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New Communist Party of Britain |
(This article was written to mark the 200th anniversary of the United Irish Rising in 1998)
Question: What have you got in your hand?
Answer: A green bough.
Question: Where did it grow?
Answer: In America.
Question: Where did it bud?
Answer: In France.
Question: Where are you
going to plant it?
Answer: In the Crown of
Great Britain.
From the oath of the United
Irishmen
This year marks the 200th
anniversary of the Rising led by the Society of United Irishmen -
an event which still remains a beacon of revolutionary ideals for
Ireland and its British neighbours.
Depicted largely by British
historians as yet another ill-fated conspiracy organised by a
backward Irish rabble, the Rising of 1798 was in fact one of the
major historical events in these islands in the past two
centuries. Today, a steady stream of new research is revealing
how close England came to losing control of Ireland.
A major legacy of 1978 was the
development of a revolutionary ideology firmly based on the
principles of the French Revolution, which marked the birth of
the modern Irish Republican movement. The Rising also saw for the
first time the idea of Ireland as a modern united nation.
As James Connolly points out,
after the defeat of the Irish clan system in the Insurrection of
1641, "the only possible reappearance of the Irish idea
henceforth lay through the gateway of a National
resurrection".
The United Irishmen enjoyed the
support not only of Revolutionary France, but of radicals and
progressives elsewhere in Britain. The United Englishmen, the
Friends of the People and the United Scotsmen shared the aims of
the Irish revolutionaries and hoped to realise the mutual
independence of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland after
centuries of conflict.
Colonial oppression
Ireland in the 1790s was seething
with discontent. The Catholics, 70% of the population, had been
dispossessed of their land and were almost totally excluded from
political and economic life. The Presbyterians (or 'Dissenters')
of the north and east, 13% of the population, represented the
rising Irish capitalists and industrialists, and faced
discrimination and restrictions similar to those which led to the
rebellion of the American colonies, such as having to send all
exports via English ports.
The country was firmly in the grip
of the Protestant Ascendancy, a tiny parasitic class adhering to
the Anglican Church of Ireland, and backed by the full might of
British colonial force. In the words of writer Liz Curtis,
"the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland, like the West Indian
slave-owners, were a wealthy and influential section of the
landowning class that ruled England". They numbered a mere
6,000, mostly absentee landlords living in London and Paris, who
owned eight million acres of Irish land, most of which had been
confiscated during Cromwell's reign of terror 140 years earlier.
The revolt of the American
colonies in 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789 provided a
huge impetus to the forces in Ireland which sought to challenge
the Ascendancy. During the American War England was forced to
recruit a militia, the Volunteers, to maintain control in
Ireland. This was dominated by radical Presbyterians. The
Presbyterians in Belfast, a hotbed of revolutionary thought,
enthusiastically welcomed the French Revolution. Thomas Paine's
The Rights of Man went through several print runs, and became
known as "the Koran of Belfast".
When the Louis XVI, 'Sun King',
was executed in 1793, the people of Belfast celebrated with a
"grand illumination", and annual celebrations of the
French Revolution were held with great processions. The short
hair worn by French Jacobins became the fashion, giving rise to
the nickname "Croppies" - a derogatory term still used
by Loyalists today in the north of Ireland. The first great
festival of Irish harp music also took place in Belfast,
reflecting a resurgence of Irish culture.
United Irishmen
In October 1791 the Society of
United Irishmen has been established in Belfast, declaring itself
at its first meeting to be "a revolutionary party openly
declaring their revolutionary sympathies, but limiting their
first demand to a popular measure such as would enfranchise the
masses".
Many Irish progressives of the
time saw the need to alleviate the lot of the mass of the
Catholic peasantry, who were paying government taxes and
extortionate rents to absent landlords, but could not vote and
were excluded from Parliament and official posts. But few
envisaged an alliance on equal terms, most seeking their support
opportunistically to achieve their own limited goals.
It fell to Theobald Wolfe Tone, a
brilliant propagandist and leader, to reach the conclusion that
the full emancipation of all of Ireland's people was only
possible through an equal alliance of Protestants, Catholic and
Presbyterians, and an end the link with England. In doing so Tone
laid the foundations for a revolutionary philosophy which was
amazingly advanced for its time, and even today is yet to be
realised.
In his most famous statement Tone
said: "to break the connection with England, the
never-failing source of all our political evils, and to assert
the independence of my country - these were my objects. To unite
the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past
dissensions, and to substitute the name of Irishman in place of
Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter - these were my means."
