Easter 1916

							                             Easter Week 1916
 Easter is the principal feast day of the Christian religion, and, like the Jewish feast of
Passover – which immediately preceded the first Easter, it is rooted in an actual
event. Like Passover, it represents a passage from darkness to light, from death to
life. The Crucifixion of our Lord and his subsequent Resurrection are events both of
physical and of spiritual significance. Just as the Old Testament foretold the coming
of the Messiah, so there was, for centuries, a messianic tradition in Irish literature,
looking forward to the re-birth of the Irish nation in a bright new day of
Freedom. Perhaps the best example of this is found in the prophetic play, “The
Singer”, by Pádraic Pearse, in which the sacrifice of but fifteen men redeems the
nation. Analogous to the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, even more so than the Christ-
like sacrifice of Robert Emmet, the 1916 Easter Rising provided the blood sacrifice,
which resulted in the resurrection of the national consciousness of Gaelic Ireland and
set the country on the road to freedom. Just as the work of Christ on earth remains
unfinished, so too does the bright dream of the men and women of 1916 remain
unfulfilled. England’s first overseas colony remains her last, both in fact and, sadly,
among too many, in spirit as well.
On Easter Monday, 1916 - like those who stood and fought in defense of American
Liberty on Lexington Green and at Concord Bridge on the 19th of April in 1775 - brave
Irish men and women took up arms to rid Ireland of its cruel invader, England. In so
doing they set in motion events, which would inspire the unraveling of England’s vast
empire, on which the sun never set throughout the nineteenth century and into the
twentieth. The Irish War for Independence which followed gave hope and
courage to other victims around the world to also rise up; it set in motion a ground
swell of armed resistance and/or of civil disobedience in countries around the world
including Asia, India, Africa, the Middle East, South America and the Caribbean. The
beginning of the end of that particular evil empire had its commencement on that
fateful Easter Monday morning in 1916.
Those who went out on that Easter Monday in 1916, the Irish Volunteers, the Irish
Citizen Army, the Irish National Foresters, the Hibernian Rifles and the ladies of
Cumann na mBan, without regard to their own personal safety, went into the gap of
danger, made the sacrifice, set the example.
For the poet William Butler Yeats, Easter 1916 transformed Ireland from a place
where “motley was worn,” ... “all changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born.”
Just as the way to properly respect the sacrifice on Calvary is not merely to read
about the historical Jesus, but to live a Christian life, as both preached and
exemplified by Christ, himself, in order that we might be saved; so too is the proper
way to honor those who rose up during Easter week 1916 to relive their example, each
according to his or her unique talents and abilities (with the example of the
Constitutional Liberties of the United States), in order that we might be found
faithful to the Fenian Faith which motivated them.
The supporters of the connection with England have worked well in secret, and in the
open. In classic imperial form they seek to divide and rule, cultivating differences in
fear of Theobald Wolfe Tone’s aim of replacing divisive labels with the separate,
common title of Irishman. Bribes, offices and so-called honors are part of their stock
in trade. Yet, just as in every generation there have been those foolish enough to
accept these counterfeit compromises, so too is there a continuity of Irish
resistance to alien domination stretching back to the resistance to the Vikings,
which, under Brian Boru, finally broke their power in Ireland at Clontarf, and which
has always regarded English pretension to sovereignty over any part of Ireland as
fundamentally illegitimate, as the “fruit of the poison tree.”
As Pearse said regarding those who collaborate with English rule, theirs may be... a
safer gospel, but it is not the Gospel of Tone. At the grave of Jeremiah O’Donovan
Rossa in 1915, Pearse also insisted that we must stand together “in brotherly union
for the achievement of the freedom of Ireland. And we know only one definition
of freedom: it is Tone’s definition, it is Mitchel’s definition, it is Rossa’s definition.
Let no man blaspheme the cause that the dead generations of Ireland
served by giving it any other name and definition than their name and
their definition.”
Like O’Donovan Rossa, Pearse and those who rose up with him in 1916, held it a
Christian thing, “to hate evil, to hate untruth, to hate oppression and hating them to
strive to overthrow them.”
When Sinn Féin, as separatist, abstentionist Republican party contested the
general election of 14th December 1918, promising to NOT represent their
constituents or their country in the mighty Westminster Parliament in London, but
rather to set up, without foreign let or hindrance, a republican assembly which would
form an Irish government for Ireland. Sinn Féin won over 79% of the popular vote
in all Ireland, and 73 of 105 seats, in what can only be described as a plebiscite for
independence. The delegates who assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin
formed the First Dáil Éireann and, issued the Irish Declaration of Independence
on 21st January 1919 (legally the equivalent of the American Declaration of
Independence by the Second Continental Congress, promulgated on the 4th of July
1776). Brian O’Higgins, himself among the elected Teachta Dála Éireann, points
out, in his Wolfe Tone Annual, that Easter Monday, 1916 is regarded as the
significant date as a consequence of the pre-existing Army Council of the Irish
Republican Army – Óglaigh na hÉireann (the IRA), the army of the government
of Ireland virtually established, insisting upon the First Dáil Éireann recognizing and
swearing allegiance to the Irish Republic proclaimed in arms in 1916, as a
condition for the IRA coming under the authority of the government formed by the
First Dáil Éireann.
The task confronting Ireland’s exiled children in America is to continue to keep faith
with the aspirations of the men and women of 1916, and to accurately represent these
aspirations to a candid world. It is a formidable task fraught with challenges and
obstacles but with God’s help we shall prevail. Cumann na Saoirse Náisiúnta
approaches this task independently, as Americans, and with no foreign principal, but
loyal to the principles of Liberty, which motivated the Easter Rising in 1916. We are
confident in the knowledge that what we represent is what the martyrs of 1916, and
the martyrs who came before and after, fought and died for. Like Douglas Hyde,
Nollaig Ó Gadhra and Mary Holt Moore, we find the example for Ireland’s cultural
future in the Gaelic League. Like Joe Clark, Daithí Ó Conaill and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh,
we find the example for Ireland’s economic and political future in Ireland’s Gaelic
past, including the application of the principle of subsidiarity – recognizing the
uniqueness of four historic Provinces, while rejecting the gerrymander imposed by
Westminster in the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. We recognize the Éire Nua
Plan as providing the best hope of restoring the ancient prosperity of Ireland, while
cherishing all children of the nation equally, in a truly free and reunited all-Ireland
federal Republic, free from outside interference, and free from the inside corruption
and profiteering which are the results of the connection with England.
Just as Holy Week should be a week of prayer and of holy reflection for all Christians
resulting in a renewal of our Baptismal vows, so too should Easter Week be a period
of reflection on the promise of the bright dream of Easter Week 1916, and of
rededication to advancing the Cause of Irish Freedom.
In conclusion let us reflect once more on the following excerpt from the Proclamation
of 1916:
“We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the
Most High God Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray
that no one who serves that cause will dishonor it by cowardice,
inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its
valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice
themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august
destiny to which it is called.”


                                  Mac Dara, do scrí