Irish democracy and self determination by “banning” the democratic government of the Irish Republic. This was followed by the unleashing of British state violence against the Irish people. The Black and Tans and the Auxillaries wrecked havoc, destroying lives and property, Irish elected officials were jailed or murdered, citizens were threatened, Marshal Law was declared, censorship was imposed and the basic civil liberties were curtailed by a British Government without legal or moral authority to rule Ireland. The British also responded to the exercise by the Irish people of national self determination by passing the Government of Ireland Act in Parliament in December 1920. This Act passed without any votes of Irish members, nationalist or unionists.
The British of course, had no compunction about using force and violence as a way of imposing its will on the Irish people. As historian, Donnacha O Beachain, summarized what occurred:. “[o]n 23 December 1920 an international boundary was constructed in Ireland by the arbitrary movement of the British imperial pen. “To satisfy the demands of a small regional majority, and to preserve British hegemony, a new state was established , obstensibly to protect a 20 per cent minority while simultaneously creating a new minority that made up 34 per cent of the population. In not one of the six counties was the unionist majority greater than the nationalist majority in Ireland as a whole.” As historian Professor Joseph Lee has pointed out , Unionist saw no incongruity in denying nationalist the right to govern “Unionist Ulster” on the basis of a 3:1 nationalist majority in Ireland as a whole, while simultaneously insisting on a Unionist right to rule Ulster based on a much smaller unionist majority in four out of the nine counties of Ulster. When the County Council of Fermanagh, one of the counties in Northern Ireland with a nationalist majority, tried to opt out of British rule by affiliating with Dublin rather than Belfast, the British responded by dissolving the Council. The “principle of consent” so often spoken of now, did not apply to the nationalist counties within Northern Ireland.
If the partition of Ireland can not be explained under any understood democratic principles, what can explain it? Revisionist historians posit the “two nations” theory of Irish history. Principled Republicans, of course, have historically rejected this two nations theory or any other attempt to divide the Irish people on ethnic or religious grounds. Many of the leading lights of Irish Republicanism, Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmett, Thomas Davis, Bulmer Hobson, et al. were in fact Protestants and non sectarianism has always been a guiding principle of the movement. In any event the “two nations” theory fails to explain why the spectre of partition only came about once the possibility of Irish self government came into view. Partition, moreover, did not prevent unionist/nationalist conflict, it exacerbated it by putting a political minority, Unionist, in control of nationalist population, a population for whom the British and Unionist ruling class had shown only antipathy. The two nations theory can not explain why nationalist in the six counties had to live under British backed unionist rule. For that you have to look at the underlying attitudes of the British and Unionist towards the Irish. :
“Can a people still in the nursery, mentally and morally be allowed to govern itself, either in much or in little? “
The Irish Times March 20, 1920
It was this attitude, that the Irish were intrinsically inferior and could not govern themselves, let alone British indentified unionist, that made it seem “natural” that Irish self rule would not be allowed to extend to the six counties. Certainly it hasn’t been based on any track record of non sectarianism or good government on the part of Unionist governments over the decades. On the contrary, the worst fears of those who opposed partition from the beginning were fully realized. As Joseph Lee has written, the British do bear a responsibility for imposing a border justifiable only on the basis of racial supremacy and a “solution” that contained within it the seeds of fresh struggle. For some time the British have been quite effective in pushing a discussion of the undemocratic foundations of Northern Ireland out of mainstream discourse. This history, however, must be brought to the forefront because the legacy of that history remains.
Contrary to popular understanding, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement did not address the fundamental problems related to British involvement in Ireland. British control over full Irish self-determination remains in place. Any proposed ‘Border Poll’ as contemplated by the Agreement would be confined to the Six Counties that Britain divided from the rest of Ireland, thereby excluding the majority of Ireland’s people from a vote on Ireland’s future. Britain, moreover, would control the timing of any Border Pole as well as its wording. The British, therefore, have a “Triple –Lock” in place to prevent Irish national self determination.
