Winifred Carney.
♣
Francis Sheehy-Skeffington.
♣
Michael Collins.
♣
Éamon De Valera.
♣
From 1916 Portraits and Lives, edited by Lawrence William White and James Quinn
1907
NOVEMBER
Thomas J. Clarke returns to Ireland from America and helps to invigorate the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB)
1909
16 AUGUST
Constance Markievicz and Bulmer Hobson found Na Fianna Éireann
10 DECEMBER
H. H. Asquith, the Liberal prime minister, promises ‘self-government’ for Ireland
1910
JANUARY
UK general election: Liberal party fails to win an overall majority and requires the support of John Redmond’s 70-strong Irish Parliamentary Party to govern
26 JULY
James Connolly returns to Ireland from America
DECEMBER
Another UK general election; Liberals still the largest party with Irish Parliamentary Party holding the balance of power
1912
9 APRIL
At a unionist demonstration at Balmoral, near Belfast, Andrew Bonar Law, leader of the Conservative party, pledges the support of British unionists to Ulster unionist resistance to home rule
11 APRIL
Asquith introduces home rule bill in House of Commons
28 SEPTEMBER
Unionists throughout Ulster sign the Solemn League and Covenant to resist home rule
1913
16 JANUARY
Third reading of home rule bill carried in House of Commons
30 JANUARY
Home rule bill defeated in House of Lords
31 JANUARY
Ulster Volunteer Force founded
15 JULY
After passing in the Commons, home rule bill again defeated in the Lords
26 AUGUST
Tram workers of James Larkin’s Irish Transport and General Workers Union go on strike – a general lockout of union members follows
19 NOVEMBER
Irish Citizen Army founded by trade unionists in Dublin
25 NOVEMBER
Irish Volunteers formed at meeting in Dublin, presided over by Eoin MacNeill
1914
20 MARCH
‘Curragh mutiny’ – General Hubert Gough and most of his officers in the 3rd Cavalry Brigade announce their unwillingness to enforce home rule on Ulster
2 APRIL
Cumann na mBan founded as women’s auxiliary to Irish Volunteers
24–25 APRIL
Ulster Volunteer Force gun-running: large quantity of rifles landed at Larne, Donaghadee and Bangor
25 MAY
Home rule bill passes through Commons for third time
28 JUNE
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by a Slav nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia
10 JULY
Ulster unionist provisional government meets in Belfast
21–24 JULY
Government, nationalists and unionists fail to reach agreement on the status of Ulster at Buckingham Palace conference
26 JULY
Rifles for Irish Volunteers landed at Howth; British troops who failed to disarm Volunteers fire on a crowd at Bachelor’s Walk, Dublin, killing four and wounding thirty
1 AUGUST
More rifles for Irish Volunteers landed at Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow
4 AUGUST
UK declares war on Germany after German invasion of Belgium
9 SEPTEMBER
At a conference in Dublin, militant nationalists (mostly IRB) discuss mounting an insurrection during the war
18 SEPTEMBER
Government of Ireland act, 1914, suspends the introduction of home rule for the duration of the war
20 SEPTEMBER
At Woodenbridge, Co. Wicklow, John Redmond encourages Irish Volunteers to join the British army
24 SEPTEMBER
Eoin MacNeill and other Volunteer leaders repudiate Redmond’s leadership; Volunteers split, the majority forming Redmond’s ‘National Volunteers’
OCTOBER
Volunteer minority, still calling themselves the Irish Volunteers, re-organise with Eoin MacNeill as chief of staff, Patrick Pearse as director of military organisation, Joseph Mary Plunkett as director of military operations, and Thomas MacDonagh as director of training
Sir Roger Casement travels to Berlin to seek German help for an Irish insurrection against British rule
1915
MAY
IRB creates a military committee of Pearse, Plunkett and Éamonn Ceannt to begin planning for an armed insurrection
1 AUGUST
Pearse gives stirring graveside oration at the funeral of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa warning that ‘Ireland unfree shall never be at peace’ [link]
DECEMBER
IRB military council of Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada, Pearse, Plunkett and Ceannt formed
1916
JANUARY
IRB supreme council gives approval for armed insurrection
19–22 JANUARY
James Connolly confers with IRB military council and is co-opted into their plans (Thomas MacDonagh co-opted in April)
3 APRIL
Pearse issues orders to Volunteers throughout Ireland for manoeuvres beginning on Easter Sunday (23 April)
20 APRIL
A trawler, the Aud, arrives in Tralee Bay with German arms for the Irish Volunteers and is arrested by a British patrol ship
21 APRIL
Sir Roger Casement lands from a German submarine at Banna Strand, Co. Kerry, and is arrested
22 APRIL
Eoin MacNeill, of the Irish Volunteers, learns of planned insurrection and countermands orders for Easter Sunday manoeuvres
23 APRIL
