CUIR: put, send

Cuirim, vl. cur (smt. cuir), v. tr. and intr., I put, place, fix, set; plant, sow, bury; shed; send; cause or arrange (to have done, get done); chuir sé a chor i dtalamh, he got a good foothold, took up a firm attitude; cuirfir-se Tadhg, you will outlive (lit. bury) T.; c. péire bróg dá ndéanamh dam féin, I get a pair of boots made for myself: c. biadh dá thabhairt dhó, I have him served with food; chireas mo bhláth, I have wasted my substance; is olc a chireas mo chlann inghean (mo chuid airgid), I have ill-disposed of my daughters (my money); chuiris é! well placed (or put), often iron.; with nouns: c fuil, allus, fearthainn, sneachta, sioc, cloichshneachta, cfudh, faobhar, lorg, boladh, geall, cath, a n-ár, I bleed, perspire, rain, snow, freeze, hail, shoe a horse, sharpen, track, scent, wager, do battle, slaughter them; c. bun, I inquire, find out (Con.) with adverbs: c. a-bhaile, amach, suas, síos, isteach, I send or drive home (as an argument), eject or put forth, set up or build, pull down (al. anuas acc. to context) or set down (in writing or argument) or lay down (as law) I stave or push in or insert; c. suas baidhte, I bait a line; c. suas le, I tolerate; c. suas ar, I prevent; c. duine amach ar chluiche, I defeat a person at a game (Con.); with prepositions: c. le, I send by, charge or impute to, unite, add to, exaggerate, prop up, co-operate with, contend with, place against, abandon to, send to (a trade or profession); c. le dochtúireacht é, I send him to become a doctor; c. taca le, I place a prop against; c. cúl le, I contradict, turn my back on; ní ’gá chur leis é, not charging him with it; with ar: c. ar, I impose as an injunction on, ascribe to, accost, challenge, play on, overbear, interrupt, annoy (gnly., c. isteach ar); c. ort! I challenge you! leigim leat! done! cuireann mo chroidhe orm, my heart gives me trouble; with ar and noun: c. ar bun, siubhal, snámh, cíos, cáirde, ath-lá, crith, neamh-nídh, aghaidh, &c., &c., I establish, set going, launch, let (a house), postpone, id., set atremble, abolish, forward, etc., etc.: with noun and ar: c. (an) dligheadh, lorg, fios, comaoin, eagla, misneach, éagcóir, leigheas, cathughadh, moill, geara, &c., &c., ar, I proceed against, send in search of send for, benefit or oblige, fighten, encourage, wrong, cure or treat, challenge or tempt, delay, enjoin upon, etc. etc.; chuir sé nósa agus reachta agus athchóirighthe ar na h-easbhadhaibh, he drew up customs, laws, and reformations to meet these needs; with de, noun and ar: c. d’fhiachaibh, d’ualach, d’oibliogáid, de chúram, de bhreith, de choingheall, &rl., ar, I order, impose as a duty, as an obligation, as a charge, as a judgment or forfeit, condtion on, etc.; with iar (ar), c. ar gchúl, I put back, postpone, neutralise, reduce (as an abscess); with thar, c. tharm, I pass from, ignore, put round me, put over me (of time); cuir do lámh tharm, embrace me; with ó, c. uaim, I put away, give up; chuir sé litir uaidh, he sent a letter; bhi sé ag cur uaidh, he was in a state of terror, relaxing, exuding; c. ó oidhreacht, I disinherit; c. ó chóta, I unfrock; c. ó chion, I seriously injure; c. ó rath, id.; c. ó theist, I put out of court, discredit (F. F.); with ag: c. agam, I emit, utter; chuireadh sé agam, he used to attack me (Con.); chuir sé an madradh agam, he set the dog at me; chuir sé an gadhar liom, id.; with noun: c. liúgh, fead, geoin, scread, &rl, agam, I emit a shout, whistle, yell, scream, etc.; c. as ionad, áit, as a thalamh é, ag a riocht é, I dislocate, displace, evict him, distort it; ná bí ag cur ag dam, do not be upsetting me; cad tá ag cur ag dó? what ails him? with i and noun: c. i n-iúl (umhail), i dtuiscint (dtuigsint) do, I inform; c. i gcéill do, id., al. I pretend to; c. i gcár, I take as an instance; c. igcóir, i bhfearas, i ngléas, i n-oireamhaint, i bhfuirm &rl., I make ready, gear up, etc.; c. i leith, i dtairce, i n-iongantas, i bhfeidhm, i gcontabhairt, i n-éag, i ngníomh, I impute to, store up, wonder at, use or execute (as a decree, etc.), doubt or endanger, extinguish, relinquish (as a habit) practise, carry out; c. i suim, I take notice of; c. i neamh-shuim, I slight, take no notice of; c. i ndímbrígh, id.; c. grian i slánadh fá, I call the sun to witness regarding; c. i bhfaoistin, I tell in confession, confess; c. i gceann, I add to; with noun and i: c. spéis (suim) dúil, cearbh, sonnradh, contabhairt, i, &rl., I take interest in, desire, covet, notice, doubt, etc.; with tré, I mix: c. ola tríd, I mix oil with it; c. tré chéile iad, I confuse or mix them; with fá, I incite; c. fúm, I settle down, squat; with fá and noun, I bind, restrain, etc.; c. fá gheasaibh iad, I bind them (with taboos); c. fá smacht iad, I reduce them to discipline; c. duine fá choimirce, I place one nder the protection of; c. fá deara dhó, I compel or order him; c. fá bhreitheamhnas aithrighe, I enjoin as a penance upon; with noun and fá, I apply (as binding, grease, ointment, motion) to:; with de: c. díom, I disrobe, doff, shed, cease using, hearing, etc., pressed, pass my days; c. an cnoc aníos díom, I go up the hill; cionnas taoi ag cur díot? how are you geting on? cuir díot! give over! be off! bí ag cur díot! be off! bhí sé ag cur alluis um, he was sweating profusely; with um: c umam, I don; cuir umat! dress! c. suas de, I give up or cease; with roimh: c. sómhamI propose for myself, decide, underake, put in front of myself; with chum, I set about: ch. chum bóthair, I set off; c. chum siubhail, I send off or dimsiss; c. chum cíosa, I set at a rent; c. chugham, I appropriate, put in my breast, pocket, etc.; c. siopa chugham, I open a shop; c. buidheach, I please, make thankful (poet.).

—Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla, 1927, by Patrick Dinneen

Also see entry at: Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill, as well as: cuir amach, cuir aníos, cuir anuas, cuir ar, cuir as, cuir chuig, cuir de, cuir do, cuir faoi, cuir i, cuir isteach, cuir le, cuir ó, cuir roimh, cuir siar, cuir síos, cuir suas, cuir thar, cuir thart, cuir trí, and cuir um.

See also: Cuir & Bain.

Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington’s Statement: Her Husband’s Last Hours

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.

HOUSE SURROUNDED.

On Friday night, April 28, a large military force surrounded my husband’s house at 11 Grosvenor place, fired without warning on the windows in front, which they burst through without waiting for the door to be opened. They put myself, my son, aged seven, to whom they shouted “Hands up!” and my maid (the sole occupants) under arrest, and remained in the house for over three hours. They found no ammunition of any kind, but burst locks, etc., and took away with them a large number of documents, newspapers, letters, and books, as well as various persona! property, such as linen, tablecloths, trunks, photograph of Mr. Keir Hardie and M. Davitt, a picture of the Kilmainham prisoners of 1882, a green flag, etc. Most of the books taken were German and Irish books (grammars, school texts, etc.) relating to my work as teacher of modern languages and to my husband’s journalistic work. One officer remarked that this was not a “very exciting search.”

On Monday, May 1, during my absence, the soldiers again entered the house and searched it, and took prisoner Margaret Farrelly (the only then occupant), a temporary maid whom I had engaged, my former maid having teen too terrified to stay. She was detained in custody until the following Saturday (May 6) in the Rathmines Police Station, and kept there in custody without the knowledge of her friends, without any charge being made against her. Finally, the authorities in Dublin Castle allowed her to be released, but without apology or compensation.

I demand the fullest inquiry into all the above circumstances, and desire, as my husband’s next-of-kin, to be legally represented at any inquiry that may take place.

(Signed) Hanna Sheehy Skeffington.
May 9. 1916.

PS.—Since the above was written my husband’s body was dug up from Portobello Barracks and transferred to Glasnevin Cemetery, again without my knowledge.

The following are details of his last hours that have reached me through various private sources:

He refused to be blindfolded, and met death with a smile on his lips, saying before he died that the authorities would find out after his death what a mistake they made. He put his hand to his eyes, and the bullet passed through his hand to his brain.

THE POSTER.

The poster referred to above and distributed in the city on Tuesday, April 25, when the police were cleared off the streets, is as follows:—

“When there are no regular police in the streets it becomes the duty of the citizens to police the streets themselves to prevent such spasmodic looting as has taken place.

“Civilians (both men and women) who are willing to co-operate to this end are asked to attend at Westmoreland Chambers (over Eden Bros.) at five o’clock on this (Tuesday) afternoon.

“Francis Sheehy Skeffington.”

