“We Irishmen are morally entitled to carry arms in defiance of the so-called ‘police’ who are no police at all but a mere branch of the British military forces and to resist ‘police’ who endanger our lives in the exercise of that right.
Undoubtedly the bearing of arms being the occasion of shooting on sight by those in command of the so- called police will also be the occasion of the so-called police being shot at on sight.
For my part I have not the slightest doubt that I am entitled to bear arms in defence of Ireland against the British forces and that I am also entitled to resist being disarmed to the same degree as I may resist attempts to destroy my house, my life, or the lives of my family.
I am not bound to put up my hands by any subordinate of the British Government. I have the clearest evidence therefore that my life and the rights I am entitled to defend unto death are always threatened by the so-called police.”
Eoin MacNeill to the Catholic Archbishop of Tuam 22 July 1920
(with thanks to Manus O’Riordan, whose letter quoting MacNeill was published in THE IRISH TIMES on 26 February 2020)
A month after the guns fell silent on the so-called Western Front, celebrated as a glorious victory for Allies who professed their dedication to the principle of National Self-Determination, Irish voters, unarmed, in the privacy and silence of their polling booths proved their adherence to that principle on a scale unprecedented by any other nation and never repeated by any other nation in the century since.
An Irish Nationalist party had pleaded for Home Rule and held most of the Irish seats in the British Parliament for forty years.One quarter of Irish seats there was held by Unionists who supported the continuation of British rule in Ireland. At the dissolution of Parliament in 1918 the Unionists held 26 Irish seats and after the Election they still held 26 seats. Before the Dissolution Nationalists held 73 seats and Sinn Fein, which had won 6 By-Elections, absented themselves from Westminster whether they had that choice or not, but more often not, being held in British jails.
After Self-Determination in the Election “regarded on all sides as a Plebiscite” according to THE TIMES, the Nationalists held 6 seats and Sinn Fein, pledged to create a Sovereign Independent Republic with its Parliament in Dublin, won 73 seats.
Professor MacNeill was elected MP for the City of Londonderry (known by pro-Democracy partisans as Teachta Dala for Derry) and was appointed Minister for Education.
He still held that portfolio when he wrote to the Archbishop. Earlier in 1920 in Municipal, County Council and other local elections, voters overwhelmingly confirmed their commitment to the Republic by electing Sinn Fein and Irish Labour Party candidates, including in Derry City.
THE PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG IS TO CLEAR UP THE CONFUSION CAUSED BY MACNEILL’S SUCCESSORS DURING THE PAST FIFTY YEARS AND PARTICULARLY IN THE SO-CALLED DECADE OF COMMEMORATIONS. SO I HOPE YOU’LL FORGIVE MY PEDANTRY?
Eoin MacNeill served in Cumann na nGaedheal Governments after 1923, forerunners of Fine Gael. Fine Gael Ministers and Ex Senator Maurice Manning, Fianna Fail’s Micheal Martin, clearly believe that in 1920 Eoin MacNeill was an advocate of murder. The Archbishop he addressed did not contradict him at the time. Perhaps Ruth Dudley Edwards, Eoghan Harris and Fintan O’Toole would have you believe that MacNeill threatened His Grace with a sharper implement than a Moral Compass?
The Acting Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan, TD (of Fine Gael, which clings to office following the most dramatic rejection by the electorate since that of John Dillon and his Party in 1918) has a Foreword in “Century 1920 War of Independence” an IRISH TIMES Supplement dated 3 June 2020. The Supplement, the 14th in a series supported by her Department a.k.a. paid for by citizens’ taxes. The series, like the Curate’s Egg in the celebrated PUNCH cartoon, might be found to be good in spots, by West Britons in a Victorian time warp.
Ms Madigan says -“The Government’s responsibility is to ensure that these events (of 1920) are remembered with an appropriate, meaningful, measured and sensitive programme, which recognises the legitimacy of all traditions and values and values equal respect and historical authenticity.”
By those criteria Professor Mac Neill’s contribution to education would be given equal honour to that given the British Army (not Tans) who dynamited Cork’s Carnegie Library (50% funded by that City’s Corporation) and the City Hall Itself. The Irish people whose lives and homes farms shops and institutions suffered relentless attack and pillage at the hands of Lloyd George’s agents are to be given equal respect with that of their oppressors?
But the victims of injustice are NOT EVEN given equality with their oppressors. The Irish Times absolves District Inspector Swanzy of the murder of Lord Mayor MacCurtain although a Coroner’s Inquest after a thorough inquiry brought in a verdict against him and the chain of command up to Lloyd George.
We are told, by Ronan McGreevy,that “the victorious allies (of the Great War) were not ready for this (Irish) unilateral declaration of nationhood.” SELF-DETERMINATION, by any rational definition is UNILATERAL. And the Allies professed themselves champions of the self-determination of nations. The electoral victory of Sinn Fein less than five weeks after the Armistice was the first and probably still the most striking victory for the Allies’ Professed principles. Nobody in 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917 had ever heard of Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia, and few born since 1990 could tell you about them. They never made unilateral declarations of nationhood. They were fictions conjured up by the victorious allies of the Great War. And no plebiscites or elections were held in Palestine either. So what sort of Bunkum is McGreevy peddling?
The police murder of GEORGE FLOYD has resulted in millions of people to challenge the honour given to slave traders and their supporters and rapacious tyrants and Rhodes, Robert Peel, W.H.Gladstone and Winston, Churchill are amongst those whose haloes and careers are coming under scrutiny.
The British historian A.J.P. Taylor, considered a bit of a Leftie, declared in the mid 1960s that Lloyd Gorge had settled the “Irish Problem.” I don’t know whether A.J.P. , or his father, knew Lloyd George.
But I think that the spotlight might turn on the old scoundrel. If his statue is thrown in a river, and those in Ireland who honour his cut-throat agents are dumped in the dustbin of history they will have been treated too leniently by half.
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