HISTORY IRELAND by Donal Kennedy

A splendid article on Sir Francis Vane. I knew enough about Vane to write “FORGOTTEN HERO OF 1916 RISING?” a short BLOG posted 26 January. But the article has much more about the man, and all of it to his credit.

There’s a piece on the Irish Indentured Servants in the Caribbean which corrects the claim that their legal status was the same as that of black slaves. Harsh as the lot of the Indentured Servants was they were not  indentured for life,  not could they be murdered with impunity. Whereas if a slaveowner murdered another owner’s slave he would not be charged with murder,but only with denying the slaveowner his property. It’s important to recognise such distinctions. We don’t need to be grateful to those who deported Irish people and had them working unpaid. It was appalling. But black slaves could expect  themselves and their descendants to be slaves for ever and could be whipped, branded and abused at their masters’ whim.

There’s an article explaining why the Protestant Reformation never took hold on those living in Ireland in Tudor times, based on recent research, which overturns university teaching during the last 40 years which maintained that there was a quiescent phase during the early part of Elizabeth’s reign when people conformed quietly to Elizabeth’s Reformation.

There are other good articles which I haven’t got round to reading, but, also –

There’s a major Review of a book by one Owen McGee on Arthur Griffith. The reviewer, Patrick Maume, describes it as   “a fascinating and exasperating book” , and then lists enough  instances where McGee demonstrates such ignorance of modern Irish and World history as would make him a laughing stock in all but academic circles.

There’s an article by Allison Martin “Easter Rising Commemorations In The Early Irish State” , which might more properly be described as “By the Early Irish State.” Some years ago I stumbled on Pathe Newsreel on the internet. I found Free State Minister For Defence Desmond Fitzgerald at an Arbour Hill Commemoration in 1929, but I find that in July 1929 the GPO restoration was completed, the Tricolour was raised and the Free State Army paraded past it. I had found St Patrick’s Day Army parades past a saluting base at the Bank of Ireland, and at least one Republican counter-demonstration.

But the first Easter Parade I found on Pathe was 2,500 men of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade, marching past the GPO in 1932. Fianna Fail had just won its first of six successive General Elections, lifted the ban on the IRA and released the prisoners.

The next Pathe newsreel I found was for 1935. It featured accounts of Easter Parades for that year and was fascinating.  For there were two parades past the GPO where Eamon De Valera took the salute.

The first was of 1916 veterans, marching with banners declaring which insurgent garrisons they manned in Easter Week. A party on the GPO’s parapet fired a feu de joie with their Old Howth Guns. Immediately after that parade came the Free State or National Army, whose senior officers were mostly 1916 veterans and other former “rebels” who had,  a mere 12 years earlier, held De Valera prisoner. I marvel at the finesse of De Valera, Aiken, and Fianna Fail in their handling of the Army and the State, and the forces to their right and their left who might have plunged the country into another Civil War.

Ms Martin says that despite the fact that the leaders of the Rising were dedicated to social change De Valera was careful to avoid any mention of social issues during the commemoration which also involved the unveiling by Dev of the Cuchulainn statue. She notes that only the third paragraph of the 1916 Proclamation, focussed on the national struggle, is on its plinth. And she

 quotes one James Moran  who has suggested that the government used the anniversary of the Rising in order to deflect attention from the shortcomings of the party’s domestic policies: “By this time Fianna Fail had been in power for three years, but despite the party’s  electoral promises the Irish people faced many hardships.”   Pardon me, first for my italics, and then when I blow  my nose. Three years in power during the Great Depression and the Irish people faced many hardships!

During Fianna Fail’s first years in power there was an unprecedented public housing programme which moved poor people out of fetid slums and into decent homes. There was an unprecedented establishment of new industries. Aer Lingus was founded and Foynes, on the Shannon, became the European hub of Transatlantic aviation. Bord na Mona was founded. Sean Lemas

was shown in a Dublin Opinion cartoon opening a factory for making scissors for cutting ribbons for opening  New Factories.

The workers in those factories, and all other employees in the state, had guaranteed paid holidays, following legislation introduced by Fianna Fail.

In 1936 in England, unemployed workers marched from Yarrow to London. In 1937 in England, The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell was published. In 1939 in the United States, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, was published.

I wonder what sort of cultural desert and begrudging, ignorant milieu Ms Martin and J.Martin were raised in. History Ireland should be thanked for alerting us to their attitudes.