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THE EASTER RISING of 1916 took the world by surprise. It had been planned in secret and, without the knowledge of many of those who did the planning, its date was decided by an inner group of IRB infiltrators.
The women and men in the ranks of Cumann na mBan, The Citizen Army and The Irish Volunteers were also kept in the dark. You can’t organise a revolution any other way. But the inevitable outcome of secrecy is confusion about what actually happened.
Women’s legacies
And only now, a hundred years later, have we begun to assess what the legacy of that confusion meant for Irish women in the years that followed, and how it still affects Ireland today.
The Rising began on Easter Monday, April 24th and the Commander in Chief of the rebel forces, Padraig Pearse, surrendered on Saturday April 29th. On April 31st, having been taken to Dublin to receive orders from Pearse in his cell in Arbour Hill, the commander of the Enniscorthy rebels led the men, women and boys under his command out of the Athenaeum theatre there, and surrendered the town.
It was the last garrison in the country to hold out, and among the Cumann na mBan women who surrendered that day was my grandmother’s cousin, nineteen year-old Marion Stokes.
I knew Marion, both in my childhood and when I was studying history at university. But in her lifetime I never knew that she’d joined the 1916 Rising. It was long after her death that I heard her story from my mother, who simply said that Marion “hadn’t like to talk about it”. My book A Woven Silence: Memory, History & Remembrance was written as an exploration of why that should have been so.
Airbrushing the women out
Many Irish women have been asking that question this year. Why were the women who fought for Ireland’s independence, suffered with their fellow countrymen in the Civil War and, in some cases, played an active part in Irish politics for the rest of their lives, simply airbrushed out of our history? How could their stories have been forgotten? And to what extent has that airbrushing contributed to the misogyny that still characterises Irish life?
Among academics, in the media, and at local level, these issues have been repeatedly raised and discussed during this year’s centenary commemorations. Which can only be good. But, as the year has progressed, an air of smugness has also begun to appear.
Women linking current feminism with the aspirations of their rebel grandmothers are repeatedly trolled on the internet and told that the link is irrelevant. Media commentators tell us that, where 1916 is concerned, women have been dealt with and now we should move on.
Elsewhere producers and organisers continue to assemble manels to tell us our mothers’ and grandmothers’ stories, apparently unaware of how ludicrous that is.
So here’s another story
On Saturday May 13th 1916, the first coverage produced by a reporter who had travelled to Dublin in the aftermath of the Rising appeared in a British newspaper. It was commissioned by Sylvia Pankhurst for The Women’s Dreadnought and written by twenty-two year old Patricia Lynch, who made the journey disguised as a schoolgirl and smuggled her notes back to London between the pages of a novelette.
Those of us who grew up in Ireland in the 1960s may remember Patricia Lynch as a children’s author whose Brogeen The Leprechaun books were dramatised by RTÉ as a puppet serial. Both her books and the programmes were lovely.
But why did we grow up knowing that she wrote about leprechauns and not about her work with Sylvia Pankhurst? Or her involvement with the work of Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Constance Markievicz? Or the fact that in 1932 she was writing to the papers demanding acknowledgement of Maud Gonne MacBride’s work on behalf of political prisoners? And does it matter?
I think it does. Ireland needs to explore, understand and move on from our toxic double inheritance of misogyny and silence. And, as the year ends, it’s clear to me that the work has only begun.
Felicity Hayes-McCoy has been a professional writer all her working life and she is a founding member of the UK’s Women’s Equality Party. http://felicityhayes-mccoy.blogspot.ie/. ‘A Woven Silence’ is on a Christmas offer with free delivery worldwide: http://www.kennys.ie/a-woven-silence-memory-history-and-remembrance.html.
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Aleppo didn’t “fall” Larry, it was retaken/liberated by government forces and allies.
When FG introduce Water Charges again in some other guise and FF sign off on them , the whole political spectrum will change significantly…
“killed by a madman”
Jihadist, Larry. Don’t shy away. Especially when highlighting the venue of the murders in Switzerland.
@Charlie Fogarty: One of the things the mainstream of academia will never do in “find(ing) …workable solutions to the crises that stem from globalisation” is tell the truth about Islamist extremism. That would be a step too far for them apparently.
Never mind the obvious reality that this never-ending bullsh*tting of the plebs with euphemisms about “madmen” is demonstrably having the opposite effect to that intended: i.e it is pissing people off to the extent that they will eventually assume that anything coming from an academic is probably politically motivated NewSpeak.
@Marlowemallow: Wait, don’t tell us Marlowemallow, everyone is wrong, except one person, you! PMSL!!!
@Marlowemallow:
It’s becoming clearer that the majority members of this minute, yet extremely effectual group, have become so enraptured with the generally perceived importance of their role within Western civilization, they have completely lost sight of how they were placed upon the pedestal and for what reason.
Their are some voices of reason out their on this particular subject but as you say, the more they are wrongfully accused the more the main narrative losses credibility.
Politics is broken in this country. FF and FG climbing over themselves to be centre at election time, then when they get in, its gross mismamagement as either of them are absolutely clueless at running the country.