Military council meets at Liberty Hall and decides to go ahead with insurrection on Easter Monday (24 April); a revolutionary proclamation is signed by the seven members of the council
24 APRIL
GPO and several other buildings in Dublin seized by Irish Volunteers and Citizen Army
An attack on Dublin Castle by a Citizen Army unit is repulsed; the unit briefly holds City Hall until overwhelmed later that day
25 APRIL
British army reinforcements arrive in Dublin and surround insurgent positions; martial law declared in Dublin
Citizen Army force in St Stephen’s Green comes under heavy fire and withdraws to College of Surgeons
26 APRIL
Liberty Hall destroyed and GPO damaged by British shelling
Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and two other prisoners summarily executed at Portobello barracks on orders of Captain J. C. Bowen-Colthurst [link]
Wexford Volunteers take over Enniscorthy
Heavy fighting as British troops advance on insurgent positions around the Four Courts and the South Dublin Union
Unable to hold the Mendicity Institute on Usher’s Island, the small Volunteer garrison under Seán Heuston surrenders
26–27 APRIL
British army reinforcements advancing on Mount Street bridge suffer heavy casualties at the hands of Volunteers from Éamon de Valera’s 3rd battalion
28 APRIL
Volunteers in north County Dublin under Thomas Ashe and Richard Mulcahy seize Ashbourne Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks and ambush an RIC patrol sent to re-take it
GPO on fire; insurgents evacuate building and set up their headquarters in 16 Moore Street
29 APRIL
Pearse and Connolly agree to unconditional surrender, and send orders to other insurgent posts to do likewise
30 APRIL
Final surrenders of rebel commandants in Dublin end the rising; 64 insurgents, 132 crown forces and about 230 civilians killed
2–9 MAY
Courts martial of 187 leading insurgents; 88 sentenced to death, with 73 commuted to various terms of imprisonment. Over 400 insurgents sent to Britain to be interned; over 3,000 other suspects also arrested, of whom about half are interned
2 MAY
Gun battle ensues between Kent family and RIC at Bawnard House, Castlelyons, near Fermoy, Co. Cork, when Kents resist arrest
3 MAY
Executions of Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh
4–12 MAY
Executions of remaining insurgents; Connolly and Mac Diarmada the last to be shot
3 AUGUST
Found guilty of treason, Roger Casement is hanged in Pentonville jail, London
22 DECEMBER
Release from Frongoch camp and Reading jail of remaining untried Irish political prisoners; convicted insurgents remain imprisoned [their trades]
1917
16 JUNE
Remaining 120 Irish prisoners, including Eoin MacNeill, de Valera and Markievicz, released from British jails
25 SEPTEMBER
Thomas Ashe dies in Mountjoy jail after forced feeding
26 OCTOBER
De Valera elected president of Sinn Féin
1918
18 APRIL
A broad front of Irish nationalists oppose conscription at Mansion House conference
17–18 MAY
‘German plot’ arrests of Sinn Féin leaders
11 NOVEMBER
Great War ends
14–28 DECEMBER
General election: Sinn Féin wins 73 of 105 Irish seats [manifesto]
1919
21 JANUARY
First meeting of Dáil Éireann at Mansion House, Dublin, declares independence
Irish Volunteer attack on RIC at Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary kills two policemen and marks the beginning of the war of independence [link]
1920
23 DECEMBER
Government of Ireland Act, 1920, provides for two subordinate Irish parliaments, one for six Ulster counties, the other for the remainder of the country
1921
22 JUNE
George V opens Northern Ireland parliament in Belfast
9 JULY
Truce ends Irish war of independence
6 DECEMBER
Anglo–Irish treaty signed by British government and Sinn Féin delegates in London [link]
1922
7 JANUARY
Dáil Éireann approves Anglo–Irish treaty by 64 votes to 57 [Constans de Markievics against the treaty]
14 JANUARY
Irish Free State provisional government elected by protreaty representatives; Michael Collins elected chairman
28 JUNE
Free State troops attack antitreaty forces in Four Courts, beginning the civil war
20 JULY
Limerick and Waterford taken by Free State troops (Cork taken 11 August)
12 AUGUST
Arthur Griffith, president of Dáil Éireann, dies of cerebral haemorrhage
22 AUGUST
Michael Collins killed in ambush at Béal na Bláth, Co. Cork
17 NOVEMBER
First of 77 executions of anti-treatyites by Free State government (last on 2 May 1923) [link]
6 DECEMBER
Formal establishment of Irish Free State with W. T. Cosgrave as president of the executive council
1923
24 MAY
De Valera orders anti-treatyites to cease armed operations, ending the civil war
1916
(by English)
Dublin
May 3rd
P. H. Pearse
Tom Clarke
Thomas MacDonagh
May 4th
Joseph Plunkett
Edward Daly
William Pearse
Michael O’Hanrahan
May 5th
John MacBride
May 8th
Eamon Kent [Ceannt]
Michael Mallin
Con. Colbert
Sean Heuston
May 12th
Sean MacDermott [MacDiarmada]
James Connolly
Cork, May 9th
Thomas Kent
Pentonville Prison (London), August 3rd.
