1916 (61 page)

Though many historians and commentators have remarked on the jubilee and often made colourful and sometimes startling comments on the impact of the events, none have taken on the subject to a satisfactory extent. Conor Cruise O’Brien, for example, has written briefly on the
jubilee on a number of occasions, noting, in one such instance, how 1966 witnessed an ‘explosion of nationalist sentiment’, which produced ‘the greatest orgy ever of the cult of the Rising’.
⁴
According to Professor Dermot Keogh, ‘what the celebrations did was to sensitise the Irish public and allow for a greater uncritical receptivity to the message of physical force nationalism.’
⁵
This assertion will have to be evaluated. The activities of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at this time will have to be closely examined, as well as the republican movement’s policy and approach towards the commemorations. This will include an analysis of the extent to which the IRA posed a threat in both states in 1966 and will assay the fears of a major new campaign by the organisation, supposedly to be launched during the jubilee.

In terms of the Republic of Ireland, which will be the focus of this essay, were the commemorations really as triumphalist and as damaging as is frequently noted?
⁶
According to Brian Girvin the commemorations were entirely one dimensional, ‘celebrated so unselfconsciously’ in an atmosphere where, according to Girvin and many others, ‘it would have been unthinkable to question the Rising’.
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The impression has been created that historical understanding in the Republic largely reflected a simplistic ‘monolithic view of Ireland’.
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Were leaders like Pearse and Connolly only promoted for their military exploits, with their more socially radical ideas suppressed? Girvin has commented on the ‘striking paucity of critical material at this time’.
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In order to properly assess this view it will be necessary to examine the various scholarly publications produced at the time, as well as contemporary newspapers and journals.

The background to the commemorations will have to be explored, as will the motivations behind those who organised the events, with special attention to the then Taoiseach and leader of the Fianna Fáil party, Seán Lemass, who was very involved in organising the state sponsored events. The suggestion that Lemass and his party ‘hijacked’ the commemorations for their own party-political interests will be examined. The allegation, implied by Paul Bew, Henry Patterson and other respected commentators, that Fianna Fáil merely sought to exploit the events to vindicate the party tradition, while recklessly endangering recently improved north-south relations in the process, will also have to be evaluated.
¹⁰
Could Lemass and his colleagues simply not resist the temptation to let the ‘old ghosts’ walk again?

An analysis of these issues along with a clear outline of the events that actually took place will provide an informed understanding of an often mis-interpreted but significant event in modern Irish history.

P
REPARING FOR THE JUBILEE

Plans for the golden jubilee of the 1916 Rising were already being formulated well over a year before the event took place. At a government meeting on 2 February 1965 Seán Lemass stated that it would be appropriate that the fiftieth anniversary of the Rising of 1916 be celebrated on a large scale, maintaining that the public would expect the occasion to be marked by an extensive range of celebrations. He further proposed that a committee be set up, as had already been proposed in a previous memorandum outlining plans for military ceremonies, but that ‘its scope be widened to include the participation by voluntary national organisations, particularly the Old IRA association, in planning and carrying out the programme’. This recommendation was agreed by all present at the meeting.
¹¹

Invitations were sent to a large number of individuals who had been actively involved or closely associated with the 1916 Rising to serve on the committee. The inaugural meeting of Coiste Cuimhneachán, as the committee was titled, took place in the council chamber of government buildings in Dublin on 19 February 1965.
¹²
At this meeting Lemass, who was appointed chairman of the committee, confirmed that the Rising was going to be celebrated on a grand scale, that there would be nationwide participation and that members of the committee should not feel bound by expenditure when considering proposed events.
¹³

On the same day that the Coiste had its inaugural meeting, the
Irish Times
newspaper carried an advertisement for a rival ‘Golden Jubilee Commemoration Committee’.
¹⁴
This committee was strongly connected with the republican movement; as a Department of Justice document later highlighted, ‘of the 10 members of this committee, the chairman, treasurer and four ordinary members are in the IRA.’
¹⁵
When the chairman, Éamon Mac Thomáis, was later asked why a separate body was set up to celebrate the Rising he replied that they felt ‘nobody who wanted association with Britain had the right to honour these men who paid the supreme sacrifice, since these men who died did not want any association with Britain.’
¹⁶

The Coiste immediately had both rivals and critics.
The Evening Herald
newspaper featured an article by C. Ó Tornóir that expressed strong reservations:

The committee in question can scarcely be described as national, seeing that it consists of two leading figures in one political party, eight civil servants and a few ex-IRA men, who no matter how untrammelled by party politics they may be, can be outvoted by the establishment … there is every reason to fear that the historic national event will be used for political purposes.
¹⁷

In fact Lemass continually increased the number of civilian representatives on the committee as its ambitions continued to grow. At a meeting on 18 November 1965, it was decided that the general public, through their voluntary organisations and public representatives, were going to be given the opportunity to march in the golden jubilee commemoration parades on Easter Sunday.
¹⁸
It was agreed also to publicise the event abroad to encourage parties of Irish people to visit the country during the commemorations. Diplomatic and consular offices were instructed to hold functions in honour of the occasion. Bord Fáilte was requested to prepare a leaflet on the upcoming celebrations and 75,000 copies were printed for distribution to Irish embassies, societies and Bord Fáilte offices abroad.
¹⁹

