1916 (67 page)

Three distinct committees assisted in the preparations for the events of Easter weekend. The first was an all-party Oireachtas committee whose task, in the words of O’Dea, was ‘to offer advice on the appropriate scope and content of a 1916 centenary commemoration committee’.
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At its first, and only, meeting prior to the parade, the committee agreed on several points, notably that the ‘starry plough’ (the flag associated with the labour movement in general and the Irish Citizen Army in particular) be displayed alongside the tricolour; that a brochure containing the names of all those killed during Easter Week be produced; and that a minute’s silence be respected for these fatalities. The principal logistical burden, however, fell on the shoulders of administrators in various state agencies. A higher-level committee, chaired by the assistant secretary to the government and charged with the formulation of policy for the parade, involved representatives of assistant secretary level from several government departments (including Foreign Affairs, Defence and Social, Community and Family Affairs, as well as from the Department of the Taoiseach itself), and other agencies (notably the Office of Public Works and the Garda Síochána). The implementation of policy was the responsibility of a larger, more diverse working group, chaired by the head of protocol in the Department of the Taoiseach, with representatives of all the agencies on the higher-level committee along with the defence forces, RTÉ, the Health and Safety Executive, the organising committee of the St Patrick’s day parade, Dublin City Council and others as the need arose. The committee met fortnightly in the months leading up to the parade.
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The final programme encompassed three principal elements, all of which took place on Easter Sunday, 16 April: an early morning wreath-laying ceremony in Kilmainham gaol (the site of the executions in 1916 and, since its renovation in 1966, a most impressive heritage centre); the military parade itself (from Dublin Castle to Parnell Square), which began
at 11.45am and continued until the early afternoon;
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and, in the evening, a state reception in Dublin Castle, hosted by President McAleese, for the large number of invited guests and others involved in the organisation of the event. Finally, lunch on the day was provided for all invited guests in the Gresham hotel following the conclusion of the parade and before the state reception commenced.

The logistics involved were impressive, all the more so given that the ‘Love Ulster’ disturbances had unavoidably led to a re-assessment of the threat of disruption to the day’s events, and a consequent tightening up of security arrangements. As things transpired no untoward incidents occurred on the day and there was unanimous agreement among the 900-plus invited guests, upwards of 100,000 spectators, and numerous media commentators, that the affair had been dignified and moving, and that the civil servants involved had done a first class job.
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There were a small number of aspects of the build-up to the day that gave rise to public comment. The first was the issue of invitations to the event to members of the unionist community in Northern Ireland. Not surprisingly most turned down the offer, some more politely than others.
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The second point of note was the acceptance by the British ambassador to Ireland of an invitation from the government to attend the parade. His decision was welcomed by some unionists (David Adams saw it as ‘an important and welcome gesture’ and proof of the normalisation of relations between Ireland and Britain) and criticised by others (with Jeffrey Donaldson labelling it ‘bizarre’.)

The aftermath of the event was also noteworthy. One of the more interesting responses – or rather lack thereof – came from within the state’s large, and recently settled, Polish community. Notwithstanding that nation’s own troubled relations with powerful neighbours and its long struggle for independence, there seems to have been limited engagement with the commemorative activities.
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The event did, however, receive some coverage in the
Polish Express
,
the most popular magazine within the state’s Polish community, a colourful photographic element combining with a commentary that, not surprisingly, expressed sympathy with the insurgents.
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From a historian’s perspective, the most significant legacy of the commemoration may be the further opening up of archival material from the period. Even prior to the parade this had been a matter of discussion in the Dáil, with Catherine Murphy TD prominent in the campaign to ensure improved facilities for those researching the revolutionary era.
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In the
aftermath of the Easter weekend the Taoiseach promised to expedite the digitisation of Old IRA pension records, and to respond to a request by Pat Rabbitte, leader of the Labour party, that a comprehensive list of all those who died (civilians and combatants on both sides) during the campaign for independence be compiled.
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The interest shown by the members of the centenary commemoration committee in the issue of archival holdings holds out much promise for future researchers.