Meanwhile England was already
laying the basis for a Catholic middle class based on the
professions and the clergy. They paid for the establishment of a
college at Maynooth, near Dublin, to train Catholic clergy. (One
and a half centuries later, the Bishops of Maynooth were to give
their blessings to the fascist Blueshirts who sailed from Dublin
to support Franco during the Spanish Civil War). Wolfe Tone for
his part denounced the "Papal tyranny", which was
opposed to the French Revolution, and the clergy's
"priestcraft and superstition".
The prevailing orthodoxy of the
time the regarded the new ideas of democracy as an impossible and
dangerous illusion, equivalent to anarchy. The emergence of
universal suffrage in France was a major historic break with an
era in which all European states had been models of monarchy and
aristocracy. Following the French Revolution, England - whose own
revolution a century earlier ended with a ruling alliance of
capitalists and landed gentry - became the primary defender of
reaction and aristocratic rule everywhere in Europe.
Wolfe Tone and the other leaders
of the United Irishmen - Henry Joy McCracken, Thomas Emmet and
Samuel Nielsen - were anti-monarchist, and supported the regicide
practised in France. They sought the ultimate separation of
Ireland and England, and aspired to the democratic forms of
government emerging in America and France. In short, they were
republicans and revolutionaries.
The prospect presented by the
emergence of the United Irishmen was, for the London government
and the Protestant Ascendancy, a living nightmare.
the revolt
By the 1790s Ireland was already
on the brink of revolt. Armed Protestant vigilantes called the
Peep O'Day Boys were terrorising Catholics, who in turn formed
the Defenders, whose attacks on landowners spread to 15 counties,
and who pledged allegiance to the French Revolution.
In 1793 the English disbanded the
Volunteers, which had become a threat to their interests, and
began a reign of terror against radicals. The Society of United
Irishmen was banned and driven underground. In 1795 the Orange
Order was formed in Portadown (home of the Garvaghy Road and
Drumcree Church), beginning two centuries of Protestant supremacy
and domination over Irish Catholics.
The Insurrection Act of 1796
introduced summary execution without trial, martial law, and the
suspension of habeas corpus. Military 'Flying Camps' used torture
(such as cutting pieces off ears and noses with large clippers),
executions, intimidation and general disruption. Illustrations of
the time show the many forms of indiscriminate brutality used by
the English to keep the population in fear.
In May 1795 Wolfe Tone went into
exile when the British learned of secret contacts with
revolutionary France. He travelled first to America, and then in
January 1796 to Paris, where he successfully enlisted the support
of revolutionary France for a rising in Ireland. The original
plan for the rebellion envisaged a co-ordinated national rising
in support of professional French troops. The revolutionary
French Army was a formidable force, which had inflicted major
setbacks on England including the evacuation of British troops at
the River Scheldt - a disaster far worse than Dunkirk. France had
also occupied the Papal Territories, and knocked out Prussia.
Under this plan the Irish
insurgents would be play the role of auxiliaries to the
professional French troops, with their principal weapon the pike;
it was never intended that they tackle the English on their own.
Even without a successful French landing, and lacking proper
weapons and training, they still rose and presented a major
challenge to the British forces - a testament to their incredible
bravery and commitment.
In December 1796 a large French
fleet broke through the Royal Navy's cordon off Bantry Bay, but
was dispersed by the worst gale in living memory. With no force
waiting to meet it, the 12,000 troops "would easily have
walked the length and breadth of Ireland", according to
Irish historian Ruan O'Donnell. It was a major fright for the
English and the Ascendancy, and incredibly bad luck for the Irish
cause. The following year a Dutch fleet with 13,500 troops was
kept in port for six weeks by unfavourable winds and eventually
abandoned.
After the suppression of the
United Irish stronghold in Ulster, the leadership shifted to
Dublin. They decided to reduce their dependence on the French and
mobilised forces around Dublin to strike at the centre of power.
Had the Dublin rising succeeded and United Irishmen forces
throughout Ireland risen, according Ruan O'Donnell, "the
crown forces would have been overwhelmed".
In mid-1798 the situation came to
a head and risings took place in the midlands and southeast of
Ireland, followed later by the Presbyterians of Belfast, Antrim
and Down. In Wexford and Connaught short-lived republics were
proclaimed, and heavy fighting took place in Wicklow, Wexford,
Kildare, and Dublin.
The rebels succeeded on several
occasions on capturing sizeable towns, each success bringing
large numbers in those areas into the rising. In the towns of
Wexford and Enniscorthy, Public Committees were established along
similar lines to the Committees for Public Safety in France. Time
and again the professional and well-armed Crown Forces, fighting
irregular, poorly equipped rebels, were saved by sheer luck. In
one battle the insurgents withdrew, not knowing the English were
about to run out of ammunition. When Arklow on the coast south of
Dublin was captured, the rebels were unaware that no Crown forces
lay between them and Dublin, where many insurgents with hidden
weapons were ready to rise.