As a consequence, we remain with a situation where a political minority backed by a powerful foreign power, has control over Ireland’s destiny. Nationalists throughout the Six Counties, therefore, must pay taxes to support the very British Military, Police , and Intelligence forces that are working against their interests. Irish citizens in the Six Counties remain subject to harsh and repressive “security” laws and practices, young nationalists are constantly subjected to searches and harassment from the British security forces.
The One Ireland, One Vote campaign is premised on the idea that the current status quo does not have to remain. One Ireland One Vote looks for a democratic, non sectarian Ireland based on the principles of the United Irishman, with guarantees, as the Proclamation of 1916 declared, of equal rights and liberties for all its men and women, regardless of background. We must also remind the Irish people that they, not the British government and its allies, get the last word on the future of the Irish nation. One Ireland, One Vote is a practical way to make sure this finally happens.
Posted by Jim on
By Niamh Horan (for the Independent)
You’d have to wonder what the executed leaders of the Rising would make
of it all.
Thomas J Clarke, Sean Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, Padraig Pearse,
Eamonn Ceannt, James Connolly and Joseph Plunkett.
Men willing to die for their country; for liberty, sovereignty and
economic freedom.
They wrote the Proclamation swiftly, under life-threatening conditions
in Liberty Hall on the night before the Rising.
“We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of
Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be
sovereign and indefeasible,” they proclaimed, before taking up arms.
Mac Diarmada was in poor health. His hip was bad. He walked in pain and
with the aid of a stick, travelling the country, as the Irish Republican
Brotherhood’s principal organiser.
On the day of the Rising, Clarke went into the GPO to fight alongside
his comrades, even though he was almost 60 and suffering from a bullet
wound to his elbow.
Across the city, on Mount Street Bridge, where a handful held off the
Crown forces, a 28-year-old carpenter turned lieutenant, Michael Malone,
sent his youthful troops home in order to save their lives.
The lack of weaponry juxtaposed with the sheer bravery displayed on the
day has oft been commended by historians.
Fast forward 100 years and Ireland has “changed utterly”, as W B Yeats
predicted.
But in ways they could never envisage.
Our risk from foreign adversaries has changed from the very real threat
of the enemy at the gates to intimidations of a different kind in the
financial sector.
Today’s leaders never had to take up arms to protect their people. And
yet the stark language of warfare has been conjured up at every turn.
Unlike the rebels who fanned out across the city on Easter Monday in
April 1916 facing artillery from all sides, today’s governments have
only had to deal with the metaphorical “loaded gun” while Trichet and
the ECB threatened financial Armageddon to let a “bomb go off” in the
Irish economy unless Finance Minster Michael Noonan met their demands.
And yet the sheer lack of courage to go toe-to-toe against these foreign
threats would leave you wondering where Kenny and his comrades would
cower if they found themselves in a plume of smoke 100 years ago as the
British closed in.
Over the past two governments, leaders have kowtowed again and again to
foreign interests.
The bank guarantee, a willingness to honour bondholders debts and the
submissiveness shown when the US government blocked an attempt by the
previous Irish government to burn [euro]20bn worth of bondholders has been
staggering.
The last person to oversee the country in such a crisis was Charlie
Haughey. For all his flaws, it is hard to imagine him ever allowing the
Irish taxpayer to be screwed by Europe like that. He may have been
crooked but he was smart. And he would never have rolled over like a
pair of schoolteachers.
Our politicians skinned the country for the interest of global financial
institutions, saddling the nation with [euro]9,000 debt for every man, woman
and child.
And when there was “blood on the streets”, as Steve Schwarzman, chief
executive of Blackstone said when offering his views on buying up
Europe’s distressed assets to an audience at Goldman Sachs in New York
in 2010, they let foreign vultures swoop in.