Roger Casement (hanged)
1920–21
(by English)
Kevin Barry, hanged in Dublin, November 1st, 1920.
Cornelius Murphy, shot in Cork, February 1st, 1921.
Thomas O’Brien, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
Daniel O’Callaghan, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
John Lyons, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
Timothy McCarthy, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
Patrick O’Mahony, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
John Allen, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
Thomas Whelan, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Patrick Moran, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Thomas Bryan, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Patrick Doyle, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Frank Flood, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Bernard Ryan, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Thomas Traynor, hanged in Dublin, April 26th, 1921.
Patrick Sullivan, shot in Cork, April 28th, 1921.
Maurice Moore, shot in Cork, April 28th, 1921.
Patrick Ronayne, shot in Cork, April 28th, 1921.
Thomas Mulcahy, shot in Cork, April 28th, 1921.
Patrick Casey, shot in Cork, May rnd, 1921.
Daniel O’Brien, shot in Cork, May 17th 1921.
Thomas Keane, shot in Limerick, June 4th, 1921.
Edward Foley, hanged in Dublin, June 7th, 1921.
Patrick Maher, hanged in Dublin, June 7th, 1921.
1922-1923
(by pro–UK treaty Irish; this list does not include those murdered after capture)
Dublin
November 17th
James Fisher
Peter Cassidy
Richard Twohig
John Gaffney
November 24th
Erskine Childers
November, 30th
Jos. Spooner
Patrick Farrelly
John Murphy
December 8th
Rory O’Connor
Liam Mellows
Joseph McKelvey
Richard Barrett
December 19th
Stephen White
Joseph Johnston
Patrick Mangan
Patrick Nolan
Brian Moore
James O’Connor
Patrick Bagnel
Kilkenny, December 29th
John Phelan
John Murphy
Dublin, January 8th
Leo Dowling
Sylvester Heaney
Laurence Sheehy
Anthony O’Reilly
Terence Brady
Dundalk, January 13th
Thomas McKeown
John McNulty
Thomas Murray
Roscrea, January 15th
Fredrick Burke
Patrick Russell
Martin O’Shea
Patrick MacNamara
Carlow, January 15th
James Lillis
January 20th, 1923
Tralee
James Daly
John Clifford
Michael Brosnan
James Hanlon
Limerick
Cornelius McMahon
Patrick Hennessy
Athlone
Thomas Hughes
Michael Walsh
Herbert Collins
Stephen Joyce
Martin Burke
Dundalk, January 22nd, 1923
James Melia
Thomas Lennon
Joseph Ferguson
Waterford, January 25th, 1923
Michael Fitzgerald
Patrick O’Reilly
Birr, January 26th, 1923
Patrick Cunningham
William Conroy
Colum Kelly
Portlaoighse, January 27th, 1923
Patrick Geraghty
Joseph Byrne
Maryborough, February 26th, 1923
Thomas Gibson
March 13th, 1923
Dublin
James O’Rourke
Cork
William Healy
Wexford
James Pearle
Patrick Hogan
John Creane,
Drumboe, March 14th, 1923
Tim O’Sullivan
Charles Daly
John Larkin
Dan Enright
Tuam, April 11th, 1923
James O’Malley
Frank Cunnane
Michael Monaghan
John Newell
John Maguire
Michael Nolan
Tralee, April 25th, 1923
Edward Greaney
Reginald Hathaway
James Mcinerney
Ennis
April 26th, 1923
Patrick Mahoney
May 2nd, 1923
Chris Quinn
William Shaughnessy
[Source: The Irish Republic: A Documented Chronicle of the Anglo-Irish Conflict and the Prtitioning of Ireland, with a Detailed Account of the Period 1916–1923. Dorothy Macardle. 1937 & 1938 (Victor Gollancz), 1951 (Irish Press).]
Army of the Irish Republic
(Dublin Command),
Headquarters, April 28, 1916.
To Soldiers,
This is the fifth day of the establishment of the Irish Republic, and the flag of our country still floats from the most important buildings in Dublin, and is gallantly protected by the officers and Irish soldiers in arms throughout the country. Not a day passes without seeing fresh postings of Irish soldiers eager to do battle for the old cause. Despite tha utmost vigilance of the enemy we have been able to get in information telling us how the manhood of Ireland, inspired by our splendid action, are gathering to offer up their lives if necessary in the same holy cause. We are here hemmed in because the enemy feels that in this building is to be found the heart and inspiration of our great movement.
