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There probably has not been an Easter
week quite like this one in modern Irish history. I have always liked Easter
and although I have less connection now with the institution of the Catholic
Church, Good Friday always is a special day for me. It is the one afternoon
that I try to slip into a church to reflect on the life of Jesus and his
execution by crucifixion all those years ago. This Good Friday the churches are
closed. In fairness a church is not necessary for reflection. Any quiet place
will do. But it will be strange nonetheless.
For those of us who commemorate the
1916 Easter Rising this will be a strange year also. There were Easters when
repression and imprisonment, north and south, resulted in only a handful of
activists coming together at gravesides and republican memorials to lay a
wreath, read the Proclamation and list the names of our Patriot Dead. These
were the Easters when successive Irish and Unionist governments banned such
remembrances and used brutal tactics to enforce that ban. During the more
recent years of conflict some Easter commemorations and republican memorials
and graves were also bombed and damaged.
This Easter we face a different kind
of adversary. A silent, deadly enemy - the Coronavirus. So the traditional
Easter Commemorations have been cancelled.
But that doesn’t mean that
republicans will not commemorate our patriot dead. On the contrary this year
commemorations will be more personal, more intimate as we as individuals and as
families participate in our own little commemorative events or join in the
online programme devised by Sinn Féin and others during this unprecedented
health emergency. This includes a programme of social media events and posts,
videos - some historical, speeches, including the keynote Easter address by
Party President Mary Lou McDonald TD, music, encouraging children to
produce art work reflecting on Easter, poetry, the flying of our national flag
and the wearing of the Easter Lily.
Many of us have favourite rebel songs
and poems of struggle about the many different periods of rebellion in Ireland
from 1798, through Robert Emmet, the Young Irelanders, the Fenians, to Easter
1916 and the Tan and Civil Wars, to the more recent decades of conflict. So as
more and more people put video messages on social media why not consider
posting your favourite rebel song? Or sing it yourself? But only if you’ve the
voice for it. That leaves you out RG. Brón orm chara.
Or pick a poem by Pearse or Connolly
or Bobby Sands or the last words of republican heroes. If you are a relative or
friend or admirer of one of our patriot dead consider putting up a photo and
telling their story.
The book ‘Last Words’ by Piaras F.
MacLochlainn is a personal favourite. It contains the letters and statements of
the leaders who were executed after the 1916 Rising. The poems of Pearse and
the defiant statement by James Connolly to his Court Martial are often quoted
but I have always had a special grá for Tom Clarke. He spent 15 years in English
prisons in the 1880s and 90s and endured long years of solitary confinement
during which he was treated appallingly. In 1916 he was the first signatory of
the seven who signed the Proclamation. In the early hours of 3 May his wife Kathleen, who was a prisoner
in Dublin Castle, was brought to visit him in his cell under military escort.
With a candle held by a British soldier for light and just hours before his
execution Thomas Clarke gave Kathleen a message for the Irish people. It was
brief but poignant.
“I and my fellow-signatories believe
we have struck the first successful blow for freedom. The next blow, which we
have no doubt Ireland will strike, will win through. In this belief we die
happy.”
The story of the love of Joseph
Plunkett and Grace Gifford is well known. ‘Last Words’ contains a letter from
Plunkett to Grace on 2 May in
which he writes:
“Listen – if I live it might be
possible to get the Church to marry us by proxy – there is such a thing but it
is very difficult I am told. Father Sherwin might be able to do it. You know
how I love you. That is all I have time to say. I know you love me and so I am
very happy.”
At 8pm on the evening of 3 May Grace
was brought to the prison chapel. Joseph entered accompanied by a party of
soldiers with fixed bayonets. The soldiers remained while Fr. Eugene McCarthy
read the marriage service by the light of a candle. After the ceremony they had
to separate. A few hours later in the early hours of 4 May Grace was brought
back to the prison and met her husband in his cell. They had ten minutes. Plunkett was executed on the morning
of 4 May along with Edward Daly, Willie Pearse, and Michael
O’Hanrahan.
Oh Grace just hold me in your arms
and let this moment linger
They'll take me out at dawn and I
will die
With all my love I place this wedding
ring upon your finger
There won't be time to share our love
for we must say goodbye
A century ago this November Kevin
Barry was executed in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. The song, which commemorates
this young 18 year old, is a firm favourite with many. It has never lost its
ability to stir the heart and remind us of the courage of this young man and
his comrades. It has been recorded and sung countless times over the years,
including by Paul Robeson and Leonard Cohen. Robeson’s version can be found
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSjO9rIwn5M
In an earlier generation the essays
and poems of Thomas Davis reminded people of the 1798 Rising and of the awful impact
of British colonialism on Ireland. RG has an edition of a book – Essays and
Poems: Thomas Davis - published by the Gresham Publishing Company sometime
around the 1890s. Davis died at the age of 31 from Scarlett Fever in 1845 the
first year of An Gorta Mór. One of his enduring works is “A Nation Once Again”.
“And then I prayed I yet might see
Our fetters rent in twain,
And Ireland, long a province be
A Nation Once Again.”
Davis also wrote “The West’s Asleep”
which in more recent years has been made famous by the Dubliners https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXCT3LwL2Go and the Clancy Brothers and others as “The West’s
Awake.
So, this week and next use social
media to post a personal reflection of the events in Dublin and elsewhere in
1916 and of all those periods of struggle in Ireland’s long history of
resistance and our demand for freedom. It can be something from youtube or it
can be you and those in your home or you and your friends singing, reciting,
reading about Ireland’s patriot dead.
These are some of my personal words
and poems and lyrics. Enjoy:
Have a great
Easter. Wear An Easter Lily. Sinn Fein will be putting up a link to a site
where you can download a Lily.
It is also
my intention to start posting a regular podcast based on the blogs.The first went up yesterday. Its available on all platforms.
Remember
those we commemorate and the Proclamation of the Republic in 1916, are all
about the future. That’s what we struggle for. It’s what we look forward to.
The New Republic.
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