Essays and Such
Irish Cultural Society
of San Antonio Texas
Promoting Awareness of Irish Culture
1916
by Morgan Llywelyn
The Conspiracy of Poets - the American Connection
1916
The Conspiracy of Poets - the American Connection
by Morgan Llywelyn
The Easter Rising of 1916 proved to be the turning point in Ireland's eight hundred year struggle against foreign domination. The American and French revolutions of the eighteenth century had inspired the Irish to make a similar bid for freedom in 1798, but they were defeated. The Act of Union in 1801 subsumed Ireland into Great Britain and denied its individual identity. Yet Irish nationalism refused to lie down and die. In 1848 a group of devoted Protestants founded the Young Ireladers. Under a brand new flag - green, white, and orange tricolour - they led yet another revolt. This attempt failed like so many before, but would have far reaching consequences. Survivors of that struggle fled to America, where in 1858 John O'Mahony founded the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. This became the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret, oath bound society dedicated to establishing an independent Irish republic. From its inception the IRB received strong support from the Irish American organization called Clan na Gael. James Stephens was entrusted with the mission of returning to Ireland and organising the IRB there. The Irish branch of the Brotherhood called themselves Fenians, after the ancient Irish army of Fionn mac Cumhaill. Although the Catholic Church denounced the Fenians as a secret society, great numbers of Irish men enrolled. Even Irish soldiers serving in the British army took the Fenian oath. By the late nineteenth century Ireland had found other champions. The literary movement known as the Celtic Revival stimulated a wider interest in the past and in saving the Irish language. Foremost in this endeavor was the Gaelic League, founded in 1893 by Douglas Hyde. The official publication of the Gaelic League was edited by a writer and educationalist called Padraic Pearse, who wrote in 1903, "The Gaelic League will be recognised in history as the most revolutionary influence that has ever come into Ireland." But it would require the Irish Republican Brotherhood' to give the Gaelic League muscle. In 1908 Pearse founded St. Enda's, a uniquely progressive school for Irish boys. Students were instructed in their own language and history, an education they were denied in the British-run National Schools. They also studied the classics, English and Irish literature, mathematics, science, art, architecture, music, put on heroic plays written by Mr. Pearse and other members of the Gaelic League, took part in a variety of team sports, and learned the skills of self-sufficiency such as carpentry and vegetable-growing. According to the Prospectus, St. Enda's promoted an active reverence for the virtues of decency, honesty, fortitude, and kindness. Pearse was assisted in the founding of the school by another Gaelic Leaguer and highly respected fellow poet, Professor Thomas MacDonagh, a lecturer in English at University College Dublin. MacDonagh worked with another young poet, Joseph Mary Plunkett, in the development of the Irish Theatre and in editing the Irish Review. Plunkett, whose many interests included science and philosophy, was the eldest son of Count Plunkett, the Director of the Museum of Science and Art. The 'conspiracy of poets' entered into by these three men would change the history of Ireland as Tom Paine had changed the history of America. By the eve of the First World War the situation in Ireland was volatile. There was massive labour unrest, particularly in Dublin. The fight for Home Rule that had dominated Irish politics for so long had finally resulted in a Home Rule Act that would allow the Ulster counties to opt out for six years. Even this did not satisfy the Ulster Unionists, who were determined to resist any form of native Irish government. In 1913 the Unionists introduced the threat of violence into Irish politics by founding and arming the Ulster Volunteer Force. Against this background Padraic Pearse and his colleagues helped convene a huge public meeting in Dublin, at which the Irish National Volunteers was founded as a counter to the UVF. It was their belief, based on Ireland's long history and especially on the experience of the UVF, that the British government respected nothing but armed force. The fledgling militia needed weapons. But no sooner had the Volunteers been founded than the government outlawed the importation of weapons into Ireland - a move which the UVF flagrantly disregarded, and for which they were never punished. Help was at hand. however. The leader of the IRB in America, John Devoy, was watching events in Ireland with keen interest. Members of the Brotherhood were quietly joining the Gaelic League and the Irish Volunteers, as well as the non-violent political party founded by Arthur Griffith and known as Sinn Fein. In 1914 Padraic Pearse made a trip to the United States, ostensibly fund raising