Another point is worth noting in this connection, and that was the growing power, first of the Coalition and then of the Unionist clique who were capturing it. Thus says Mr. Birrell:—
"The Coalition Government, with Sir Edward Carson in it—it is impossible to describe or overestimate the effect of this in Ireland. The fact that Mr. Redmond could, had he chosen to do so, have sat in the same Cabinet with Sir Edward Carson had no mollifying influence. If Mr. Redmond had consented, he would, on the instant, have ceased to be an Irish leader. This step seemed to make an end of Home Rule, and strengthened the Sinn Feiners enormously all over the country."
A general desire for peace and a sort of Socialistic feeling of brotherhood, I should say, were two further contributory causes.
"The prolongation of the war and its dubious end," as Mr. Birrell observed, "turned many heads. Criticism was not of the optimistic type prevalent in Britain, andconsequently, when every event had been thoroughly weighed, there was always a chance of Germany lending a hand."
As to the general attitude of Sinn Fein and Larkinite Ireland, it might be described as one of benevolent neutrality where, as in many cases, it was not one of actual hostility.
True, recruiting figures had reached a total quite unprecedented in Irish history (150,000), and loyalty had received an official stimulus when the Irish leader and the Lord-Lieutenant toured the provinces together; but this was discounted in the country districts by the deliberate plans of the Sinn Feiners, and in the towns, or rather in Dublin, by a sense of the futility of all war, and in particular this war, whose aims were vague enough to the statesmen, and appeared almost illusory to the worker. Hence anyone reading theWorkers Republiccould have noticed whole passages that might have been taken direct from the German Socialist Liebknecht.
One very significant leader (Saturday, February 5, 1916) on "The Ties that Bind" is well worth quoting in parts as an example of this feeling:—
"Recently we have been pondering deeply over the ties that bind this country to England. It is not a new theme for our thoughts; for long years we have carried on propaganda in Ireland, pointing out how the strings of self-interest bound the capitalist and landlord classes to the Empire, and how it thus became a waste of time to appeal to those classes in the name of Irish patriotism.
"We have said that the working class was the only class to whom the word 'Empire,' and the things of which it was the symbol, did not appeal; that to the propertied classes 'Empire' meant high dividends and financial security, whereas to the working class that meant only the things it was in rebellion against.
"Therefore from the intelligent working class could alone come the revolutionary impulse.
"Recently we have seen the spread of those ties of self-interest binding certain classes and individuals to the Empire—we have seen it spread to a most astonishingdegree until its ramifications cover the island, like the spread of a foul disease.
"It would be almost impossible to name a single class or section of the population not evilly affected by this social, political, and moral leprosy....
"For the sake of £400 a year our parliamentary representatives become Imperialists; for the sake of large travelling expenses and luxurious living they become lying recruiters....
"There is nobody in a representative position so mean that the British Government will not pay some price for his Irish soul. Newspaper men sell their Irish souls for Government advertisements paid for at a lavish rate. Professors sell their souls for salaries and expenses, clergymen sell theirs for jobs for their relatives, business men sell their souls and become recruiters lest they lose the custom of Government officials. In all the grades of Irish society the only section that has not furnished even one apostate to the cause it had worked for in times of peace is that of the much hated and traduced militant labour leaders.
"But if the militant labour leaders of Ireland have not apostatized, the same cannot be said of the working class as a whole....
"Perhaps some day the same evil passions the enemy has stirred up in so many of our Irish people will play havoc with his own hopes, and make more bitter and deadly the cup of his degradation and defeat.
"But deep in the heart of Ireland has sunk the sense of the degradation wrought upon its people—our lost brothers and sisters—so deep and humiliating that no agency less potent than the red tide of war on Irish soil will ever be able to enable the Irish race to recover its self-respect, or establish its national dignity in the face of a world horrified and scandalized by what must seem to them our national apostasy."
Now the strange thing about Ireland is her definition of "loyalty." It is not with her a species of sentimental altruism but a plain, business-like, common-sense view of her own interests, and nothing can make her change thatview, for she has through centuries of disillusionment become chronically suspicious.
"I dare say I don't take the same view as you would were you in my place," wrote Mr. Birrell to the Prime Minister on January 25th. "Loyalty in Ireland is of slow growth, and the soil is uncongenial. The plant grows slowly. Landlords, grand juries, loyalist magistrates, have all gone; yet the plant grows, though slowly."
