You may have read “SCHOOLS OF VIOLENCE, BROTHERS AND ARMS” as a Blog
here a couple of years ago. It originated in the Connolly Association’s IRISH DEMOCRAT
in the 1980s.
It challenged and refuted the depiction of the Irish Christian Brothers as violent Republicans. As far afield as Lahore, where Tariq Ali was taught by the Brothers
there was a pro-British bias during the British/French/Israeli aggression in Egypt
in 1956.I remember in Sutton at the time A Christian Brother being more shocked
by a Soviet warning to Britain, which I thought well deserved.
Only recently did I discover that the invention of super-nationalism in the Brothers
orginated with Conor Cruise O’Brien, who knew sweet fanny adams about them
although he travelled within inches of pupils from two CBS schools on the Hill of
Howth tram in the 1950s.
O’Brien’s piece was read and recycled by Roy Foster, who writes elegant prose
and sneers at the mere Irishry with the curled lip of a latter day Ozymandias.
From August or September 1914 the Christian Brothers produced the monthly Our
Boys, apparently the only publication for young people written and printed in Ireland
for the next fifty years. (I have not lived in Ireland since 1964).
May I digress here. My father, born in 1899 was christened Bernard. His brother born
8 years later, was christened Dermot. It was illegal before 1900 to register a Gaelic name.Thus Brian, Donal, Dermot were rendered as Bernard,Daniel and Jeremiah.In
1882, the year of James Joyce’s birth, men of that surname, who did not understand
a word of English , were condemned to death after a “trial” conducted in English, where
perjured testimony was employed. Three of the unfortunate men were hanged in 1833.
Anyhow, amongst other things, the Our Boys reported on the Great War from the start.
A fact unnoticed by the officially annointed keepers of the national decade of remembrance of the years 1914-1924.
There is not the slightest trace of Sinn Fein or Republican sentiment in the war report.
It was superbly and soberly written, eschewing the jingo propaganda of the UK in
which it was produced reporting how British and German claims could not be reconciled.
It was clear from early in the war that though the British faced the Germans on a tiny front
less than 20% of that of the French, that for tiny advances with no tactical or strategic gains British Generals were sacrificing thousands of men’s lives as if they were worth nothing. The Aubane Historical Society has republished The Christian Brothers’ History
of the Great War which should Take The Gilt Off The Gingerbread for those who romanticise war, but not absolve the Guilt of those who promote it.
From 1904 the British and French had plotted war on Germany and roped in Russia in
1907 into a Triple Alliance. They did not sleepwalk into it. That story is one of a myriad
of lies used to excuse it.
The Brothers, on the Glen Rd, were strongly Republican and promoted it in school plays and in class. Some used technical skills to help in street confrontation ahem. I think, like many others, they drew back when the reality of death and injury and long prison sentences became the lot of their pupils.
The Presentation Brothers in Enniskillen with whom I worked and admired took part in Fermanagh Civil Rights Association marches without a bother on them…!!