for St. Enda's. With the help of John Devoy and the IRB he was also raising money to arm and equip the Irish Volunteers. Two of the most potent IRB activists in Ireland were a young man called Sean MacDermott, and Thomas the Clarke, who ran a news agency in Dublin. Although crippled by polio, MacDermott rode his bicycle the length and breadth of Ireland in all weathers to recruit men for the IRB. Clarke was an old Fenian who had been convicted of attempted dynamiting in England in the 1880s and served a long term in prison. Upon his release he emigrated to the United States and even took American citizenship, but eventually returned to Ireland to help create an Irish republic. James Connolly, a labor organizer who was involved in the Great Lockout of 1913 in Dublin, had also spent many years in the United States. Like Clarke, he had savoured America's freedom. These were the men whose signatures would join those of Pearse, Plunkett, MacDonagh and Eamonn Ceannt, a civil servant and gifted traditional musician, on the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. When they marched rut together on Easter Monday, they carried weapons purchased with funds largely supplied by Americans. Unfortunately many of the weapons destined for the Volunteers never reached them, however. The tragedy of the week that followed would become an icon in Irish history. The leaders of the Easter Rising were not the bloodthirsty madmen their detractors would later claim. The three poets who would give their lives for Republic were among the finest individuals Ireland has ever produced. Pearse, Plunkett, and MacDonagh shared the morality of a bygone era, combining innate decency and a strong sense of responsibility with unfailing courtesy and resolute self-discipline. Their deep love of nature and respect for all life is reflected in their poetry. James Connolly had formed a militia called the Citizen Army to defend the rights of Irish workers, and gave women the opportunity to carry weapons, hold rank, and ultimately to fight alongside the men in the Easter Rising. Connolly, earthy and often profane, was the diametric opposite in background and temperament to Pearse, the idealist. Each provided a necessary counterbalance for the other. The greatest tragedy of the Rising was that Pearse and Connolly were executed. With them Ireland lost the broader vision of nationhood they espoused: a pluralist, non-sectarian society that would have gone a long way toward healing old wounds. In signing the Proclamation of the Irish Republic they also signed their death warrants. Critics claim that the Rising was a foolhardy act committed by demented egomaniacs and doomed from the beginning. None of the leaders of the Easter Rising were professional soldiers, but they were highly intelligent men. By studying the original documents, anyone with a knowledge of military strategy will discover that the undertaking was thoroughly organised in painstaking detail. With the support of Irish Americans it might well have succeeded if everything had gone according to plan. The failure of the Republicans to seize Dublin and ultimately wrest control of the country from the British was the result of a series of unforeseen mishaps, including a crucial confusion of orders. Throughout history, victory and defeat have been determined by such accidents more often than by brilliant generalship. The poets paid for their audacious dream with their lives, but the dream did not die with the last volley of rifle fire in Kilmainham Gaol. The outrage occasioned by their deaths shook Ireland out of its long apathy. Within weeks, the next step toward freedom was being planned. British prisons became universities for Republican revolutionaries such as Michael Collins and an American-born mathematics teacher called Eamon de Valera. The British government found itself faced by international condemnation, particularly from America. In an attempt to justify the brutal executions of Irish patriots the government leaked falsified document, accusing the patriots of a variety of criminal offences. It would not be the last time forged records were employed to blacken Irish reputations. But those who had known Pearse and the others did not believe the propaganda. Taking up the fallen flag, they fought, and won, the War of Independence. The Civil War that followed the signing of the Treaty with Britain tore Ireland apart. A man born in America emerged to lead the fledgling Irish Free State. Then in 1949 that same man, Eamon de Valera, presided ever the realisation of the dream which had been shared by a conspiracy of poets and their American connection. The Republic of Ireland was born. About the author: Morgan Llywelyn is Irish. by blood and citizenship - and by choice, as Constance Markievicz said of herself. Her most recent novel, 1916; A Novel Of The Irish Rebellion took ten years of research to complete. She is now working on 1921; A Novel of the War of Independence and hopes to complete her trilogy on Ireland in the first half of this century with 1949; A Novel of the Irish Republic.