Even after living here for almost 10 months, the 1916 Easter Rising hadn't really touched me emotionally. I think in this age of terrorism, when there is so much violence associated with protest and nationalism, I had put the Rising into a small part of my brain. It failed, it (in my mind) gave rise to the horrors of The Troubles, I just didn't empathize with it.
That changed when I walked through the Museum's exhibit on Freedom and Peace. The Museum has created it as a literal pathway. To quote from the Museum's webpage "Visitors to the museum can now take a ‘walk through time’ and choose a route which will ultimately lead to World War One or to the GPO. They can explore the shared theme of loss and its impact. This is physically achieved through both experiences ending in the dedicated reflective space of the museums ‘Peace Garden’." The GPO is the General Post Office in Dublin where the rebels made their stand against the English army between April 24-29, 1916. The Museum has created a facade of the GPO in their park:
It looks quite "real". The path that leads to it is marked with railings with small cards on them explaining the long history of Ireland politically--the Normans, Cromwell, the fight for a republic with the 1798 Rebellion, the skirmishes that continued, the fight for Irish Home Rule. Home Rule had actually been passed by the British Parliament in 1914 but implementation was postponed because of World War 1. And that was actually why many Irishmen fought for England in World War 1 even though many thought it was an imperial war on behalf of a country that had ignored their requests for their own liberty. Even republicans, however, argued that if Ireland backed the British Government in World War 1, then when England won, they would agree to an Irish republic.
It was not to be. The ins and outs of the war for Irish independence are way too complex for me to put in my blog. A major problem was, as in many revolutionary groups, there were moderates and radicals. The moderates wanted to fight the battle for independence in Westminster, the radicals wanted to fight it guerrilla style on Irish soil. It didn't help further after the 1916 Rising that the British government tried to enact conscription in 1918, for a war where the toll (see my previous blog) was already so high.
But back to 1916. As I walked through the exhibit inside the facade, I was struck by how divided most Irish were over the revolutionaries' tactics and by their taking over various buildings. During the actual Rising, most Dubliners were annoyed by the revolutionaries. As I read the signs, I was reminded of the FLQ Crisis which I lived through in 1969. I was a college student in Montreal and was actually glad when the Canadian Army took over the streets of downtown. Order was restored and order was so much "safer." I didn't identify with the FLQ cause. Trudeau's response--to enact the War Measures Act--was over the top for many intellectuals though and I believe it sowed the seeds for what we eventually saw. The legitimization of the Parti Quebecois and the eventual backlash against the Anglos in Quebec. But that's another story....
The British government executed, by firing squad, all of the leaders of the Rising who had surrendered. They arrested thousands of nationalists. They even executed some who had never fired a shot, like the pacifist Francis Skeffington. It was as I read this poem that a little flame lit inside of me:
Skeffington had represented the moderates. By shooting him and imprisoning other moderates, the British government turned public opinion toward the republican cause. I guess there still is some of the young pacifist liberal inside of me, the one who listened to and discussed so deeply in university the rights of the poor, the injustice of foreign governments supporting corrupt governments. Was the British government horrible to the Irish? Absolutely. All I have to think of is one word--the Famine. A 19th century Irish poet, William Allingham, described the abuse in his poem "The Workhouse":
But there is peace in Ireland now--well, in most places. There are still a few incidents of IRA and Orange thuggery in various places in the North, but the 1998 Good Friday Accord has held. The thuggery has more to do with bullying and pettiness than any kind of freedom fighting. But peace reigns, we walk Irish streets with a freedom not felt in so many places nowadays. And may it ever be so--it is time to beat the swords into plowshares:
"And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isaiah 2:4)
After looking at this exhibit, much as my heart goes out to Ireland, much as I am sure that some of my ancestors were either victims of, or rebels against, imperialism, I know that we have to be peacemakers, we have to learn from the past, not repeat it. That was probably one of the greatest things I took away from the Cavan Museum.
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| Photos: World War 1 grave on left, place where 1916 rebels were executed by firing squad on right. |
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