In
Honor Of The 100th Anniversary Of The Irish Easter Uprising, 1916-Sean Flynn’s
Fight-Take One
A
word on the Easter Uprising
In the old Irish working-class
neighborhoods where I grew up the aborted Easter Uprising of 1916 was spoken of
in mythical hushed reverent tones as the key symbol of the modern Irish
liberation struggle from bloody England. The event itself provoked such
memories of heroic “boyos” (and “girlos”
not acknowledged) fighting to the end against great odds that a careful analysis
of what could, and could not be, learned from the mistakes made at the time
entered my head. That was then though in the glare of boyhood infatuations. Now
is the time for a more sober assessment.
The easy part of analyzing the Irish
Easter Uprising of 1916 is first and foremost the knowledge, in retrospect,
that it was not widely supported by people in Ireland, especially by the
“shawlies” in Dublin and the cities who received their sons’ military pay from
the Imperial British Army for service in the bloody trenches of Europe which
sustained them throughout the war. That factor and the relative ease with which
the uprising had been militarily defeated by the British forces send in main
force to crush it lead easily to the conclusion that the adventure was doomed
to failure. Still easier is to criticize the timing and the strategy and
tactics of the planned action and of the various actors, particularly in the
leadership’s underestimating the British Empire’s frenzy to crush any
opposition to its main task of victory in World War I. (Although, I think that frenzy
on Mother England’s part would be a point in the uprising’s favor under the
theory that England’s [or fill in the blank of your favorite later national
liberation struggle] woes were Ireland’s [or fill in the blank ditto on the
your favorite oppressed peoples struggle] opportunities.
The hard part is to draw any
positive lessons of that national liberation struggle experience for the
future. If nothing else remember this though, and unfortunately the Irish
national liberation fighters (and other national liberation fighters later,
including later Irish revolutionaries) failed to take this into account in
their military calculations, the British (or fill in the blank) were savagely committed
to defeating the uprising including burning that colonial country to the ground
if need be in order to maintain control. In the final analysis, it was not part
of their metropolitan homeland, so the hell with it. Needless to say, cowardly British
Labor’s position was almost a carbon copy of His Imperial Majesty’s. Labor
Party leader Arthur Henderson could barely contain himself when informed that
James Connolly had been executed. That should, even today, make every British
militant blush with shame. Unfortunately, the demand for British militants and
others today is the same as then if somewhat attenuated- All British Troops
Out of Ireland.
In various readings on national
liberation struggles I have come across a theory that the Easter Uprising was
the first socialist revolution in Europe, predating the Bolshevik Revolution by
over a year. Unfortunately, there is little truth to that idea. Of the
Uprising’s leaders only James Connolly was devoted to the socialist cause.
Moreover, while the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army were
prototypical models for urban- led national liberation forces such
organizations, as we have witnessed in later history, are not inherently
socialistic. The dominant mood among the leadership was in favor of political independence
and/or fighting for a return to a separate traditional Irish cultural hegemony.
(“Let poets rule the land”).
As outlined in the famous
Proclamation of the Republic posted on the General Post Office in Dublin,
Easter Monday, 1916 the goal of the leadership appeared to be something on the
order of a society like those fought for in the European Revolutions of 1848, a
left bourgeois republic. A formation on the order of the Paris Commune of 1871 where
the working class momentarily took power or the Soviet Commune of 1917 which
lasted for a longer period did not figure in the political calculations at that
time. As noted above, James Connolly clearly was skeptical of his erstwhile
comrades on the subject of the nature of the future state and apparently was
prepared for an ensuing class struggle following the establishment of a
republic.