Let us remind you what you have done. For the first time in 700 years the flag of a free Ireland floats triumphantly in Dublin City.
The British Army, whose exploits we are for ever having dinned into our ears, which boasts of having stormed the Dardanelles and the German lines on the Marne, behind their artillery and machine guns are afraid to advance to the attack or storm any positions held by our forces. The slaughter they suffered in the first few days has totally unnerved them, and they dare not attempt again an infantry attack on our positions.
Our Commandants around us are holding their own.
Commandant Daly’s splendid exploit in capturing Linen Hall Barracks we all know. You must know also that the whole population, both clergy and laity, of this district are united in his praises. Commandant MacDonagh is established in an impregnable position reaching from the walls of Dublin Castle to Redmond’s Hill, and from Bishop street to Stephen’s Green.
(In Stephen’s Green, Commandant [Mallin] holds the College of Surgeons, one side of the square, a portion of the other side, and dominates the whole Green and all its entrances and exits.)
Commandant De Valera stretches in a position from the Gas Works to Westland row, holding Boland’s Bakery, Boland’s Mills, Dublin South-Eastern Railway Works, and dominating Merrion square.
Commandant Kent [Ceannt] holds the South Dublin Union and Guinness’s Buildings to Marrowbone lane, and controls James’s street and district.
On two occasions the enemy effected a lodgment and were driven out with great loss.
The men of North County Dublin are in the field, have occupied all the Police Barracks in the district, destroyed all the telegram system on the Great Northern Railway up to Dundalk. and are operating against the trains of the Midland and Great Western.
Dundalk has sent 200 men to march upon Dublin, and in the other parts of the North our forces are active and growing.
In Galway Captain [Mellows], fresh after his escape from an Irish prison, is in the field with his men. Wexford and Wicklow are strong, and Cork and Kerry are equally acquitting themselves creditably. (We have every confidence that our Allies in Germany anu kinsmen in America are straining every nerve to hasten matters on our behalf.)
As you know, I was wounded twice yesterday and am unable to move about, but have got my bed moved into the firing line, and, with the assistance of your officers, will be just as useful to you as ever.
Courage, boys, we are winning, and in the hour of our victory let us not forget the splendid women who have everywhere stood by us and cheered us on. Never had man or woman a grander cause, never was a cause more grandly served.
James Connolly,
Commandant-General,
Dublin Division.
The following statement was published by Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington respecting the arrest and shooting of her husband.
I last saw my husband on Tuesday evening, April 25, between 5.15 and 5.30 at Westmoreland Chambers. He had called a meeting there to stop looting (see enclosed poster), and was waiting to see if any people would attend same. On that and the previous day he had been active personally, with help from bystanders, at the same work, and had succeeded in stopping some looting by personal efforts and appeals. All this, there is independent evidence to testify. On Monday afternoon outside Dublin Castle an officer was reported bleeding to death in the street, and, the crowd being afraid, owing to the firing, to go to his assistance, my husband himself went, at imminent danger to his life, to drag away the wounded man to a place of safety, to find, however, that by that time the body had been rescued by some soldiers, there being left merely a pool of blood. This incident can also be corroborated.
He stated to me that if none turned up to help on Tuesday at the meeting to prevent looting that he would come home as usual to his house at 11 Grosvenor place. He was afterwards seen by several friends (whose testimony I possess) going home about 6.30. In the neighbourhood of Portobello Bridge he was arrested, unarmed and unresisting. He never carried or possessed any arm of any description, being, as is well known, a pacifist and opposed to the use of physical force.
He was conducted in military custody to Portobello Barracks, wnere he was shot without trial on that night or early on the following morning. No priest was summoned to attend him, no notification was, or has since been, given to me (his wife) or to his family of his death, and no message written before his death has been allowed to reach me.
Repeated inquiries at the barracks and elsewhere have been met with refusal to answer, and when my sisters, Mrs. Kettle and Mrs. Culhane, called at Portobello Barracks on Thursday, April 27, to inquire they were put under temporary arrest.
Pádraig Pearse, August 1, 1915
It has been thought right, before we turn away from this place in which we have laid the mortal remains of O’Donovan Rossa that one among us should, in the name of all, speak the praise of that valiant man, and endeavour to formulate the thought and the hope that are in us as we stand around his grave. And if there is anything that makes it fitting that I rather than another, I rather than one of the greyhaired men who were young with him and shared in his labour and in his suffering, should speak here, it is perhaps that I may be taken as speaking on behalf of a new generation that has been re-baptised in the Fenian faith and that has accepted the responsibility of carrying out the Fenian programme.
