In Honor Of The 99^th 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.

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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…