That does not mean that revolutionary socialists could not
support such an uprising. On the contrary, Lenin, who was an admirer of
Connolly for his anti-war stance in World War I, and Trotsky stoutly defended
the uprising against those who derided the Easter rising for involving
bourgeois elements. Participation by bourgeois and petty bourgeois elements is
in the nature of a national liberation struggle. The key, which must be learned
by militants today, is who leads the national liberation struggle and on what
program. As both Lenin and Trotsky made clear later in their own experiences in
Russia revolutionary socialists have to lead other disaffected elements of
society to overthrow the existing order. There is no other way in a
heterogeneous class-divided society. Moreover, in Ireland, the anti-imperialist
nature of the action against British imperialism during wartime on the
socialist principle that the defeat of your own imperialist overlord in war as
a way to open the road to the class struggle merited support on that basis
alone. Chocky Ar La.
**************
Here
is a little commemorative piece based on the exploits of Frankie Riley from the
old neighborhood grand-uncle’s, Sean Flynn, who gave a good account of himself
when the time for fighting came:
Sean Flynn had a smile, an ironic smile, on his
usually sullen face after he had just read William Butler Yeats’ latest poetic
offering on behalf of the heroic Irish freedom-fighters of that glorious few
days in April of 1916, Easter,1916. Mind you ordinarily Sean Flynn had no truck
with the outpourings of the bloody Anglo-Irish, those who had been oppressing
the Irish, his Irish, since Cromwell’s time, and before. Yeats was different,
had a sense of the tragic past etched in the heart of every kindred even though
some times when Yeats wrote his mystical hysterical stuff like the Second Coming that left him cold. But
the Easter poem was different, was different in its utter solemnity and respect
and also utterly difference in that it heralded the new day coming-the time of
the terrible beauty born. And with those words on his lips Sean went into deep
remembering of those 1916 days when he fought along with the others, many now
gone, in that forlorn General Post Office. (Sean, by the way, while not a poet
in the land of poets could declaim with the best of them and that sonorous
skill had gotten him into many a maiden’s bed, a few married women’s too.)
He remembered back to the time when the late lamented
martyred Jimmy Connolly (not everybody called him, was allowed to call him,
“Jimmy” only those who had gone through some battles with him could) first made
the call to form the Irish Citizens’ Army to defend that terrible strike back
in 1914 or so (after Jim Larkin left for parts unknown when the word got out
the bloody British wanted his hide) and he had snuck into the ranks although
only fifteen. Had snuck in for being a little tall for his age and snuck in
because his brother, Seamus, had been a stalwart in that strike. Yes, if
anybody was asking, that Army was made up of working-men and only working men
until the hard battles of Easter forced a reorganization with the remnants of
the Irish Volunteers. Jimmy said every working man under his command had to be
a little vigilant about working with the poets and dreamers, the petty
bourgeois nationalists he called them who made up the Volunteer units and who would
still have them eating potatoes and stepping out on the bogs if they had
control. Still Jimmy said that there were too few in Ireland just then, just
before the big war in Europe flamed out of control in 1914, to not unite where
they could be united with those who fiercely resisted the encroachments of John
Bull’s tyranny. And in the event Jimmy had been right, had called the tune
well, except Sean still did not feel that those poets and dreamers “boyos”
could be trusted now with independent now a sure thing.
Sean remembered how proud he was to go out on those
very bogs that he hated, hated thinking about how every bloody Englishman with
two pence called him and his “the bogs,” to their faces in order to
surreptitiously march and drill for the big day that would be coming, the day
when Ireland would be free to breath its own air, make its own mistakes. So he
marched, although he hated to march and was constantly out of step. And so he
learned how to hold a rifle, although he was shy around weapons, was not
comfortable with the idea of killing a man, even a bloody Englishman (although
when the time came he gave a good account of himself, as good as any man
there). And so he thrilled when at pub all the lasses, although militia
membership was a secret, an open secret, would gather round him and well, flirt
with him (and let him have his way with them) and totally ignore any Irishman
who was not true to the cause. Ah, those were the days but Sean also remembered
how he longed to get into action, longed to have that showdown he had been
prepared for when that bloody war in Europe broke out and it looked like Ireland
would never be free…
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