Afterwards, Schwarzman’s company bought [euro]2bn of Irish loans and
property, including the Burlington hotel, a 25pc stake in Eircom,
offices and a [euro]1.8bn par value of loans linked to developer Michael
O’Flynn, bought from Nama at a discount for around [euro]1.1bn.
The state agency – which was given unprecedented powers in a bid to get
credit going – sold loans secured by prized assets to foreigners, like
Claridges and Battersea Power Station, while the Irish could only stand
and watch.
What a turnaround when our forefathers had always fought to protect our
land from foreign interests and keep the welfare of the Irish people at
it’s heart.
But hey, this year the Government has been busy handing out free flags
and copies of the Proclamation and the nation is expected to get in the
spirit.
No doubt Kenny will give a tall speech too at Dublin’s GPO this Easter,
waxing lyrical about the true meaning of patriotism. The same man who
sat in front of the Irish flag to deliver his State of the Nation
address four years ago upon taking up office.
He told the country: “I want to be the Taoiseach who retrieves Ireland’s
economic sovereignty” and even evoked the spirit of the “founding
fathers of our nation”.
So you’d have to wonder what they would make of our leaders 100 years
on.
My guess is, come Easter, you can forget resurrections, the only
movement up on Arbour Hill will be some real patriots turning in their
graves.
Posted by Jim on January 7, 2016
The last great victory of a native Irish Army
The Scots landed an army at Carrickfergus in 1642 following the Irish rebellion of 1641. Their objectives were to protect the Scottish settlers, conquer the country, and destroy Catholicism in Ireland and impose Presbyterianism as the state religion and in doing so protect Scotland from a Catholic Irish invasion. After landing, they linked up with an army of settlers around Derry commanded by Robert Stewart(the Lagan army). They were also in contact with English garrisons at Lisnagarvey(Lisburn), Belfast and Newry.
Owen Roe O’Neill, son of Cormac Mac Barron O’Neill and nephew of the great Hugh, had an illustrious military career in the service of Spain in the Spanish Netherlands.
Following his superb defence of Arras whilst besieged by the full military might of France he had become one of the best known and admired professional soldiers in Europe. He landed at Doe castle in Donegal in 1642 and became General of the Irish Confederate Army of Ulster based at Charlemont fort on the border of Armagh and Tyrone and at Castle Oughter in County Cavan, the stronghold of his kinsmen the O’Reillys. The Scots and English had control of the area up to Charlemont, and the Irish prevented them from pushing south. Both sides constantly raided into the other’s territory in search of food and conducted a vicious scorched earth policy. O’Neill commented that Ulster looked “not only like a desert, but like hell.” A sort of status quo existed with one side or the other gaining very temporary marginal advantage until 1646.
In 1645, O’Neill at last obtained funding and a large consignment of weapons through the Vatican Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Giovanni Battista Rinuccini. This enabled Owen Roe to properly train,arm,and pay his men as professional soldiers and prepare for a full pitched battle which he had previously tried to avoid.
In the summer of 1646, the Scots commander Major General Robert Monroe, like O’Neill an experienced veteran of the continental wars under Gustavus Adolfus of Sweden decided to penetrate southwards with a force of some 6000 men well supplied and armed, including six pieces of light artillery. He had arranged to rendezvous with the Stewart’s Lagan army at Clones, the place of a previous victory over O’Neill and his army of Ulster. He had also arranged to meet his permanent Cavalry Commander, George Monroe with a settler army from Coleraine at Glaslough on the Tyrone/ Monaghan border. Monroe was supremely confident but he wanted to keep the Irish army in front of him. At the time of his departure they were in Co Cavan. He feared leaving his own bases unprotected and at the mercy of O’Neill whilst he conducted a campaign in the South. When he obtained intelligence that the Irish had mobilised and were advancing towards Charlemont, which had been previously impregnable, he began a series of forced marches to try and head off O’Neill before he crossed the Blackwater river. This strategy which failed, as O’Neill had camped at Benburb on the Tyrone side of the river at least a day before Monroe expected and he was then behind Monroe with Charlemont at his back. Furthermore, the period of forced marches had disrupted the planed rendezvous times and Monroe’s main army was now well ahead of the other supporting forces. The other critical factor was that Monroe’s men were fatigued from the forced marches which they were not prepared for. Monroe was surprised that the Irish army were standing their ground for a fight, as he had expected them to run and so he decided to delay his advance Southwards, to cross the Blackwater river and deal with the Irish immediately before he moved South.