Her patriotism, on the other hand, is almost necessarily a matter of internal administration; and for this she fights with all the spirit that animated her in the past against Dane and Saxon. Hence it is quite easy for an economic grievance at once to assume the proportions of a national movement, and once it becomes resisted as such, the spirit of nationality becomes rekindled again, and it was this latter that prompted the final efforts in the evolution of the Republic.
America and Germany both contributed to intensify the spirit of nationality and gave material assistance that made the attempt at "Separatism" a practicable ideal, but it was only made possible because of the internal troubles in Ireland herself.
So long as a constitutional outlet is not afforded for such grievances, so long must unconstitutional means be appealed to; but the question which the breakdown of the old regime suggests seriously to all thinkers is whether there are not ample means within the Constitution, and I think it is the universal opinion of the more moderate that there is; and it is just these moderates whose views will be the more welcome because of the failure not merely of the Sinn Feiners to establish a Republic, but of Sir Edward Carson and John Redmond to come to an understanding that would have placed them in a position to have controlled it in time, and, which is more important still, to be able to deal with any repetition of a similar character in the future.
Probably no analysis of the remoter causes of the rebellion, however, is more accurate than the psychological origin given by George Bernard Shaw in a letter to theDaily Newson May 10th.
"The relation of Ireland to Dublin Castle is in thisrespect precisely that of the Balkan States to Turkey, of Belgium or the city of Lille to the Kaiser, and of the United States to Great Britain.
"Until Dublin Castle is superseded by a National Parliament and Ireland voluntarily incorporated with the British Empire, as Canada, Australasia, and South Africa have been incorporated, an Irishman resorting to arms to achieve the independence of his country is doing only what Englishmen will do if it be their misfortune to be invaded and conquered by the Germans in the course of the present war. Further, such an Irishman is as much in order morally in accepting assistance from the Germans in this struggle with England as England is in accepting the assistance of Russia in her struggle with Germany. The fact that he knows that his enemies will not respect his rights if they catch him, and that he must, therefore, fight with a rope round his neck, increases his risk, but adds in the same measure to his glory in the eyes of his compatriots and of the disinterested admirers of patriotism throughout the world. It is absolutely impossible to slaughter a man in this position without making him a martyr and a hero, even though the day before the rising he may have been only a minor poet. The shot Irishmen will now take their places beside Emmet and the Manchester Martyrs in Ireland, and beside the heroes or Poland and Serbia and Belgium in Europe; and nothing in heaven or on earth can prevent it."
FOOTNOTE:[3]I give the well-known letter in its entirety, but I cannot vouch for such passages, and I know that in many cases officers were particularly distressed at having to fight Irishmen instead of Germans.
[3]I give the well-known letter in its entirety, but I cannot vouch for such passages, and I know that in many cases officers were particularly distressed at having to fight Irishmen instead of Germans.
[3]I give the well-known letter in its entirety, but I cannot vouch for such passages, and I know that in many cases officers were particularly distressed at having to fight Irishmen instead of Germans.
One of the most gratifying things about the terrible catastrophe through which we have been passing during the last few weeks is the spirit of hope which has taken the place of the spirit of despair which immediately followed the outbreak.
Ireland has ever been more of a problem suited to statesmen than to soldiers; indeed, the soldier has more often than not come in to spoil the work of the statesman, and Mr. Asquith's hurried visit to Dublin, Cork, and Belfast after John Dillon's speech was chiefly undertaken in order to prevent any repetition of the old mistake.
The need for conciliation, everybody will admit, was exceedingly urgent, for it was the admitted intention of the Sinn Feiners to put the matter to the test as to whether England held Ireland by her own free constitutional consent, or whether it was merely a permanent military occupation, like Belgium and Poland. "England is not the champion of small nations," they said. "She never was and never will be, and while she is masquerading before the world as such it is our intention, in Ireland's name, to give her the lie—yes, even though it be in our own blood."
Indeed, as I have already said, there appears to have been a belief among the Sinn Feiners that if only they could hold the capital for twelve days by force of arms they would have a sort of claim to be mentioned at the Peace Conference along with Poland and Belgium.
Now, it matters very little whether such a suggestion came from Berlin or Washington, or whether the whole thing was a fable, for the grand fact remains that Englandnow stands before Europe with the point of Ireland's loyalty openly questioned, and she has only two courses open: she must either neglect Irish opinion and proclaim that she holds the sister isle by right of conquest—when, of course, the fate of Belgium is sealed as far as England's ethical pleading is concerned—or she may make such a final compact with Ireland that she can afterwards maintain before the whole world, without fear of contradiction, that Ireland is freely one with England without the help of a single soldier.
