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The confusion of the Irish working class in the face of the war of national liberation today is as great as was the bewilderment of the citizens of Dublin following the Rising in 1916. The people of Dublin were hostil to the Easter Week insurgents. They poured into streets which had been flattened by British artillery guns to mock and deride the Republican forces as they were led off to face execution squads and internment camps. Up to 1916, tens of thousands of Irishmen had enlisted in the British Army and had gone to die in Europe fighting for the rights of small nations. Home Rule was waiting in limbo for the end of the war. Easter Week had changed all that.
The issue now was nationhood. As the British relentlessly shot those who had fought for that ideal, the Irish people at least understood what the British meant by self-determinatino. Small nations were to be free to serve, to be exploited, to take second place. The call to arms in Easter Week re-kindled an ancient aspiration. Irishman again proclaimed with their lives that Ireland unfree would never be at peace. The confusion in our own times has been deliberately sown. Puppets of British Imperialism go to great lengths to disguise the nature of the struggle. This historical distortion emanated originally from Conor Cruise O'Brien but now permeates the unions, our schools and the media. According to these apologists Padraig Pearse was a crank, and James Connolly was misled. Pseudo-psychology has been used to explain the Rising by claiming personal inadequacies in its leaders. By extension the theory labels those involved in the war of national liberation as psychopaths and the men in H-Block as meglomaniacs. These lies seek to hide the ultimate truth. The Irish struggle against English domination has been waged in every generation for 800 years. The goal of that struggle is freedom, and the right of a free people to decide its own destiny. Only complete victory can conclude that struggle. There will always be men and women who value freedom more than life itself. We honour the memory of 1916. We salute the patriots of this generation who have served the same cause nobly. |
