The Pillars hold the military in very high esteem. Killing and being killed is something noble and honourable if it is done in a state sanctioned military context – but it is condemned by those who are often referred to as right-thinking people if it is done in any other context.
Thinking about this, I was fascinated to observe the attitude of the Pillars in Ireland to the IRA and Sinn Féin during the 1916-23 period (our War of Independence and Civil War – which I will call the Old Troubles) vis-à-vis the Pillars attitude to the Provisional IRA and other paramilitary groups in the Six Counties in the North of Ireland during what I will call the New Troubles which lasted from 1968 to about 1998.
(Anyone who is young and is reading this need only read a little bit of recent history of those times, 1916 – 1923 and 1968 – 1998, in the links in the previous paragraph, or in many other sources, to understand what I am discussing here).
When the New Troubles broke out, not long after the 50th Anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, a huge effort was made by the Pillars in the Republic of Ireland to distance ourselves from the IRA (and later the Provisional IRA). This was surprising, considering that less than 50 years previously we had engaged in very similar actions to gain our (partial) freedom.
I also wondered why, when the new Troubles began, many living veterans (though – it must be said – not all) of the old IRA (or people who had lived through the 1916-1923 period) appeared to lack enthusiasm for the actions of the new IRA of the 1968-1998 period. This is quite unusual. Most veterans of older conflicts are supportive of men and women fighting on the same side in current conflicts.
The argument was made at the time of the New Troubles (and still is) that there was a democratic route through which the disaffected Catholic minority in the North of Ireland could have addressed their grievances – whereas in 1916 and subsequent years (in Ireland in general) there was not.
This is, of course untrue – there was a democratic alternative in 1916 (when Irish people who wanted to be independent of English rule could have joined the Irish Parliamentary Party) and far more in 1918 when the Sinn Féin elected representatives could have pursued their goals politically and/or through non-violent resistance – as Gandhi did in the mid-late 1940’s in India.
Another argument was that the Old IRA behaved in a noble way and the New IRA did not. Let us examine this belief.
The event that sparked the Old Troubles (the 1916 Easter Rising – where more civilians than combatants were killed) had no democratic mandate whatsoever. The promise of the Proclamation of Independence to cherish all the children of the nation equally got off to a fairly bad start as 40 children were among the casualties. And the first action in the War of Independence in 1919 was the killing of two local policemen in an ambush by the Old IRA before war was declared as such. And the Old IRA summarily executed people if they had evidence (sometimes patchy and often disputed) that they were informers. And, indeed, when the Pro-Treaty Old-IRA became the National Army (Óglaigh na hÉireann), they put down their former comrades with considerable ruthlessness (and in some cases brutality) during the Civil War in 1922-23 – and vice versa.
So
I smelt a myth!
I formed the opinion that the reasons why Official Ireland of that time (the Pillars in the 1960’s to 1990’s) vilified the New IRA (the Provisional IRA), while at the same time revered the Old IRA, were not the reasons that I pointed out above with respect to political, non-violent routes to achieve independence, or nobility.
So, I thought, perhaps the reasons were based on geography, economics or Official Ireland’s wish to distance itself from violence. I didn’t really think that the geography was important, and while sometimes the issue of how much a united Ireland would cost was raised, I didn’t think that this warranted the overwhelmingly negative attitude towards the New IRA. And the distance itself from violence didn’t hold true either – it might have, if Official Ireland was critical of the violence of the Old IRA too!
After some pondering my curiosity took me down a different route – that of class which I will also return to later.
It always mystified me why the 1916 Rising (which begat the Old Troubles), was not supported by the ordinary working class, poor and unemployed people of Dublin where virtually all the action took place. Indeed there are many reports of people in Dublin mocking the participants of the Rising as they were marched by the British Army to what was to be imprisonment or in some cases, execution. The decision by the British Army leaders (who chose to execute the leaders of the Rising) was a major factor in galvanising the nation’s anger and changing ordinary Irish people’s opinions.
The Irish Volunteers (Óglaigh na hÉireann) was a top-down organisation. From what I have read, apart from James Connolly (who was actually in the Irish Citizens Army) most of the leaders – and others of that time – who were prominent in 1916-23 had not suffered dire poverty. Most of them were middle-class, and some (Countess Markiewicz, Sir Roger Casement, The O’Rahilly, Hannah Sheehy Skeffington, Erskine Childers and Joseph Plunkett to mention but five – all high profile) were from either wealthy or privileged backgrounds or both.
Éamon de Valera was from a relatively humble background but had been educated (and at the time of the Rising taught mathematics) in an exclusive fee-paying school. Pádraig Pearse was a school principal (founder – actually). Eoin MacNeill was also a teacher, linguist, historian and scholar. Michael Collins had been employed in London (in the Post Office) and later in an accountancy firm in Dublin. And many photos show him in military uniform of a superior officer (a General) complete with cavalry twills and high boots – an almost exact replica of the British officer’s uniform of that time!
