Irish War of Independence through writing

“We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.”

– Winston Churchill

In 1921 Ireland finally achieved its long-seeked independence from Great Britain, after centuries of quarrels between both countries, which allowed the birth of the modern Irish nation. But it did not come for free. The Anglo-Irish War lasted from 1919 to 1921 and confronted the IRA (an Irish revolutionary group) and the British armies. This conflict scarred deep in both sides, but specially in the Irish population, becoming an essential part of its identity and history. As every event of this category, it is properly represented in its culture, and we will dig deep in its strokes in the art of Irish people.

In 1921 Ireland finally achieved its long-seeked independence from Great Britain, after centuries of quarrels between both countries, which allowed the birth of the modern Irish nation. But it did not come for free. The Anglo-Irish War lasted from 1919 to 1921 and confronted the IRA (an Irish revolutionary group) and the British armies. This conflict scarred deep in both sides, but specially in the Irish population, becoming an essential part of its identity and history. As every event of this category, it is properly represented in its culture, and we will dig deep in its strokes in the art of Irish people.

The Easter Rising Rebellion of 1916 was one of the most well-known Irish attempts to earn this freedom. The Martyrs of 1916 wrote poems before these rebellions and while they were waiting to be executed by the British Army, which inspired other Irish poets. The poetry of 1916 engages in underlying ways with the ideas of independence and the experiences that helped shape the modern Irish nation.By April of this same year, British had been involved in the Great War, and many Irish men volunteered to join British troops and died while fighting. The rebel Irish groups took this moment to strike at British rule.

On April 24 1916, in the early morning of Easter Monday, hundreds of armed citizens irrumped in the British government building in Dublin and raised the Irish tricolor flag, declaring an Irish Republic. Patrick Pearse, one of the seven leaders, three of which were poets, read aloud the “Proclamation of the Irish Republic”. Before joining politics and starting to conspire, Pearse was a schoolmaster, writer and poet. In Mise Éire, a poem written in Irish Gaelic, he writes from the perspective of Ireland itself: 

“Great my glory:

I who bore Cúchullain (a Gaelic character similar to Achilles), the brave.

Great my shame:

My own children who sold their mother.”

Pearse joined the Gaelic League at 16, a syndicate engaged in the revival of the suppressed Irish language, and some years later, he would become the editor of its newspaper. “The Sword of Light”, as it was called, criticized the educational system imposed by the British, along with the language suppression, depicting them as tools of the government to control the Irish population.

“A country without a language is a country without a soul”, wrote Pearse.

Thomas Macdonagh, who had been Pearse’s deputy headmaster while he had been a teacher, along with Joseph Plunkett, a good friend of MacDonagh, were the other two poets among the rebellious leaders of the Easter Monday uprising. Though their careers were significantly shorter, they played an important role in both Irish cultural and political history. But only five days after the Republic’s proclamation, the rebels saw themselves trapped and forced to surrender. The British courts sentenced them all to death. In Pearse’s last letter, he wrote to his mother:

“You must not grieve for all this. We have preserved Ireland’s honour and our own. People will say hard things of us now, but we shall be remembered by posterity..”

There were also other important figures who were both poets and soldiers during the war. For instance, Francis Ledwidge, a contemporary Irish poet who died fighting on the British side during the First World War. In many poems Ledwidge wrote while in the front, he manages to capture his sadness by using allegories of Irish legends and myths. Ledwidge’s most famous poem would end up being an elegy for his executed friend Thomas MacDonagh: Lament For The Poets: 1916. He was killed himself that same year, becoming part of the poets of ‘16. In this poem, the “Poor Old Woman” represents Ireland, while the “blackbirds”, a symbol of true bringers in Irish mythology, represent the poets: 

“I heard the Poor Old Woman say:

‘At break of day the fowler came,

And took my blackbirds from their songs

Who loved me well thro’ shame and blame.

No more from lovely distances

Their songs shall bless me mile by mile,

Nor to white Ashbourne call me down

To wear my crown another while.”

Probably the most famous poet of the Easter Rising movement is not a rebel himself, but WB Yeats, whose lyrical reminiscence is the most enduring of the rebels’ actions. By 1916 he had already made his own name and had been a fundamental figure in the Irish cultural revival that inspired others such as MacDonagh and Pearse. This brought him close to the revolutionaries, but he never managed to engage with their cause because of his distaste of violence. His misgivings toward the rebels’ ardent convictions are evident in his Easter, 1916:

“For England may keep faith

For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough

To know they dreamed and are dead.

And what if excess of love

Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse—

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.”

Cases like that of Yeats show us the predicament in which citizens are put when their country is faced with a political, social and cultural rising. They see themselves forced to pick sides in a fight, many times with their own people, that will very much decide their fate. When observing these poets’ situations, we realize how our upbringing, experiences and social circle certainly shape us and define us, making us get on one of the sides of the story. These differences will also make us decide who is in the right and who is in the wrong, though our own opinions won’t justify the atrocities made during a conflict, in which innocents will mostly pay the price. 

References

Collins, L. (2016, March 17). Wonderful beauty of Ireland’s rebel poems. Irish Independent. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/wonderful-beauty-of-irelands-rebel-poems/34374196.html 

Spears, J. (2016, April 22). Remembering the Poets Who Fought For Irish Independence. Literary Hub. https://lithub.com/remembering-the-poets-who-fought-for-irish-independence/ 

Shute, C. (2019, August 11). Songs and Poems of the Irish Rebellion. Hute Writing. https://christianshutewriting.wordpress.com/2019/08/11/songs-and-poems-of-the-irish-rebellion/ 

Keogh Brothers. (1916, May). [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising#/media/File:The_shell_of_the_G.P.O._on_Sackville_Street_after_the_Easter_Rising_(6937669789).jpg 

[Photograph of Marcus Lamb as Patrick Pearse in the RTÉ drama “Rebellion”]. (2016, January 21). [Photograph]. Irish Independent. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/the-many-faces-of-patrick-pearse-on-the-big-screen/34379280.html 

Beresford, G. C. (1911, July 15). [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Butler_Yeats#/media/Archivo:William_Butler_Yeats_by_George_Charles_Beresford.jpg