Owen Roe had picked and prepared his battle site well. He was also a master of innovative military strategy and had set up on a hill with the impenetrable Blackwater to his right. Monroe fired on the Irish positions until he ran out of ammunition, doing little damage due to the topography of the ground. He then sent in the previously invincible Scottish cavalry but not under their regular commander, George Monroe, but under his adopted son-in-law Lord Ards, a young inexperienced hot head. They failed to break the now well trained musket and pike formation of the Irish and were hampered by well chosen unsuitable ground. On their retreat, because of the necessarily restricted area of the chosen battle site, they ran through their infantry causing confusion and chaos. With the arrival of the Irish cavalry the artillery was overrun and captured. The Irish then advanced and with “push of pike” and musket volleys turned the covenanters’ army with their backs to the river and proceeded to slaughter them. Monroe and his protective troop of cavalry fled followed by the English officers. The combined British force lost between 2000 and 3000 men killed or captured many drowned and many in the pursuit. They also lost a huge amount of stores and weapons including artillery. The Irish casualties were low, approximately 300. This was the first time that the Irish had won a major head-to-head battle against the British in the field and it was celebrated throughout Catholic Europe. The Scottish Covenanter army were no longer a threat but due to the political decisions made in Kilkenny, Owen Roe did not follow up his victory but was ordered to move South by Rinuccini and the Confederation and the greatest victory of the war was subsequently wasted.
Posted by Jim on January 5, 2016
by Sean Bresnahan, PRO 1916 Societies
Following the conclusion of yet another pseudo negotiation at Stormont,
its purpose as ever to prop up British rule in the North, it is clear
the status quo in Ireland is incapable of securing forward political
progress. New thinking is required. Partition has failed both the
long-suffering people of the Six Counties and their compatriots to the
South, who likewise endure a reactionary policy spectrum imposed by
external actors. The private deal concocted by the Sinn Fein-DUP
coalition, overseen by London and Dublin, will do nothing to change
that.
As is already the case in the 26-Counties, ordinary men and women in the
North are faced with tightening austerity measures, the lynchpin of the
agreement brokered. The rich are to profit at the expense of working
people, with the slashing of corporation tax to be funded by massive
cuts to welfare, impacting on thousands of already struggling families.
The British government, backed by Dublin, Sinn Fein and the DUP, has
successfully stamped its long-running austerity agenda all over the
deal.
On top of that, once again Britain refuses to admit its ‘Dirty War’,
with ‘national security’ the instrument to avoid full disclosure. That
some agreed to move forward on this basis – effectively losing out on
both sides of the negotiation – is a clear demonstration of who holds
sway in Ireland. It should likewise be noted the Sinn Fein project of
drawing power away from Westminster, supposedly towards regional
decision-making processes, stands in ruin, the handing back of key
powers to London exposing the same as facade.
All of this makes clear the deal in question has been framed to uphold
partitionist government, fulfilling the needs of the British state and
its occupation system, with the people barely an afterthought. Ireland
can achieve so much more and needs a new beginning. As such, the 1916
Societies, through our flagship One Ireland One Vote initiative, seek a
credible alternative to endless negotiation and agreements which ignore
the people.
We call instead for a truly democratic engagement, for an inclusive,
all-Ireland referendum on Irish Unity, where the people determine their
own future, without external impediment. The failed British-run process
must go, to be replaced with a project the people control themselves.