Seems the problem for the MSM and the Establishment isn’t so much the hallowing out of the middle class, austerity, homelessness and the concentration of all the fruits of economic growth on the 1% – but rather the effects that this obscenity might have on the way people vote!
We really should have started voting for “populists” and “extremists” decades ago…..
There are a couple of reasons why the Far Right hasnt taken off in Ireland:
- Many Irish people associate the term “rightwing” with social-conservatism in general, including the dark days of sexual-repression that included bans on divorce, condoms, homosexuality and the suppression of racy magazines. The support of some nationalist politicians like Geert Wilders for LGBT rights shows the concept of “Left-Right” may be outdated as a blanket definition of every political party or politician.
- Anti immigration candidates have been subject to violence and death threats by a well organised Far Left movement. This was most noticeable in the anti-Pegida riots last year which were a disgraceful attack on freedom of assembly and free speech.
- The Irish media are broadly “liberal” in either the classical free market or Leftist sense. The free market argues for open borders, while the Left argues for freedom of movement for reasons of multiculturalism. The growing concentration of media ownership helps limit debate in the MSM.
However…
That does not mean we are necessarily set for a return to the discredited “Two and a half party system”. I dont think we are a very ideological people. A recent poll finds only around 10% don’t believe in God, compared to around 40% in the UK. The RCC still controls nearly all the schools, but RCC teaching on moral issues is increasingly rejected. There is a growth of the Hard Left in the cities – yet FG also did badly in rural Ireland which is more conservative. One similarity with the US electorate is a growing education-divide, with the down-and-out rejecting the Establishment. In the US it was possible to do this within the existing party system through primaries. Ireland does not have primaries, meaning you can only buck the system by voting for Independents or new parties. But Irish voters have always distrusted new parties because of the influence of the Civil War, and so mostly turn to Independents instead. Meanwhile the Labour vote has largely gone to the Hard Left parties or leftwing Independents.
I would be quite happy for the “New Politics” to continue. A slower passage of legislation makes it harder to rubber stamp ill considered and possibly unconstitutional legislation.
@Rosa Parks: the one advantage of FF, FG, Labour and a Renua occupying the the centre right is that it crowds out room for the far right. Of course, Renua could invent itself as a far right Party but that does not offer much chance of being anything more than a small and niche party.
The far right platform of extreme hate towards immigration and extreme hatred of minorities does not have the right growth conditions in Ireland. Immigration into Ireland is modest in numbers and in percentage. There is nothing in Ireland to unify and to encourage the rise of the far right. The far right will remain a tiny and miniscule niche in Ireland unless there were to be a massive terrorist attack. That possibility seems remote.
We can look forward to left wing independents seeking to remind of the need for a social conscience.
@Rosa Parks: Good analysis, well said.
Thankfully we don’t have to worry about those eejits in Identity Crisis Ireland or whatever that two-person party Justin Barrett tried to put together recently, in this country. I think I got more votes than Identity Crisis Ireland and I wasn’t even running in the election.
I think only about 20 clowns showed up at that Pegida event in Dublin city centre as well so the far-right is non-existent in Ireland, that won’t change ever.
@Joey Westland:Happy Hanukkah To Our Jewish Friends.. Would you agree Joey.Tariq or who ever you are..Peace and live
@Ben Moylan: You’re not making much sense tonight Ben, polishing off the Christmas sherry perhaps??!!
@Joey Westland:Just because 20 Muslims turned at an Anti ISIS meeting means There are only 20 Muslims in the EIRE..
Yes there is a big challenge to the centre ground from the far left Populist parties like SF and AAA with simple solutions to complex social problems need to be confronted more by the mainstream media
@Joey Westland: Whatever, Tariq.
I doubt if there is anything can be done with the Irish, they are a very thick race. I had hoped the EU would introduce good government in line with the treaty wordings, but they have failed to enforce their own directives like the SEA Directive and they allowed the Green minority to dictate. The EU failed to heed warning that their renewable energy policy was flawed. They also failed to heed warnings from UNECE on the Aarhus Convention. So there is no hope of Ireland bettering its government and no hope of the EU bettering Ireland. All we have is all the wrongs things. We need to decide on a model of government and go for it, I would go for Iceland or Switzerland, and get out of the EU fast . But, that is not on offer now, so all we can do is stay at home on election day, don’t vote.
FF and FG are centre right parties and enjoy much support although that support is slightly declining. There is no far right in Ireland and I fail to see how a far right could hope realistically gain real and prolonged traction in Ireland.
The left wing is splintered and is still protest in its nature, not assertive of coherent and pragmatic philosophy.
That leaves the centre right in position for a long time to come.
If FF or FG were in England they would be labour party Hardly any conservative policies they would agree with
What is wrong with the ongoing shift to the left and Independents?
Look at where FG and FF have gotten us in recent decades especially.
A minority govt. at least means it is not able to do much to worsen an already fractured society. I honestly do not see why there is any desire to keep things the way they are anymore, in fact I think there is a long term shift and the election showed that to a limited extent.
People who want the ‘Centre’(FF AND FG are predominantly rightwing parties, not Centrist) to hold are those who support the status quo.
Why are all these head the balls on this tread? Telling us about their miserable lives in America
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