NIFC Easter STATEMENT
2006
Easter is the principal feast day of the Christian religion,
and, like the Jewish feast of Passover – which immediately
preceded the first Easter, it is rooted in an actual event.
Like Passover, it represents a passage from darkness to
light, from death to life. The Crucifixion of our Lord and
his subsequent Resurrection are events both of physical and
of spiritual significance. Just as the Old Testament
foretold the coming of the Messiah, so there was, for
centuries, a messianic tradition in Irish literature,
looking forward to the re-birth of the Irish nation in a
bright new day of Freedom. Perhaps the best example of this
is found in the prophetic play, “The Singer”, by Pádraic
Pearse, in which the sacrifice of but fifteen men redeems
the nation. Analogous to the sacrifice of Christ on
Calvary, even more so than the Christ-like sacrifice of
Robert Emmet, the 1916 Easter Rising provided the blood
sacrifice which resulted in the resurrection of the national
consciousness of Gaelic Ireland and set the country on the
road to freedom. Just as the work of Christ on earth
remains unfinished, so too does the bright dream of the men
and women of 1916 remain unfulfilled. England’s first
overseas colony remains her last, both in fact and, sadly,
among too many, in spirit as well.
On Easter Monday, ninety years ago - like those who stood
and fought in defense of American Liberty on Lexington Green
and at Concord Bridge on the 19th of April in
1775 - brave Irish men and women took up arms to rid Ireland
of its cruel invader, England. In so doing they set in
motion events which would inspire the unraveling of
England’s vast empire, on which the sun never set throughout
the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. The Irish
War for Independence which followed gave hope and courage to
other victims around the world to also rise up; it set in
motion a ground swell of armed resistance and/or of civil
disobedience in countries around the world including Asia,
India, Africa, the Middle East, South America and the
Caribbean. The beginning of the end of that particular evil
empire had its commencement on that fateful Easter Monday
morning in 1916.
Those who went out on that Easter Monday in 1916, the Irish
Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army, the Irish National
Foresters, the Hibernian Rifles and the ladies of
Cumman na
mBan, without regard to their own personal safety,
went into the gap of danger, made the sacrifice, set the
example.
For the poet William Butler Yeats, Easter 1916
transformed Ireland from a place where “motley was worn,”
... “all changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty is
born.”
Just as the way to properly respect the sacrifice on Calvary
is not merely to read about the historical Jesus, but to
live a Christian life, as both preached and exemplified by
Christ, himself, in order that we might be saved; so too is
the proper way to honor those who rose up during Easter week
1916 to relive their example, each according to his or her
unique talents and abilities (with the example of the
Constitutional Liberties of the United States), in order
that we might be found faithful to the Fenian Faith which
motivated them.
The supporters of the connection with England have worked
well in secret, and in the open. In classic imperial form
they seek to divide and rule, cultivating differences in
fear of Theobald Wolfe Tone’s aim of replacing divisive
labels with the separate, common title of Irishman. Bribes,
offices and so-called honors are part of their stock in
trade. Yet, just as in every generation there have been
those foolish enough to accept these counterfeit
compromises, so too is there a continuity of Irish
resistance to alien domination stretching back to the
resistance to the Vikings, which, under Brian Boru, finally
broke their power in Ireland at Clontarf, and which has
always regarded English pretension to sovereignty over any
part of Ireland as fundamentally illegitimate, as the “fruit
of the poison tree.”
As Pearse said regarding those who collaborate with English
rule, theirs may be... a safer gospel, but it is not the
Gospel of Tone. At the grave of Jeremiah O’Donovan
Rossa in 1915, Pearse also insisted that we must stand
together “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 and definition than their
name and their definition.”. Like O’Donovan Rossa, Pearse and those who rose up with him
in 1916, held it a Christian thing, “to hate evil, to hate
untruth, to hate oppression and hating them to strive to
overthrow them.”
When Sinn Féin,
as separatist, abstentionist Republican party contested
the general election of 14th December 1918,
promising to NOT represent their constituents or their
country in the mighty Westminster Parliament in London, but
rather to set up, without foreign let or hindrance, a
republican assembly which would form an Irish government for
Ireland. Sinn Féin
won over 79% of the popular vote in all Ireland, and 73
of 105 seats, in what can only be described as a
plebiscite for independence. The delegates who
assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin formed the First
Dáil Éireann and
issued the Irish Declaration of Independence on 21st
January 1919 (legally the equivalent of the American
Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental
Congress, promulgated on the 4th of July 1776).
Brian O’Higgins, himself among the elected
Teachta Dála Éireann,
points out, in his Wolfe Tone Annual, that Easter Monday,
1916 is regarded as the significant date as a
consequence of the pre-existing Army Council of the Irish
Republican Army –
Óglaigh na hÉireann (the IRA), the Army of The
Irish Republic, virtually established, insisting upon the
First Dáil Éireann recognizing and swearing allegiance to
the Irish Republic proclaimed in arms in 1916, as a
condition for the IRA coming under the authority of the
government formed by the First Dáil Éireann.
The task confronting Ireland’s exiled children in America is
to continue to keep faith with the aspirations of the men
and women of 1916, and to accurately represent these
aspirations to a candid world. It is a formidable task
fraught with challenges and obstacles but with God’s help we
shall prevail. Cumann
na Saoirse
Náisiúnta approaches this task independently, as
Americans, and with no foreign principal, but loyal to the
principles of Liberty, which motivated the Easter Rising in
1916. We are confident in the knowledge that what we
represent is what the martyrs of 1916, and the martyrs who
came before and after, fought and died for. Like Douglas
Hyde and Nollaig Ó Gadhra, we find the example for Ireland’s
cultural future in the Gaelic League. Like Daithí Ó Conaill
and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, we find the example for Ireland’s
economic and political future in Ireland’s Gaelic past,
including the application of the principle of subsidiarity –
recognizing the uniqueness of four historic Provinces, while
rejecting the gerrymander imposed by Westminster in the
Government of Ireland Act, 1920. We recognize that the Éire Nua plan
provides the best hope of restoring the ancient prosperity
of Ireland, while cherishing all children of the nation
equally in a truly free and reunited all-Ireland federal
Republic, free from outside interference, and free from the
inside corruption and profiteering which are the results of
the connection with England.
Just as Holy Week should be a week of prayer and of holy
reflection for all Christians resulting in a renewal of our
Baptismal vows, so too should Easter Week be a period of
reflection on the promise of the bright dream of Easter Week
1916, and of rededication to advancing the Cause of Irish
Freedom.
In conclusion let us reflect once more on the following
excerpt from the Proclamation of 1916:
“We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the
protection of the Most High God Whose blessing we invoke
upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause
will dishonor it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In
this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and
discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice
themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the
august destiny to which it is called.”
Source: Mac Dara