It's really more important than winning the war, if Englishmen could only realize it—for the psychology of Ireland is the psychology of every one of the constituent nations of our common Empire; and the late Mr. Stead used to say to me, "A blunder in Irish government is a blunder in Imperial government"; but I never realized this so much as when I learnt with what an intense interest the Indian students present in Dublin had followed the whole case.
When the Irish leader, therefore, in the acuteness of the moment expressed the hope that no party would be allowed to make capital out of the event, he expressed a hope which was re-echoed in every Irish breast; but it would have been far more effective if he had instead expressed the hope that each party should bear its proper share in the guilt of the catastrophe.
For the danger is the making of the Sinn Feiners into a national scapegoat for the faults of all.
For in a sense all were responsible. True, neither Redmondites nor Carsonites took any part in it—and it is very lucky they did not, for it would have meant civil war and fearful bloodshed from one end of the country to the other—but in neither case was it out of any love for England, for both of them fully realized that they might have been in the position of the Sinn Feiners themselves, and both were equally determined to rid Ireland of English meddlers.
It might almost be called a "tragedy of errors," for there was nothing but blundering all round. England should never have allowed Carson to arm, nor should Redmond have followed suit if he wished to play the constitutionalgame to the end; but once both had appealed to the principle of physical force, neither had a right to censure the methods of a third party which had arisen out of their own incapacity to keep the country in hand.
England was in principle perfectly justified in employing force against the whole three of them, and hastened to take full advantage of the situation by handing the reins of government over to the military—but that was the greatest blunder of the lot.
For there can be no doubt that to the rank and file of the Sinn Feiners, as to the rank and file of the Orangemen, physical force was not an end in itself: it was only the protest of conscientious objectors which was being lashed into activity under continual provocation—the provocation of being threatened with the loss of everything they held most dear in life, and eminently admired by Englishmen for that very fact.
Normally Sinn Feiners and Orangemen were men of peace, the one economists, the other business men, who might indeed have been easily pacified had they been openly and sympathetically treated with, instead of being galled into fury by the taunt of bluff or cowardice, and such epithets as insignificant, negligible minorities.
In an orgy of majority government both stood out for the sanctity of minorities, especially when those minorities represented inviolable principles of vital import to the majority.
It was the method of suppression that really did most of the mischief, for in addition to casualties and damages there was also considerable distress, and it at once became necessary to organize a system of food distribution and relief for the sufferers.
This was largely undertaken by the St. Vincent de Paul Society, under Sir Henry Robinson, Vice-President of the Local Government Board, and with the help of the military authorities, who lent motor-lorries and money, food was distributed to over one hundred thousand persons.
House-to-house visitations were made, and these revealed all forms of distress, from lack of food, which, of course, it had been impossible to obtain as long as the city was in a state of siege, down to absolute ruination of whole families.
In places the city looked like Antwerp during the siege, or London upon the arrival of the Belgian refugees.
No one has yet been able to estimate the full extent of the material damage sustained by the reckless bombardment of the city—for no other word can be used; and though Captain Purcell, the chief of the Dublin Fire Brigade, gave the rough figure of £2,500,000, this must be taken as a mere minimum of the extent covered by the conflagrations.
It cannot represent the loss of business, employment, goodwill, trade, and the thousand and one other losses inseparable from such a catastrophe.
Take, for example, the loss of the Royal Hibernian Academy, with thousands of pounds of pictures. No price can repay these, for they represented perhaps the culminating point, or at least the turning point, in careers which had had years of hard struggles, and which had set perhaps a lifetime's hopes upon a single canvas.
From all accounts, too, it was the merest chance that the whole northern portion of the town did not fall a victim to the devouring flames, and it is hard to understand the psychology of the military mind which could risk even the mere possibility of such an event, as it is hard to understand why the firemen were fired on by the rebels when trying to extinguish the flames.
The hardest part of it all was, moreover, that the blow fell almost entirely upon the shoulders of the innocent, viz. the merchants, tradesmen, shopkeepers, and employees, who were thus ruined at a single stroke within the space of a few hours without even a chance of a protest.
People began to ask seriously whether it had really been necessary at all, and the verdict was not always complimentary to the authorities. Mr. Healy raised the question in the House whether any such measures had ever been really necessary, considering that the rebels held such few positions, and these could have been isolated by the municipal water supply being cut off. It certainly seems plausible that some less brutal methods could have been adopted, considering the way Cork was saved from a similar catastrophe by the tact of the clergy, who would only have been toowilling, and undoubtedly would have had the power, to act as mediators between the rebels and military in the name of the civil authorities and in the interests of the inhabitants principally and Ireland generally.