I propose to you then that, here by the grave of this unrepentant Fenian, we renew our baptismal vows; that, here by the grave of this unconquered and unconquerable man, we ask of God, each one for himself, such unshakable purpose, such high and gallant courage, such unbreakable strength of soul as belonged to O’Donovan Rossa. Deliberately here we avow ourselves, as he avowed himself in the dock, Irishmen of one allegiance only. We of the Irish volunteers and you others who are associated with us in today’s task and duty are bound together and must stand together henceforth in brotherly union for the achievement of the freedom of Ireland.
And we know only one definition of freedom: it is Tone’s definition, it is Mitchel’s definition, it is Rossa’s definition. Let no man blaspheme the cause that the dead generations of Ireland served by giving it any other name or definition than their name and their definition.
We stand at Rossa’s grave not in sadness but rather in exaltation of spirit that it has been given to us to come thus into so close a communion with that brave and splendid Gael. Splendid and holy causes are served by men who are themselves splendid and holy. O’Donovan Rossa was splendid in the proud manhood of him, splendid in the heroic grace of him, splendid in the Gaelic strength and clarity and truth of him. All that splendour and pride and strength was compatible with a humility and a simplicity of devotion to Ireland, to all that was olden and beautiful and Gaelic in Ireland, the holiness and simplicity of patriotism of a Michael O’Cleary or of an Eoghan O’Growney.
The clear true eyes of this man almost alone in his day visioned Ireland as we of today would surely have her: not free merely, but Gaelic as well; not Gaelic merely, but free as well.
In a closer spiritual communion with him now than ever before or perhaps ever again, in spiritual communion with those of his day, living and dead, who suffered with him in English prisons, in communion of spirit too with our own dear comrades who suffer in English prisons today, and speaking on their behalf as well as on our own. we pledge to Ireland our love, and we pledge to English rule in Ireland our hate.
This is a place of peace, sacred to the dead, where men should speak with all charity and with all restraint, but I hold it a Christian thing, as O’Donovan Rossa held it, to hate evil, to hate untruth, to hate oppression; and, hating them, to strive to overthrow them. Our foes are strong and wise and wary; but, strong and wise and wary as they are, they cannot undo the miracles of God who ripens in the hearts of young men the seeds sown by the young men of a former generation. And the seeds sown by the young men of ’65 and ’67 are coming to their miraculous ripening today.
Rulers and Defenders of Realms had need to be wary if they would guard against such processes. Life springs from death: and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations. The Defenders of this Realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! — they have left us our Fenian dead, and, while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.
In Ulysses, the characters of Mr Deasy and the citizen are extreme representations of opposite obsolete political views. The uprising of Easter Week 1916 was directed by men and women very much in the 20th century. (Ulysses was written from 1914 to 1922, published before the civil war began; Finnegans Wake was written from 1922 to 1939, published after the establishment of the Free State and steps toward the modern Republic.)
From The Insurrection in Dublin, by James Stephens, 1916:
It happened because the leader of the Irish Party misrepresented his people in the English House of Parliament. On the day of the declaration of war between England and Germany he took the Irish case, weighty with eight centuries of history and tradition, and he threw it out of the window. He pledged Ireland to a particular course of action, and he had no authority to give this pledge and he had no guarantee that it would be met. The ramshackle intelligence of his party and his own emotional nature betrayed him and us and England. He swore Ireland to loyalty as if he had Ireland in his pocket, and could answer for her. Ireland has never been disloyal to England, not even at this epoch, because she has never been loyal to England, and the profession of her National faith has been unwavering, has been known to every English person alive, and has been clamant to all the world beside.
Is it that he wanted to be cheered? He could very easily have stated Ireland’s case truthfully, and have proclaimed a benevolent neutrality (if he cared to use the grandiloquent words) on the part of this country. He would have gotten his cheers, he would in a few months have gotten Home Rule in return for Irish soldiers. He would have received politically whatever England could have safely given him. But, alas, these carefulnesses did not chime with his emotional moment. They were not magnificent enough for one who felt that he was talking not to Ireland or to England, but to the whole gaping and eager earth, and so he pledged his country’s credit so deeply that he did not leave her even one National rag to cover herself with.
After a lie truth bursts out, and it is no longer the radiant and serene goddess knew or hoped for – it is a disease, it is a moral syphilis and will ravage until the body in which it can dwell has been purged. Mr. Redmond told the lie and he is answerable to England for the violence she had to be guilty of, and to Ireland for the desolation to which we have had to submit. Without his lie there had been no Insurrection; without it there had been at this moment, and for a year past, an end to the “Irish question.” Ireland must in ages gone have been guilty of abominable crimes or she could not at this juncture have been afflicted with a John Redmond.