It’s very challenging for us Irishmen and Irishwomen to think that the leaders of 1916 were a kind of mirror image of the militaristic royals and nobles in Europe. They were big into blood sacrifice. Pádraig Pearse was reported by Desmond Fitzgerald (who survived the rising) to have said that he would have liked Prince Joachim of Germany to be the monarch of a new Irish State when the British had left. [1]
And while in our Civil War (that followed our War of Independence) there were some people with privileged backgrounds on the Anti-Treaty side, most notably Erskine Childers, it is interesting that the Pillars of the time, generally, were on the pro-Treaty side (as represented by Ristéard Mulcahy, Emmet Dalton, Arthur Griffith, W.T. Cosgrave, and Kevin O’Higgins). Many of those Anti-Treaty (e.g. Oscar Traynor, Liam Lynch, Austin Stack) were from more humble backgrounds. De Valera and Collins fell between the two stools to some extent.
While the ideals of leaders of the Old IRA were pure and principled, and unquestionably honourable and well meaning, their life’s experience and background was very different to that of many who emerged as leaders in the New IRA in the North of Ireland in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Many of the New IRA had been unemployed, maybe burned out of their terraced homes (if they had any homes at all), and had been directly brutalised by the forces of law and order in Northern Ireland, going straight from their experience in their teenage years into the IRA. As such, I believe that it was far more bottom up, and less intellectual than the 1916-22 IRA.
Culturally, I found this interesting. The 1916-1921 era gave us Nobel Prizewinner, W.B. Yeats’ poem, ‘A Terrible Beauty is Born’, and the New IRA offered us not-very-critically-acclaimed but far more exciting, knee-jerk-reaction type songs like Paddy McGuigan’s ‘Men Behind The Wire’, or the funny ‘Helicopter Song by Seán McGinley ‘. (And even in respect of the 1916-21 era, it is much more likely, at our commemorations, to hear a polite recitation of poetry by W.B. Yeats or Joseph Plunkett than a lustful rendition of Come Out Ye Black and Tans by Dominic Behan). [2]
The anger of the 1916-21 IRA (Óglaigh na hÉireann) was rational and reasoned, and rooted in knowledge, history, idealism and intellectualism. It was a kind of controlled anger fueled by the subjugation of Irish people, perceived heartlessness of English-based landlords, and the memories of the terrible experience of the Great Hunger just 70 years previously. It was like: ‘We are angry about Ireland’s suffering under English rule and we are responding by taking on the occupying army, the enemy, and killing them in this noble, gentlemanly, honourable fight and we are hoping that ye, the ordinary people, will be inspired by us and join us in the fight’.
This was in stark contrast to the anger of the 70’s-80’s IRA, which was irrational and visceral. It was rooted in poverty, deep disadvantage, and trauma like: ‘We have a deep rage inside us because we are desperate. We have been discriminated against, beaten up, neglected, terrorised, traumatised, excluded and burned out of our homes and we’re reacting incoherently and fighting back in the only way we know and in any way we can’. And like many communities that suffer acute disadvantage and marginalisation for generations, some were involved in criminality.
No, I believe that the principal reason why the Old IRA was revered and the New IRA was pilloried was that the Pillars felt that the New Troubles had not received their blessing.
Who were these upstarts from (mostly) poor areas in the North to tell us that Ireland wasn’t free? Who are these uneducated men and women who dare to disturb our relationships with the British Pillars with whom we have formed business, cultural, social and political friendships with over the past few decades?
Now I am not an advocate
for violence.
In fact there is an argument (I know – it’s only a what might have been) that we may now have a 32 County Republic if the men of 1916 organised non-violent resistance to conscription into the British Army during the First World War and pursued their goals peacefully rather than get seduced by the glory of the blood sacrifice – I don’t judge them for that – they didn’t have the benefit of the hindsight that I have – and they were carried along in the mood of the times, i.e. that dressing up in uniform and going to war was how every other country in Europe was going about getting its needs met so it must be a right and honourable thing to do.
My intention in writing this polemic is not at all to glorify the new IRA, (or Continuity or Real) – all of whose actions I fundamentally disagree with – but their growth was almost inevitable given the poverty, blatant discrimination and polarisation of communities combined with the leadership vacuum at that time in Belfast, London and Dublin.
But I do recognise hypocrisy, and how truth can be distorted to suit the agenda of the history-writers and history-makers. And while it is probably not the entire story – I believe that Pillars thinking was very influential in forming media, political, academic and civil/public service opinions and judgements of the new IRA.
For us, I believe that it would be a great leap forward in our acceptance of reality if we either:
Ceased to glorify the Old IRA – and instead labelled them as terrorists, people who, in the long run, and with hindsight of history, prevented us achieving a 32 County Republic;
Or
Began to regard the New IRA as freedom fighters and acknowledge that they had legitimacy, and offer them equality and parity with the Old IRA in our memorials and commemorations.
We can’t have it both ways! [3]
[1]. I read this is a piece by Gene Kerrigan in the Sunday Independent. It’s obviously not verifiable – Desmond Fitzgerald having been the sole survivor of those who were present – but from what I have read about Pádraig Pearse I wasn’t that surprised!
[2]. Once again, I am not passing judgement on the selection of art/poetry/music etc. by organisers of commemorations. I merely mention it to encourage you to consider why the Pillars favour one over the other.
[3]. Here is an article by Joe Brolly in the Sunday Independent on 8 Jan 23 that makes a similar argument that I make in the post above – is a slightly different context.