A very cute suggestion I heard from Mr. George Atkinson, the well-known Dublin artist, as we were preparing the cover of the present volume in his studio, struck me as particularly plausible.
"As long as the rebels were in their strongholds untouched," he said, "they were practically powerless, and could only have covered themselves with contempt and ridicule if they had been left alone.
"These men were asking for martyrdom and the glory of battle: why on earth give them their admitted object?
"They were in possession of the Post Office. Very well, but they could not have run the postal service. They were in possession of the railways. Well and good, but they would not have been able to conduct the train service. They had assumed the reins of government, but would the people of Ireland have acknowledged them? Certainly not. They had taken over the management of the capital, but were they able to police it even, or protect private property? Why, from the very first moment of their victory—if victory it could be called—the whole place had been at the mercy of the mob.
"Again, they issued receipts in the name of the Irish Republic's exchequer, but what financier would have honoured their bills? Could they have even taken the gold from the banks they could not have got credit or cash for any further transactions. They had assumed sole authority over the people of Ireland, yet they could not have commanded enough votes to secure a single constituency.
"These men, left to themselves, in fact, and treated with a sense of humour, were on the highroad to the greatest political fiasco the world had ever seen, and could only have made themselves ridiculous and contemptible in the eyes of their own countrymen and others throughout the world.
"They had appealed to Germany: very well; let them look to German help for assistance, and in the meanwhilelet them know that Casement had been captured already, before the rising, and the phantom Prussian armada had been sunk to the bottom of the sea.
"What could have happened? You say 'Pillage and murder.' They were not out for that, in the first place, nor were they that type; and it may be questioned whether, had they set about it with deliberate purpose, they would have worked such havoc as the military and naval artillery wrought in that fatal week."
The theory is certainly one which would have had no precedent to recommend it, but to my mind it was just this that was its best recommendation; in fact, what was most needed was to avoid a repetition of the old fatal precedents which had turned so many futile revolts into glorious outbursts of patriotism.
Just imagine the situation. England would first of all have told them she wished for no bloodshed beyond the punishment of those who had actually shot defenceless men or whose orders had led to these murders. It would have redounded entirely to the credit of the Englishman.
England would then have asked the politicians and people alike if they in any way sympathized with such a revolt, and let the penalties be known—the immediate erasure of Home Rule from the Statute Book and the cessation of land purchase, as well as the stoppage of all commercial or financial transactions.
Finally, if these failed and the people of Ireland really wished for war in its full reality, they could have it, but they must not ever afterward appeal as constitutional partners in the Empire, but merely as a conquered race: mercy they might have, rights they would have forfeited by conquest.
Had such a course been followed, there would not only have been an opportunity upon the part of the nation at large to disown the usurpers, who would then have had not even the vestige of a grievance upon which to establish their preposterous claims to continuance in the position they had taken up.
In a word, the English would have made fools of them, or rather allowed the Irish to make fools of them. Insteadof this, all the old fatal, discredited methods were employed with the same fatal results, and they became national heroes, whose suppression by force could only give them greater power.
The whole thing would have taken no longer than the campaign; no further blood would have been spilt, and time would have been allowed for the great adventure to reveal itself in the true grotesqueness of cold reality.
Possibly it was looked upon asinfra dig.to treat with rebels, but it was so obviously a mental case that it is hard to see how anything could possibly have beeninfra dig.under such circumstances.
On Monday and Tuesday the Republic was no more representative of the people of Ireland than the tailors of Tooley Street were the people of England, but upon the old Grecian principle that the sufferings of one citizen are the sufferings of the whole State, it became national from the moment the national sentiment had been aroused by the indiscriminate shedding of blood.
It was in their defeat that the Sinn Feiners won their great victory, and they knew it. They had been scoffed at, derided, denounced by the official party almost to—in fact, actually to—a state of desperation, and an act of despair became their last resort. The Statute Book indeed proclaimed Ireland a nation once again, but the Government treated Ireland more like a province than ever, and her own representatives seemed to acquiesce; so, as Mrs. Pearse, the mother of the "President," told me afterwards, "there was nothing left for them but to accomplish the sacrifice demanded to save the soul of Ireland and proclaim her on the scaffold once again unconquered and unconquerable."
