The American Civil war ended with the surrender of the Confederates 158 years ago this month.
But there has not yet been the reconciliation desired by the generous- hearted Lincoln. Murderous
visceral hatred remains in many Southern States.
The “Treaty” or “Civil” War in Ireland ended less than 19 years before I was born. Yet my generation for the most part was completely immune to the hatreds which still divide Americans,
Republicans in Ireland did not surrender, though unable to defeat the Treatyites in the field, but
triumphed in politics through their intelligent and generous-hearted conduct.
Consider Sean Lemass, whose brother Noel, who had escaped to England after the fall of the Four
Courts, who announced publicly after the Republicans had ceased fire and placed their weapons in
secure dumps , that he was returning to Ireland and returning to his engineering job with Dublin
Corporation. Months after the cease-fire he was kidnapped in broad daylight, and months later still,
his tortured body, with part of a leg missing was found in the Dublin mountains. Elements of the Free
State Army were murdering Republicans when the war was over, and Cosgrave’s Government ensured that republicans could not find employment in Ireland.
Not once did Sean Lemass express any bitterness. Likewise, Stephen Fuller, who had been tied with
seven other Republicans to a landmine at Ballyseedy in Kerry, and the landmine detonated by his Free State captors. He was elected a Fianna Fail TD and never spoke about the atrocity until 1980, when, advised by his son, he spoke with Robert Kee, without bitterness. Think of Frank Aiken, at 25 Chief of Staff following the death of Liam Lynch, who within days gave the Dump Arms order.
In 1932 on becoming Minister of Defence he visited IRA prisoners (he had broken with them when
he co-founded Fianna Fail) and released them. Next he visited the Free State Army leadership. He
told them that there would be no settling of old-scores by the Fianna Fail Government, but that henceforth he expected them to obey Dail Eireann. (The Provisional Government that ordered the
shelling of the Four Courts in 1922 was NOT Dail Eireann, but a Junta appointed by a British official
acting for King George V.
Aiken, having worked miracles, continued the work of peacemaking, promoting decolonisation, the
discussion of China’s admission to the United Nations, and in 1968 was the first signatory, in Moscow at the invitation of the Soviet Union, of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That treaty was the product of ten years hard work by Aiken, and gave life on earth 55 years respite from nuclear war.
The Treaty appears to be a dead letter today, and may be followed into oblivion by all of us, in accordance with official Ireland’s abhorrence of all that Aiken and his party stood for.
Not once in his long life did Eamon de Valera condemn anyone for their ethnicity, colour or religion.
He condemned bad policies and bad actions. He did so in measured tones – those of a mathematics
teacher. He was not a great orator. Reason and ethics inspired his actions and utterances. He was
no Demosthenes.
But he stood taller than most national leaders and most Popes of the twentieth century.
I expect that my remarks here will be challenged. I am ready to take up challenges.
But I will not engage in a pissing match with a skunk (or skink?), to borrow Abraham Lincoln’s
expression.
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