—Sinn Féin Rebellion Handbook, 1917, Weekly Irish Times
(The report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry, Four Courts, Dublin, Wednesday, 23rd August, to Thursday, 31st August, 1916, into the circumstances connected with the shooting of Francis Sheehy Skeffington, Thomas Dickson, and Patrick J. Maclntyre, on 25th April, 1916, at Portobello Barracks, is reproduced in pages 206-224 of the Handbook.)

Speech at the Grave of O’Donovan Rossa

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.

James Joyce Encounters Before and With the 1916 Uprising in Ireland

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.)

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Mr Deasy drives away Stephen Dedalus, who was leaving anyway (end of chapter 2, Ulysses):

He went out by the open porch and down the gravel path under the trees, hearing the cries of voices and crack of sticks from the playfield. The lions couchant on the pillars as he passed out through the gate; toothless terrors. Still I will help him in his fight. Mulligan will dub me a new name: the bullockbefriending bard.

—Mr Dedalus!

Running after me. No more letters, I hope.

—Just one moment.

—Yes, sir, Stephen said, turning back at the gate.

Mr Deasy halted, breathing hard and swallowing his breath.

—I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that? No. And do you know why?

He frowned sternly on the bright air.

—Why, sir, Stephen asked, beginning to smile.

—Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly.

A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, his lifted arms waving to the air.

—She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That's why.

On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins.

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The citizen drives away Leopold Bloom, who was leaving anyway (end of chapter 12, Ulysses):

Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.

—By Jesus, says he, I’ll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy name. By Jesus, I’ll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.

—Stop! stop! says Joe.

[...]

Gob, the devil wouldn’t stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play, in the Queen’s royal theatre.

—Where is he till I murder him?

And Ned and J. G. paralysed with the laughing.

—Bloody wars, says I, I’ll be in for the last gospel.

But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag’s head round the other way and off with him.

—Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop!

Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the sun was in his eyes or he’d have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent it into the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting and laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street.

[...]

—Did I kill him, says he, or what?

And he shouting to the bloody dog:

—After him, Garry! After him, boy!

And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb. Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise you.

When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment as of the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not look upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling : Elijah! Elijah! And He answered with a main cry : Abba! Adonai! And they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over Donohoe’s in Little Green Street like a shot off a shovel.

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Archdruid Berkeley rages against Saint Patrick, who, with the magic of the triune shamrock, transforms shit into the sun of a new day for Ireland (in last chapter (17) of Finnegans Wake):

That was thing, bygotter, the thing, bogcotton, the very thing, begad! Even to uptoputty Bilkilly-Belkelly-Balkally. Who was for shouting down the shatton on the lamp of Jeeshees. Sweating on to stonker and throw his seven. As he shuck his thumping fore features apt the hoyhop of His Ards.

Thud.

Good safe firelamp! hailed the heliots. Goldselforelump! Halled they. Awed. Where thereon the skyfold high, trampatrampatramp. Adie. Per ye comdoom doominoom noonstroom. Yeasome priestomes. Fullyhum toowhoom.

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Patrick Pearse on education (“The Murder Machine”, 1913):

It seems to me that there has been nothing nobler in the history of education than this development of the old Irish plan of fosterage under a Christian rule, when to the pagan ideals of strength and truth there were added the Christian ideals of love and humility. And this, remember, was not the education system of an aristocracy, but the education system of a people. It was more democratic than any education system in the world to-day. Our very divisions into primary, secondary, and university crystallise a snobbishness partly intellectual and partly social.

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Proclamation of the Irish Republic (Easter Monday, 1916, assumed to be mostly written by Patrick Pearse)

In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty: six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the faces of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

... the Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its reolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

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The sun of a new day is proclaimed, to awaken Dublin (start of last chapter of Finnegans Wake):

Sandhyas! Sandhyas! Sandhyas!

Calling all downs. Calling all downs to dayne. Array! Surrection! Eireweeker to the wohld bludyn world. O rally, O rally, O rally! Phlenxty, O rally! ... Sonne feine, somme feehn avaunt! ...

The eversower of the seeds of light to the cowld owld sowls that are in the domnatory of Defmut after the night of the carrying of the word of Nuahs and the night of making Mehs to cuddle up in a coddlepot, Pu Nuseht, lord of risings in the yonderworld of Ntamplin, tohp triumphant, speaketh.

... Arcthuris comeing! ... As of yours. We annew. ... A flasch and, rasch, it shall come to pasch, as hearth by hearth leaps live. ... It's a long long ray to Newirgland's premier. ...

Oyes! Oyeses! Oyesesyeses! The primace of the Gaulls, protonotorious, I yam as I yam, mitrogenerand in the free state on the air, is now aboil to blow a Gael warning. Inoperation Eyrlands Eyot, Meganesia, Habitant and the onebut thousand insels, Western and Osthern Approaches.