It was an act of folly, if you like, to try to set up a republic, especially during such a crisis as this war, but since the death of the leaders brought out their true character, it has ceased to be looked upon as a piece of knavery, for these men, according to all accounts of the priests, died the death of saints, not scoundrels; so that we now realize the old, old story of the tragedy of misunderstanding, as much, indeed, by their own countrymen as by the Englishman.
If it was to illustrate in one dramatic coup that misunderstanding which has been growing between all parties in Ireland, then they have not died in vain, for every party must feel to a certain extent responsible for the catastrophe. Several things, however, seem to stand out prominently amidst the chaos.
Castle government is dead as Queen Anne and Home Rule as natural and as inevitable as the morrow's sunrise; Unionism, in the English sense of Empire, survives: everyone is a Unionist now; but what still remains inexorable is the attitude of Sir Edward Carson, whose "Unionism" is merely a euphemism for "bureaucracy," and who, with the Ulster Volunteers still in arms, equally prepared to resist constitutional government, whether from Westminster or from Dublin, is the greatest Home Ruler of us all—or should we say Sinn Feiner?
Personally, I have always thought, and still think, that the Orangeman has more to gain in an Irish Parliament than anyone else as representing the layman, the business man; but I, for one, should be sorry to see Home Rule at the cost of a single Ulster Volunteer's life.
Mr. William O'Brien has for years, as a species of political outcast, been preaching the doctrine of conciliation, and has suffered in consequence, but his successful opponents have not gained the victory, for we are now rapidly drifting towards the total exclusion of several counties—the thing of all things they most wished to avoid.
All the while people are wondering whether it is the people themselves or the politicians who are responsible for the antagonism, and three of the greatest national movements since the days of tenant grievances stare us in the face as outside, if not politics, at least outside the ordinary conventional politicians—I mean Sir Horace Plunkett's Co-operative Movement, Larkin-Connolly's Labour Movement, and Sinn Fein.
Surely something is wrong if such movements cannot be assimilated by either of the great political parties, as they should have been if those parties were together completely representative of the nation.
All our greatest men were isolated—Redmond, Carson,Plunkett, O'Brien, Connolly, W. M. Murphy, the Lord-Lieutenant—all appealing to or threatening the unfortunate Premier, already sufficiently occupied with the intricacies of English politics, let alone European.
The step must come from the Englishman in his own defence: English politics must no longer be dominated by the votes or the threats of any Irishman, and some method must be found, while safeguarding the Imperial link, to force Irishmen to meet each other and settle with each other: for the only result of ruling Tipperary from Downing Street is that Westminster is ruled from Dublin or Belfast.
According to the "political correspondent" of theManchester Guardian, the tendency is towards an Irish Coalition. "The question," he writes, "is not whether there will be a change. The old and anarchic system of Dublin Castle seems to be definitely doomed. The question is rather what the change will be. Speculation, which may or may not be partially informed, concentrates upon the scheme of a new Irish Advisory Council. I may offer a more detailed sketch of this scheme, of which I will only say that some responsible Irish members think it is very likely to be near the mark. An Irish Council, if created now, would probably be an advisory body, resembling the Viceroy's Council in India. The Lord-Lieutenant, who ought to be an active and energetic administrator, would no doubt preside over it. As to the membership, it would have to consist of representatives of both Irish Parties. It is thought possible that some Nationalist and Ulster Unionist members of the House of Commons would be on it, and would, of course, sit with it in Dublin. In addition there might be responsible Irish public men (like, for example, Sir Horace Plunkett), both Home Rulers and Unionists, who are not members of the House of Commons or officially attached to a party. There might also, in view of the educational problem of Ireland, be one or two representatives of the Churches. This would form what is talked of as the Irish Coalition, in which it is assumed both Mr. Redmond's Party and Sir Edward Carson's would join."
The tribute which Mr. Birrell paid to the Irish Literary Revival and its influence upon Irish life is worth quoting,for it indicates one of the sources whence much may be hoped in the work of reconstruction.