He is the immediate cause of this our latest Insurrection – the word is big, much too big for the deed, and we should call it row, or riot, or squabble, in order to draw the fact down to its dimensions, but the ultimate blame for the trouble between the two countries does not fall against Ireland.
The fault lies with England, and in these days while an effort is being made (interrupted, it is true, by cannon) to found a better understanding between the two nations it is well that England should recognize what she has done to Ireland, and should try at least to atone for it. The situation can be explained almost in a phrase. We are a little country and you, a huge country, have persistently beaten us. We are a poor country and you, the richest country in the world, have persistently robbed us. That is the historical fact, and whatever national or political necessities are opposed in reply, it is true that you have never given Ireland any reason to love you, and you cannot claim her affection without hypocrisy or stupidity.
You think our people can only be tenacious in hate – it is a lie. Our historical memory is truly tenacious, but during the long and miserable tale of our relations you have never given us one generosity to remember you by, and you must not claim our affection or our devotion until you are worthy of them. We are a good people; almost we are the only Christian people left in the world, nor has any nation shown such forbearance towards their persecutor as we have always shown to you. No nation has forgiven its enemies as we have forgiven you, time after time down the miserable generations, the continuity of forgiveness only equalled by the continuity of your ill-treatment. Between our two countries you have kept and protected a screen of traders and politicians who are just as truly your enemies as they are ours. In the end they will do most harm to you for we are by this vaccinated against misery but you are not, and the “loyalists” who sell their own country for a shilling will sell another country for a penny when the opportunity comes and safety with it.
Meanwhile do not always hasten your presents to us out of a gun. You have done it so often that your guns begin to bore us, and you have now an opportunity which may never occur again to make us your friends. There is no bitterness in Ireland against you on account of this war, and the lack of ill-feeling amongst us is entirely due to the more than admirable behaviour of the soldiers whom you sent over here. A peace that will last for ever can be made with Ireland if you wish to make it, but you must take her hand at once, for in a few months’ time she will not open it to you; the old, bad relations will re-commence, the rancor will be born and grow, and another memory will be stored away in Ireland’s capacious and retentive brain.
Dáil Eireann Debate on the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, signed in London on the 6th December 1921, ratified by the Dáil on the 7th January 1922, 64-57: Sessions 14th December 1921 to 10th January 1922.
Tuesday, the 3rd January, 1922:
MADAME MARKIEVICZ: […] And what do the Southern Unionists stand for? You will all allow they stand for two things. First and foremost as the people who, in Southern Ireland, have been the English garrison against Ireland and the rights of Ireland. But in Ireland they stand for something bigger still and worse, something more malignant; for that class of capitalists who have been more crushing, cruel and grinding on the people of the nation than any class of capitalists of whom I ever read in any other country, while the people were dying on the roadsides. They are the people who have combined together against the workers of Ireland, who have used the English soldiers, the English police, and every institution in the country to ruin the farmer, and more especially the small farmer, and to send the people of Ireland to drift in the emigrant ships and to die of horrible disease or to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic. And these anti-Irish Irishmen are to be given some select way of entering this House, some select privileges – privileges that they have earned by their cruelty to the Irish people and to the working classes of Ireland, and not only that, but they are to be consulted as to how the Upper House is to be constituted. As a Republican who means that the Republic means Government by the consent of the people [hear, hear]. I object to any Government of that sort whereby a privileged number of classes established here by British rule are to be given a say – to this small minority of traitors and oppressors – in the form of an Upper Chamber as against all, I might say, modern ideas of common sense, of the people who wish to build up a prosperous, contented nation. But looking as I do for the prosperity of the many, for the happiness and content of the workers, for what I stand, James Connolly’s ideal of a Workers’ Republic—
A DEPUTY: Soviet Republic.
MADAME MARKIEVICZ: —co-operative commonwealth, these men who have opposed everything are to be elected and upheld by our plenipotentiaries; and I suppose they are to be the Free State, or the Cheap State Army, or whatever selection these men are, to be set up to uphold English interests in Ireland, to uphold the capitalists’ interests in Ireland, to block every ideal that the nation may wish to formulate; to block the teaching of Irish, to block the education of the poorer classes; to block, in fact, every bit of progress that every man and woman in Ireland to-day amongst working people desire to see put into force. That is one of the biggest blots on this Treaty; this deliberate attempt to set up a privileged class in this, what they call a Free State, that is not free. I would like the people here who represent the workers to take that into consideration – to say to themselves what can the working people expect in an Ireland that is being run by men who, at the time of the Treaty, are willing to guarantee this sort of privilege to a class that every thinking man and woman in Ireland despises.