The English suffered a major
defeat in County Down in Ulster, but were saved by reinforcements
from Scotland, and in major battles at Vinegar Hill and Arklow
the United Irish forces managed to withdraw intact. In one
engagement 49 English cavalry were killed with no losses to the
rebels. James Connolly concluded that "the British army can
scarcely be said to have at any time justified its reputation,
let alone covered itself with glory".
In August 1798 a small French
force of 1,100 under General Humbert succeeded in landing at
Killala, County Mayo on the West Coast. After scattering a
superior English force in disarray at a battle at Castlebar,
Humbert was defeated at Ballinamuck, County Leitrim, on 8
September, in the last major set-piece battle on Irish soil. His
small force had travelled almost exactly half-way to Dublin.
Death of Wolfe Tone
The collapse of the Rising was
not, of course, the end of resistance in Ireland. In County
Wexford the insurgents had pioneered a new form of guerrilla
warfare, and following the collapse of the rising some 5,000
committed and experienced United Irish fighters remained active
in the mountains of Wicklow and Wexford until 1803.
Wolfe Tone was finally captured
when a third French fleet was intercepted by the English, and
taken in shackles to Dublin. On 12 November 1798 he cut his own
throat, to avoid a military court martial and the indignity of a
public hanging. He died a week later on November 19, 1798.
In the Rising over 30,000 people
had died (3,000 on the 'loyalist' side), and 12 towns and
countless villages were partly or completely destroyed. Its
defeat was due largely to the lack of communications, which
isolated uprisings in parts of the country from one another, and
the weak military command structure of the rebel forces. In the
event the English escaped several near disasters. The virtual
supremacy of the Royal Navy was a crucial factor, but only
incredibly bad luck prevented a major foreign force from landing
in Ireland. In the event the Crown forces had experienced severe
setbacks at the hands of a badly armed, but highly committed and
well-led insurgent force.
The rebellion in Ireland was
compounded for the English by threats elsewhere in Britain, at a
time of revolutionary ferment throughout Europe. The large
numbers of Irish rebels pressed into the Royal Navy had spread
disaffection in the ranks, and United Irishmen played a key role
in the naval mutinies at the Nore and Spithead. One fleet sailed
to London and threatened to bombard the capital, before being
persuaded to surrender.
Also, 1797 the United Scotsmen had
organised a rebellion in which several military forts were
captured before Scotland was flooded with English troops. And in
1803 another Irish rising, the Emmet Conspiracy, took place in
and around Dublin. James Connolly described it as "even more
distinctly democratic, international and popular" than the
Rising of 1798.
The failure of the Rising had
tragic consequences for Ireland, the results of which we are
still living with today. The loss of military-aged men (either
killed or sent into exile) had enormous economic effects. But
1798 was to be followed by periodic revolts in Ireland, up to and
including the nationalist armed struggle which began in the late
1960s in the occupied six counties in the north. From 1798
onwards, England ensured that Ireland remained permanently
militarised, which is still the case day in the north-east of
Ireland.
The new resistance
After the Rising England moved
swiftly to incorporate Ireland formally into the Union. In
January 1799 the English failed to persuade the (largely corrupt)
Irish parliament to vote itself out of existence. London resorted
to massive bribery of Irish MPs, flooded the country with troops,
and banned public meetings and protests against the Union.
Under such intense 'democratic'
pressure, the Dublin Parliament approved the Union in February
1800, by 158 to 115 votes. From having its own parliament of 300
MPs in Dublin, Ireland, which accounted for a third of the
population of the new 'United Kingdom', would be reduced to 100
MPs out of over 600 at Westminster. Following the union, the
cross of St Patrick (a diagonal red cross on a white background
hardly used in Ireland) was incorporated into the British Union
Flag, where it remains to this day.
1798 was without doubt a watershed
in Irish history, when Ireland asserted its nationhood in the
modern sense for the first time. The continued inspiration of the
"Year of the French" is not primarily for its military
successes or failures - although the courage and sacrifices of
the revolutionaries and patriots of that time are still widely
commemorated in Ireland and elsewhere.
Its relevance today arises from
the great ideals of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen - the
unity of Protestants and Catholics, breaking the connection with
England, and an Ireland equal with its British neighbours. In the
words of Sinn Féin TD Caomhghín Ó Caoláin, speaking at a
bi-centenary commemoration of the Rising in London: "Today,
as the United Irishmen and Women of 1998, we will move forward to
realise the principles of Tone, Connolly and Sands".