... Into the wikeawades warld from sleep we are passing.

Muta: So that when we shall have acquired unification we shall pass on to diversity and when we shall have passed on the diversity we shall have acquired the instinct of combat and when we shall have acquired the instinct of combat we shall pass back to the spirit of appeasement?

Juva: By the light of the bright reason which daysends to us from the high.

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The river Liffey flows out past Dublin rising (end of Finnegans Wake):

Rise up, man of the hooths, you have slept so long! ... You were pleased as Punch, recitating war exploits and pearse orations to them jackeen gapers. ... It’s Phoenix, dear. And the flame is, hear! ... Come! Step out of your shell! Hold up you free fing! ... You invoiced him last Eatster so he ought to give us hockockles and everything. Every letter is hard but yours sure is the hardest crux ever. ... But once done, dealt and delivered, tattat, you’re on the map. ... So content me now. Lss. Unbuild and be buildn our bankaloan cottage there and we’ll cohabit respectable. ... For the loves of sinfintins! ... Why I’m all these years within years in soffran, allbeleaved. To hide away the tear, the parted. It’s thinking of all. The brave that gave their. The fair that wore. All them that’s gunne. I’ll begin again in a jiffey. The nik of a nad. How glad you’ll be I waked you! my! How well you’ll feel! For ever after. First we turn by the vagurin here and then it’s gooder. So side by side, turn agate, weddingtown, laud men of Londub! I only hope whole the heavens sees us. ... Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given!

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James Connolly, Workers’ Republic, 8 April 1916:

In these days of doubt, despair, and resurgent hope we fling our banner to the breeze, the flag of our fathers, the symbol of our national redemption, the sunburst shining over an Ireland re-born.

Why the Insurrection Happened

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.

CAITH: wear, wear out, consume, use up, spend, throw …

From Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla, 1927, by Patrick Dinneen:

Caithim, -theamh, caitheachtain, caith (Inishm.). p.a. caithte, v. tr. and intr., I pass (as a day, my life, a place, etc.), practice, make a custom of; use (as tobacco, etc.); wear (as clothes, etc.); carry (as a stick, etc.); consume, waste, wear away; spend; eat, drink; take part in (as a festival, etc.); I shed; I throw, hurl fling, cast; shoot (U., Con.); ó chaith an long an t-oileán, as soon as the ship cleared the island (Aran); tá sé ag caitheamh na hochtmhadh bliadhna, he is in his eighth year; c. mé féir suas ar, I throw myself on the mercy of; c. Corp Chríost, I receive Holy Communion (F. F.); c. as mo cheann, I give up thinking about; c. tharam, I throw away, give up (Conem.); c. uaim (M.), id.; caith tharad an caoineadh, give up lamenting; c. le, I behave towards (M. B.); mar caitheadh leo, how they were treated (id.); chaith an obair bliadhain ar bun (ar siubhal, &c.), the work lasted a year (Con. M. B., etc.); c. éadach, I wear clothes; c. biadh, I take food; c. mo shaoghal, lá, aimsear, I pass my life, a day, time, etc.; c. airgead, I spend money; I give premature or still-born birth to; c. gamhain, I give birth to a still-born calf; chaith sí leanbh mic, she gave birth to a still-born boy; c. amach, I throw out, evict; I throw out of the mouth; c. suas, I throw up, I vomit, al. I estimate, tot up, calculate; caithim cloch, &c., le, I hurl a stone, etc., at; caithimís uainn é, let us change the subject of conversation (see under cleamhnas); nár chathair do ghol, may you never cease crying; c. ciall le, I deal sensibly with; c. tuairimí, I advance opinions, guesses, etc.; c., id.; c. focal, cainnt, &c., I speak a word, a speech, etc.; I must, I am obliged to; c. bheith im shuidhe go moch, I am obliged habitually to be up early (more common in future than in present); caithfidh sé gur, &c., it must be that, etc. (Con.).

From Foclóir Scoile, 1998, An Gúm:

caith kah vt & i wear (out), consume, spend; throw, cast, shoot, píopa a chaitheamh to smoke a pipe, tá na blianta á gcaitheamh the years are passing, chaith sibh go maith liom you entertained me well, bhí sí ag ~eamh i ndiaidh an linbh she was pining for the child, léim a chaitheamh to take a jump, ag ~eamh ó thuaidh drifting north, tá an aíll ag ~eamh amach the cliff is overhanging, ag ~eamh anuas ar dhuine belittling a person, ~fidh mé imeach I must go

Also see entry at: Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill

Constans de Markievics against the ‘treaty’

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.

Ireland’s so-called treaty with England, patriotic recitation by Countess Markiewicz


Ireland’s dead leaders, patriotic recitation by Countess Markiewicz