[…]
Now, personally, I being an honourable woman, would sooner die than give a declaration of fidelity to King George or the British Empire. I saw a picture the other day of India, Ireland and Egypt fighting England, and Ireland crawling out with her hands up. Do you like that? I don’t. Now, if we pledge ourselves to this oath we pledge our allegiance to this thing, whether you call it Empire or Commonwealth of Nations, that is treading down the people of Egypt and of India. And in Ireland this Treaty, as they call it, mar dheadh, that is to be ratified by a Home Rule Bill, binds us to stand by and enter no protest while England crushes Egypt and India. And mind you, England wants peace in Ireland to bring her troops over to India and Egypt. She wants the Republican Army to be turned into a Free State Army, and mind, the army is centred in the King or the representative of the King. He is the head of the army. The army is to hold itself faithful to the Commonwealth of Nations while the Commonwealth sends its Black-and-Tans to India. Of course you may want to send the Black-and-Tans out of this country. Now mind you, there are people in Ireland who were not afraid to face them before, and I believe would not be afraid to face them again. You are here labouring under a mistake if you believe that England, for the first time in her life, is treating you honourably. Now I believe, and we are against the Treaty believing, that England is being more dishonourable and acting in a cleverer way than she ever did before, because I believe we never sent cleverer men over than we sent this time, yet they have been tricked. Now you all know me, you know that my people came over here in Henry VIII.’s time, and by that bad black drop of English blood in me I know the English – that’s the truth. I say it is because of that black drop in me that I know the English personally better perhaps than the people who went over on the delegation. [Laughter].
A DEPUTY: Why didn’t you go over?
MADAME MARKIEVICZ: Why didn’t you send me? I tell you, don’t trust the English with gifts in their hands. That’s not original, someone said it before of the Greeks – but it is true. The English come to you to-day offering you great gifts; I tell you this, those gifts are not genuine. I tell you, you will come out of this a defeated nation. No one ever got the benefits of the promises the English made them. It seems absurd to talk to the Irish people about trusting the English, but you know how the O’Neills and the O’Donnells went over and always came back with the promises and guarantees that their lands would be left them and that their religion would not be touched. What is England’s record? It was self aggrandisement and Empire. You will notice how does she work – by a change of names. They subjugated Wales by giving them a Prince of Wales, and now they want to subjugate Ireland by a Free State Parliament and a Governor General at the head of it. I could tell you something about Governor-Generals and people of that sort. You can’t have a Governor-General without the Union Jack, and a suite, and general household and other sort of official running in a large way. The interests of England are the interests of the capitalistic class. Your Governor-General is the centre for your Southern Unionists, for whom Mr. Griffith has been so obliging. He is the centre from which the anti-Irish ideals will go through Ireland, and English ideals will come: love of luxury, love of wealth, love of competition, trample on your neighbours to get to the top, immorality and divorce laws of the English nation. All these things you will find centred in this Governor-General. I heard there was a suggestion – there was a brother of the King’s or the Queen’s suggested as Governor-General, and I heard also that this Lascelles was going to be Governor. I also heard that there is a suggestion that Princess Mary’s wedding is to be broken off, and that the Princess Mary is to be married to Michael Collins who will be appointed first Governor of our Saorstát na hEirennn. All these are mere nonsense. You will find that the English people, the rank and file of the common people will all take it that we are entering their Empire and that we are going to help them. All the people who are in favour of it here claim it to be a step towards Irish freedom, claim it to be nothing but allegiance to the Free State. Now what will the world think of it? What the world thinks of it is this: Ireland has long been held up to the scorn of the world through the British Press. According to that Press Ireland is a nation that lay down, that never protested. The people in other countries have scorned us. So Ireland can bear to be scorned again, even if she takes the oath that pledges her support to the Commonwealth of Nations. But I say, what do Irishmen think in their own hearts? Can any Irishman take that oath honourably and then go back and prepare to fight for an Irish Republic or even to work for the Republic? It is like a person going to get married plotting a divorce. I would make a Treaty with England once Ireland was free, and I would stand with President de Valera in this, that if Ireland were a free Republic I would welcome the King of England over here on a visit. But while Ireland is not free I remain a rebel unconverted and unconvertible. There is no word strong enough for it. I am pledged as a rebel, an unconvertible rebel, because I am pledged to the one thing – a free and independent Republic. Now we have been sneered at for being Republicans by even men who fought for the Republic. We have been told that we didn’t know what we meant. Now I know what I mean – a state run by the Irish people for the people. That means a Government that looks after the rights of the people before the rights of property. And I don’t wish under the Saorstát to anticipate that the directors of this and the capitalists’ interests are to be at the head of it. My idea is the Workers’ Republic for which Connolly died. And I say that that is one of the things that