"This period," he said, referring to the period immediately preceding the rebellion, "was also marked by a genuine literary Irish revival, in prose, poetry, and the drama, which has produced remarkable books and plays, and a school of acting, all characterized by originality and independence of thought and expression, quite divorced from any political party, and all tending towards and feeding latent desires for some kind of separate Irish national existence. It was a curious situation to watch, but there was nothing in it suggestive of revolt or rebellion, except in the realm of thought. Indeed, it was quite the other way. The Abbey Theatre made merciless fun of mad political enterprise, and lashed with savage satire some historical aspects of the Irish revolutionary. I was often amazed at the literary detachment and courage of the playwright, the relentless audacity of the actors and actresses, and the patience and comprehension of the audience. This new critical tone and temper, noticeable everywhere, penetrating everything, and influencing many minds in all ranks, whilst having its disintegrating effects upon old-fashioned political beliefs and worn-out controversial phrases, was the deadly foe of that wild sentimental passion which has once more led so many brave young fellows to a certain doom, in the belief that in Ireland any revolution is better than none. A little more time, and, but for the outbreak of the war, this new critical temper would, in my belief, have finally prevailed, not indeed to destroy national sentiment (for that is immortal), but to kill by ridicule insensate revolt. But this was not to be."
With regard to "Separatism," I believe this—and I think in so saying I am echoing the sentiments of most of my fellow-countrymen, that the only way to liberate Ireland is to dominate England, not physically, for this would be as useless as it would be impossible, but mentally and morally.
If the Irishman has been persecuted and tyrannized over, it is in virtue of certain ideals and principles which are ethically and economically inferior to his, and whichhe has consequently to crush in the very source, as much for his own sake as for those other members of the Empire to which, if it has been a misfortune to belong in the past, it may be an advantage and an honour to belong to-morrow.
If Castle government is wrong in Dublin it is wrong elsewhere; if militarism was wrong and foolish and futile in Cromwell's day, it is wrong to-day, to-morrow, and for all time; if England really intends at the great Peace Congress to come forward as the champion of small nations, she must be able to show an Ireland prosperous, contented, and freely allied to her without the aid of a single soldier or a single threat.
Such at least is the hope of all those who believe that only when we have solved the Irish problem have we solved the problem of Empire.
Primarily, however, the task is in Ireland's own hands: for England at this moment stands not unwilling or hostile so much as perplexed and bewildered at the strange eruption that has taken place, and which must be taken rather as an indication of a chronic state than the expression of any concrete or definite complaint.
In other words, there is already a new nationalism in the making, more idealistic, more spiritual, more constructive, and more comprehensive than the old nationalism, which was to a large extent geographical, material, and traditional to an almost stifling degree: the eyes of the younger men are fixed on the future, those of the older men are fixed upon the past.
The older generation will probably die immutable in mind, like veterans, nor will they ever try to mingle, but on all sides and in every sphere the younger generation has already shaken hands.
The spirit of the two is the same, the aspirations just as intense, but their methods are different: geographical isolation is against natural evolution and "Separatism" an economic, racial, and military impossibility—this last rebellion has exploded the myth; but all this will only have the effect of changing the ever-living consciousness of nationality into different channels.
Instead of being expansive, our patriotism will tend to bemore intensive: our combat with England will no longer be with arms, but with thoughts and ideas, and the nobler and the truer will win; and it is in this contest that "Sinn Fein" will come forward with new force of the "living dead." If Ireland cannot be the strongest nation, she can be the freest; if she cannot be the greatest, she can be the purest; if she cannot be the richest, she can be the happiest and the kindliest: and as Greece conquered ancient Rome, so may Ireland some day conquer England, if those ideals which were bred and nurtured within her bosom can be made to dominate the inferior Saxon till they spread throughout the world; and that is why, whatever happens, Ireland must keep her "nationality" free by whatever means lie at her hands, and that was the root cause of the revolt, if we are to believe the words of the men who suffered.
"Others have been struck before now," said Pearse in the course of an address which he delivered in October 1897 to a young men's literary society, "by the fact that hundreds of noble men and true have fought and bled for the emancipation of the Gaelic race, and yet have all failed. Surely, if ever cause was worthy of success, it was the cause for which Laurence prayed, for which Hugh of Dungannon planned, for which Hugh Roe and Owen Roe fought, for which Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward and Robert Emmet gave their lives, for which Grattan pleaded, for which Moore and Davis sang, for which O'Connell wore himself out with toil. Yet these men prayed and planned, and fought and bled, and pleaded and wrote and toiled in vain. May it not be that there is some reason for this? May it not be that the ends they struggled for were ends never intended for the Gael?... The Gael is not like other men; the spade and the loom and the sword are not for him. But a destiny more glorious than that of Rome, more glorious than that of Britain, awaits him: to become the saviour of idealism in modern intellectual and social life, the regenerator and rejuvenator of the literature of the world, the instructor of the nations, the preacher of the gospel of nature-worship, hero-worship, God-worship—such is the destiny of the Gael."
The Gresham PressUNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITEDWOKING AND LONDON