It is now time to consider some of the more explicitly party-political aspects of the commemoration debate. One of the more stimulating speeches made during the period was given on Sunday 9 April by Taoiseach Ahern, on the occasion of the opening of an official exhibition on the Rising at the National Museum, Collins Barracks, Dublin. During the course of his address he referred to the ‘four cornerstones of independent Ireland in the twentieth century’, that is, the 1916 Proclamation, the 1937 constitution, the ratification of the Treaty of Rome in 1972, and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Not surprisingly, given that the final three events took place during periods when Fianna Fáil were in office, this interpretation of recent history brought to a head complaints from the opposition that the contributions of their parties to the state’s development were being ignored.
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Enda Kenny, leader of Fine Gael, was in the vanguard of such criticism, noting his party’s links to the first post-independence government, the state’s entry into the United Nations, and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
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It should be noted that in a subsequent article in Cork’s
Evening Echo
the Taoiseach qualified his statement, stating that ‘no party has a monopoly on Ireland’s past’ and paying tribute to the efforts of members of other political traditions throughout the years, ‘who shared the same ultimate objective of full national freedom’ as Fianna Fáil’s founding generation.
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Other members of government were also active during the period, with Willie O’Dea especially prominent. It was he, not surprisingly, who was foremost in emphasising the role of the defence forces in the commemoration process
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and, as the overall co-ordinator of that process, it was he who gained most plaudits for the dignified manner in which the event was conducted.
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For her part, the Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, part-funded the
Irish Times
supplement on the Rising, announced a Rising-themed scholarship scheme for schools, and arranged for the sending to schools of educational materials relating to the Rising (the emphasis of which was on a ‘sensitive’ approach to other traditions and ‘a broad and inclusive context’.)
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Perhaps the most wide-ranging of
these contributions was made by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin (one of the few participants in the debate with a postgraduate qualification in history) in a speech in University College Cork (UCC) some weeks after the parade had taken place. During the course of his address he spoke of, amongst other things, the unique atmosphere that had attended the parade, the deleterious role of revisionist historiography in alienating the public from the study and writing of history, and the ‘generous response’ of the Irish people to the government’s insistence that the commemoration of the battle of the Somme be fittingly marked (for more on which, see below).
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Given their smaller size and the nature of their ministerial portfolios the Progressive Democrats, Fianna Fáil’s partners in government, inevitably played a less active role in the commemoration process. Not surprisingly the party member who was most active in this respect was the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell, the grandson of Eoin MacNeill.
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Fine Gael, for its part, was also engaged at a variety of levels in the commemorative process, albeit that, inevitably and in common with other opposition parties, it had but a marginal role to play in the official state functions.
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As was to be expected, Enda Kenny used the opportunity to re-affirm the party’s roots in the Rising – but, interestingly, he also sought to stake Fine Gael’s claim to the mantle of the constitutional nationalist tradition. In a speech in his native Mayo on Friday 7 April he spoke of Fine Gael’s view of the Rising ‘as the defining moment in the life of modern Ireland’ and listed some of its founding members who were ‘out’ in 1916.
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He also, however, paid tribute to the Irish party of Parnell and Redmond for the part it had played ‘in establishing and shaping our parliamentary democracy’. He lamented ‘the unfair way history has forgotten or sidelined their massive and lasting achievements’, not least that of John Dillon, whose son, James, was, of course, a former leader of Fine Gael. The following week, in an interview with the
Evening Echo
,
he re-iterated his view of the Rising as ‘a defining moment in the life of modern Ireland’, ‘a national, not a partisan or sectarian event … which belonged to all the Irish people’.
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As a consequence of the prominence of James Connolly in the buildup to, and the events of, the Rising, the Labour party, and with it the trades union movement, was enthusiastic in its engagement with the commemoration process. The central plank of this programme was the ‘Liberty project’, a collaborative venture between Labour and the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), which sought ‘to accomplish some solid initiatives and projects that would add to our contemporary understanding of 1916 as well as commemorate that catalytic event in our modern history’.
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The project incorporated numerous activities, including readings, discussion forums, lectures, and joint ventures with the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in Northern Ireland.
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One of the more striking elements of the Labour movement’s commemorative programme was the call by Liz McManus for the state ceremonies to afford parity of recognition to the losses incurred by British forces, and civilians during the Rising, rather than focus exclusively on the republican side.
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The suggestion was criticised by Senator Martin Mansergh, the historian and prominent Fianna Fáil policy advisor (who was one of the more active participants in the general commemoration debate), but in the event the centenary committee, on which Deputy McManus was the Labour party’s representative, decided that a minute’s silence to mark all those who died during Easter Week should indeed be held, to little or no protest.
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The most active contributor to the Labour movement’s commemorative programme was Manus O’Riordan, head of research for SIPTU, who delivered a series of lectures on the topic of Labour and the Rising in various parts of the country, as well as being responsible, either individually or in conjunction with others, for the appearance during the year of several informative publications on Connolly’s life and achievements.
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In a similar fashion to Labour’s emphasis upon the relevance of the Rising to contemporary political and social policy, the Green party used the commemoration as an opportunity to take stock of the nation’s progress over the intervening period. Elements of this critique included criticism of government across a range of matters – including its perceived willingness to forsake aspects of state sovereignty,
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its neglect of the Irish language,
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and its failure to promote equal opportunities
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– as well as opposition to the military focus of the parade and the absence of an ecumenical aspect to the annual Arbour Hill religious service.
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Provisional Sinn Féin’s role in, and attitude towards, the commemoration process received a great deal of attention. Not surprisingly, the party organised a range of events to mark the occasion, including talks, recitations, walking tours, films, plays and musical concerts.
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A more animated aspect, however, related to the public discussion about the relationship between 1916 and the armed campaign of the Provisional IRA from the early 1970s to the mid 1990s. There were two clear camps. On the one
side were those who argued that the latter was a logical continuation of the former, and that there was, in the words of the unionist peer Lord Laird, ‘no valid distinction’ between killings in the two periods.
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The same idea was expressed somewhat differently by the journalist Mary Raftery, when she suggested that parallels between the two eras were simply too obvious to ignore: ‘Both groups were unelected minorities whose lack of democratic mandate did not inhibit their claim to act on behalf of the Irish people.’
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Similar sentiments were expressed by Robin Bury in the
Irish Examiner
,
13 February, where he suggested that 1916 ‘inspired and provided justification for the vile sectarian campaign in Northern Ireland in which 3,500 people died’; and, most interestingly, by a grandson of Cathal Brugha, who stated that he did not ‘see any real difference between the IRA then and now. They murdered police officers, Protestants, Catholics then, and have been doing exactly that in recent decades too.’
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