The 1916 Rising was legitimate. Whether it was well planned and executed
are fair questions but the right of the Irish people to evict the invaders since
1169 has never been in question. Nor could it be. What is very much in question
is the wisdom of the IRB in cancelling the cancellation of the Rising. In
addition, their knowledge of the importance of the economic dimension to
independence (keeping the nine counties of Ulster in an independent state) was
poor because, like today’s politicians in most countries, the leading
Nationalists of the day were ignorant of economics. They were also partitionist
although they did not admit that to themselves (any more than this state does
today). So there are many grounds for criticizing the Rising but not the right
of the participants to rise.
It was only with the Good Friday referenda of 1998 that the right of the
Irish people to remove the Normans/English/Scottish/British from Ireland was
brought to an end. The Second Dail consisted of TDs elected in 1921 to the House
of Commons of Southern Ireland (as a result of the Government of
Ireland Act of 1920) plus five TDs elected to the House of Commons of Northern
Ireland – Collins, Dev, Griffith, Sean Milroy and Sean O’Mahony, four of whom
(all but O’Mahony) were elected to both “parliaments”. It was decided that
Collins, Dev, Griffith and Milroy would have one vote each on the Treaty. Had
the vote on the Treaty taken place on the basis of the 1918 election and had it
been carried (unlikely), the right of the
people of Ireland to evict the British forcibly would have ended with the Treaty
debate. However, as a partition parliament it did not have that right.
Although there was no law here in 1916 there was power, the power of the
British state to impose their laws on this country. There was a
considerable degree of de facto acceptance of British law, particularly
after Catholic Emancipation (Ireland was effectively lawless for centuries before 1829 and that includes before 1169, something that has contribute heavily to the semi-anarchic nature
of this state today), which led to the emergence of a Catholic middle class,
many of whom were happy with British rule (today’s FG essentially) but who would
also have been happy with the joke Home Rule on offer later, not least because
(as with the Scottish and Welsh home rule Parliaments today) it would have meant
jobs for the boys (FF all the way). It is clear, however, from the Repeal
Movement and the Monster meetings under Daniel O’Connell and later the Home Rule
movement under Parnell and Redmond that the bulk of the country wanted repeal of
the union. How to repeal the union was a question of tactics where the perennial
question came into play: politics or violence. Politics had a good run of it
after 1800 and only ran out of steam during WW1 (a fairly violent affair itself).
It was the Famine, which is never really discussed here, that set
Nationalist Ireland on the road to 1916. There was a grim determination on the
part of the survivors that the British had to be removed from Ireland. The
physical survival of the people was at stake. As stated above, there was a serious
failure to address the best way to do this while bringing the Scots in the north
east of the country along – the most valid criticism that can be levied at the
Nationalist movement from the Act of Union to 1921 - but that, as also stated above, was because most Nationalist leaders were ignorant of economics and in
twenty two or twenty three of the twenty six counties wanted partition. The
partitionist nature of both parts of Ireland can’t be stressed too often. If it
is to be overcome, as it must for all our sakes, North and South, it must be
openly acknowledged. The leaders of the Irish Free State
didn’t realize in 1922 that independence without the north east was a recipe for
failure. Their successors today still don’t realize it. The same is true of Northern Ireland. David McWilliams
column ("A nation once again", SBP, 15 May 2016) is a blackboard piece (looks good
on a blackboard, which doesn’t argue back) and is of limited value (not least
because Whittaker Economics is going to run out of steam here) but accurate
insofar as it is clear that N.Ireland has no future without the rest of Ireland,
Brexit today or Brexit in ten years time or Brexit never.
We made the task of state building even more difficult by refusing to take
steps to seriously curb emigration. That decision was taken for class reasons:
those who had jobs had better pay than if emigration had been lower and emigration
was a safety valve that allowed a rotten political system to survive (until
it nearly destroyed the state in 2008). Emigration also deprived the state of
the energy and drive that is essential for state building. We tried (as we
always do) to find a short cut through Whittaker Economics. Using FDI as a basis
for our prosperity is bringing us up a cul de sac. At 61, I hope to make it out of this world before we reach the wall in that particular
cul de sac but I wouldn't bet on it.
If the legitimacy of the 1916 Rising is rejected, as it has been by some, rejecting the
legitimacy of the uprising in the Six Counties from 1968-1998 would be consistent with that. The corollary is also true,
however. If, as the powers-that-be have been saying ad nauseam for the
past six weeks or so, the 1916 Rising was legitimate then the
uprising in the North from 1968-1998 was also legitimate.
There
are those who, on principle, reject the concept of revolution against
“lawful” authority (i.e. whoever is carrying the biggest stick at any given
time). They tend, not surprisingly, to be privileged people. I don’t embrace
lightly or casually the right of people to engage in violence but the notion
that people never have the right to rebel against authority would mean,
for example, that Hitler’s regime could not be indicted for the Holocaust. The
Nazi Party was the legitimate government of Germany and the lawful authority
(using a Burkean analysis) throughout those parts of Europe between 1940-44
where the Holocaust occurred. You would have difficulty sustaining Burke’s
argument after the Holocaust and very few people would try. The reason the
argument is deployed in an Irish context is to justify the betrayal of
this State’s sovereignty since 1972. It is more about the EU than 1916.
The link between the betrayal of sovereignty after 1972 and the rejection of the
legitimacy of the Rising is that FG and FF (or Fianna Gael as
they now finally are since the formation of the new Government) represent a
class of people, who, since the 1970s, have become tired of independence and
genuinely wish to surrender it. (Having worked in the public service for thirty
five years believe me I can see their point and I know many people who share
their view.) Fianna Gael, Labour, the media, most of the chattering
classes, etc., etc. know they can’t surrender the State to the UK (their
preferred choice) so they have settled for the second best option:
Germany.
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