It was also envisaged that the commemorations would incorporate an educational aspect. Lemass was particularly concerned that ‘the rising generation should be made fully aware of the significance of the event, so that they could share the pride of the older generation in it.’
²⁰
It was
agreed from the outset that a ‘Children’s day’ would form part of the commemorative programme. The committee, having decided to include in the programme a ‘cultural and artistic tribute’, sponsored a series of competitions in literature, music and art to enable children to participate in the commemoration of a Rising the leaders of which were themselves gifted in learning and art. In the essay competition the titles were ’1916– 2016’ and ‘An Easter week veteran tells his story’. Prizes were also offered for an original poem on any event or theme associated with 1916. The eighteen competitions in the adult section, also covering painting and sculpture, included entries from a number of well-respected sculptors and artists such as Oisín Kelly and Edward Delaney.
²¹

It is evident that Lemass and his fellow committee members were not seeking a simplistic glorification of 1916 with a convenient omission of the aims of those who had sacrificed their lives in the Rising. In a very interesting speech given to the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland on 18 February 1966 Lemass revealed his very deep and sincere attachment to the ideals of 1916. In one of his most moving speeches, he also went on to pay tribute to Irish soldiers who fought for the British army in the First World War:

In later years it was common – and I also was guilty in this respect – to question the motives of those men who joined the new British armies formed at the outbreak of the war, but it must, in their honour and in fairness to their memory, be said that they were motivated by the highest purpose, and died in their tens of thousands in Flanders and Gallipoli believing they were giving their lives in the cause of human liberty everywhere, not excluding Ireland.
²²

Lemass was thus the first leader of the Fianna Fáil party to pay open tribute to Irish soldiers who fought for the British army. It was testimony to the vastly improved Anglo-Irish relations in this period. A fine example of this on the British side was the gift of a republican flag that had flown over the GPO in 1916. The flag had previously been on display in the Imperial War Museum in London. Lemass had written to the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, to request its return to Ireland. Wilson duly approved the request. At a special conference on 31 March, less than two weeks before the commemorations were to begin, the flag was officially presented to the Irish government. With commendable restraint, however, Lemass ‘dwelt on the magnanimity of the British in restoring the flag to Ireland rather than the circumstances in which it was taken in the first place’.
²³
In
a brief speech he commented on the improved relations between the two states and acknowledged the gift as ‘a gesture to the Irish people and as a further contribution by them for the building of goodwill and better relations between the two communities’.
²⁴

While relations with London were very good, it was inevitably going to be more difficult to maintain harmonious relations with members of the Northern Ireland government, more or less all of whom appear to have considered the rebellion of 1916 a distasteful act of sedition, unworthy of commemoration.
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Lemass realised that it was very important that his government would not be seen by unionists as utilising the commemoration period to promote anti-partition propaganda. Some reference to partition, however, was inevitable over the commemorative period. Rather than speak of the ‘evils’ of partition and the unionist regime, Lemass focused on the advantages that lay in the pursuit of a conciliatory approach towards their northern neighbours. In an article he contributed to the
Easter commemoration digest
,
Lemass wrote:

Partition remains a central problem of Irish life. It is not yet resolved. In recent years, however, Irishmen, north and south, have begun to try to find a new approach to their reconciliation of divided interests and the solution of mutual problems. If we speak of a new realism in this realm of our affairs, we do not imply a change of principles or an avoidance of responsibility. Quite simply we recognise the movement of time, the fresh avenues of agreement which are thus opened up, the increasingly common interests and goals which each day confront us all as brother Irishmen. It is essential that we grasp the importance of this new opportunity. Here, on the personal level as well as, indeed more than, on the official level, we have responsibilities to face with resolve, patience and understanding.
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In the same article (written in advance of the formal commemorative ceremonies) Lemass proudly mentioned the ‘excellently organised series of events’ planned for the jubilee. The plans had indeed been well laid. The week before the commencement of the jubilee ceremonies, a fifteen minute film on the Easter Rising, made by George Morrison and commissioned by the Department of External Affairs on behalf of the Coiste Cuimhneachán, was sent out to eighty television networks and independent stations in north America and western Europe.
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It confirmed Lemass and his fellow committee members’ determination that the jubilee was going to be a major event and one in which many in the country could take pride.

T
HE STATE-SPONSORED EVENTS

The official commemoration ceremonies began on Good Friday, 8 April 1966, at Banna strand, Co. Kerry, where fifty years earlier Roger Casement landed from a German submarine, the
U19
,
before later being arrested and eventually hanged, on 3 August 1916, in Pentonville prison for his involvement in the Rising. Approximately 1,000 people gathered to pay tribute to his memory and applauded when Mrs Florence Monteith Lynch, a daughter of Robert Monteith, who accompanied Casement on the
U19
,
turned the first sod on the site of a memorial to her father and his leader.
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Among those present on the occasion were Raimund Weisbach and Otto Walter of the crew of the
U19
,
as well as Hans Dünker, Fred Schmitz and W. Augustin, of the arms ship, the
Aud
,
who were arrested by the British royal navy on Holy Saturday 1916 while waiting to land guns and ammunition for the Rising. The ceremony represented a dignified beginning to the jubilee. Just over one year previously the British government had acceded to repeated requests from the Irish government to have the remains of Roger Casement returned to Ireland.
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In what might be considered the first major event in the commemoration process his remains were re-interred in March 1965 in Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin, and Casement’s wish to be buried in Irish soil was fulfilled. The ceremony at Banna strand offered, at last, a certain sense of closure on what had been a bitter issue.