England wishes to prevent. She would sooner give us Home Rule than a democratic Republic. It is the capitalists’ interests in England and Ireland that are pushing this Treaty to block the march of the working people in England and Ireland. Now, we were offered a Treaty in the first place because England was in a tight place. She wanted her troops for more dirty work elsewhere. Because Dáil Eireann was too democratic, because her Law courts were too just, because the will of the people was being done, and justice was being done, and the well being of the people was considered, the whole people were behind us. You talk very glibly about England evacuating the country. Has anybody questioned that? How long did it take her to evacuate Egypt? What guarantee have we that England will do more than begin to evacuate Ireland directly the Treaty has been ratified? She will begin to evacuate, I have no doubt; she will send a certain number of troops to her other war fronts. Now there is one Deputy – not more than one, I hope – who charged that we rattled the bones of the dead. I must protest about the phrase of rattling the bones of our dead. Now I would like to ask where would Ireland stand without the noble dead? I would like to ask can any of you remember, as I can, the first time you read Robert Emmet’s speech from the dock? Yes, it is all very well for those who now talk Dominion Home Rule to try to be scornful of the phrases – voices of men from the grave, who call on us to die for the cause they died for. I don’t think it is fair to say what dead men might say if they had been here to-day. What I do think fair is to read the messages they left behind them, and to mould our lives with them. James Connolly said, the last time I heard him speak – he spoke to me and to others – a few phrases that very much sum up the situation to-day. It was just before Easter Week in 1916. We had heard the news that certain people had called off the Rising. One man wishing to excuse them, to exonerate them, said: ‘So and so does not care to take the responsibility of letting people go to their death when there is so little chance of victory’. ‘Oh’, said Connolly, ‘there is only one sort of responsibility I am afraid of and that is preventing the men and women of Ireland fighting and dying for Ireland if they are so minded’. That was almost the last word that was said to me by a man who died for Ireland, a man who was my Commandant, and I have always thought of that since, and I have always felt that was a message which I had to deliver to the people of Ireland. We hear a great deal of the renewal of warfare. I am of quite a pacific mind. I don’t like to kill. I don’t like death, but I am not afraid to die and, not being afraid to die myself, I don’t see why I should say that I should take it for granted that the Irish people were not as ready to die now in this year 1922, any more than they were afraid in the past. I fear dishonour; I don’t fear destiny and I feel at all events that death is preferable to dishonour, and sooner than see the people of Ireland take that oath meaning to build up your Republic on a lie, I would sooner say to the people of Ireland: ‘Stand by me and fight to the death’. I think that a real Treaty between a free Ireland and a free England – with Ireland standing as a free sovereign state – I believe it would be possible to get that now; but even if it were impossible, I myself would stand for what is noblest and what is truest. That is the thing that to me I can grasp in my nature. I have seen the stars, and I am not going to follow a flickering will-o’-the-wisp, and I am not going to follow any person juggling with constitutions and introducing petty tricky ways into this Republican movement which we built up – you and not I – because I have been in jail. It has been built up and are we now going back to this tricky Parliamentarianism, because I tell you this document is nothing else. Pierce Beasley gave us to understand that this is the beginning of something great and that Ireland is struggling to be born. I say that the new Ireland was born in Easter Week, 1916, that Ireland is not struggling to be born. I say that the Irish language has begun to grow, that we are pushing it in the schools, and I don’t see that giving up our rights, that going into the British Empire is going to help. In any case the thing is not what you might call a practical thing. It won’t help our commerce, but it is not that; we are idealists believing in and loving Ireland, and I believe that Ireland held by the Black-and-Tans did more for Ireland than Ireland held by Parliamentarianism – the road that meant commercial success for those who took it and, meaning other things, meant prestige for those who took it. But there is the other stony road that leads to ultimate freedom and the regeneration of Ireland; the road that so many of our heroes walked and I, for one will stand on the road with Terence MacSwiney and Kevin Barry and the men of Easter Week. I know the brave soldiers of Ireland will stand there, and I stand humbly behind them, men who have given themselves for Ireland, and I will devote to it the same amount that is left to me of energy and life; and I stand here to-day to make the last protest, for we only speak but once, and to ask you read most carefully, not to take everything for granted, and to realise above all that you strive for one thing, your allegiance to the men who have fought and died. But look at the results. Look at what we gain. We gained more in those few years of fighting than we gained by parliamentary agitation since the days of O’Connell. O’Connell said that Ireland’s freedom was not worth a drop of blood. Now I say that Ireland’s freedom is worth blood, and worth my blood, and I will willingly give it for it, and I appeal to the men of the Dáil to stand true. They ought to stand true and remember what God has put into your hearts and not to be led astray by phantasmagoria. Stand true to Ireland, stand true to your oaths, and put a little trust in God.