I'd mostly found the a lot of the stuff
around the 1916 commemorations quite
alienating the state run stuff in particular
I mean that's fairly obvious as to why
I think Donal will be talking about that in more
detail but quite a lot of the kind of
alternative stuff as well just hasn't
really talked to me, the only exception
being some local history project stuff
that Stoneybatter and Smithfield group for
instance have been putting on. The other
big problem I found with it is it's
completely ruined Banana Republic
for me thats the old Boomtown Rats track
from the seventies that I used to quite like but
with Bob Geldofs utterances of the last few
months you sort of then see it in an entirely
different light. Urr god, thats a shame.  And  the problem I think
with that kind of Bob Geldof and Joe
Duffy stuff its that its made it very
difficult to take a critical look at the
rising because you start to look like
you're aligning yourself with the sort of rubbish they have
been spouting. Despite that and I'm opening
opening with that is a disclaimer that's what
I'm going to try and do.
The important thing is .. there is an anarchist expression in relation
to the Russian Revolution and
its degeneration and it's Stalin didn't
fall from the moon
you know and so that's basically
the idea that the rootsof  the degeneration
didn't start with Stalin but went back
to the practice of Leninism and I'd like
to look at the Easter Rising and
particularly the proclamation in the
same sort of respect so translated
basically to say that Devalera and
even to an extent Bertie didn't fall from
the moon. That what they came from was
also part of the story of the rising. Too
often we failed to acknowledge that and
so create the impression that the
movements and ideas of 1916 represent
some sort of blueprint for today rather than a flawed experience who's lessons include
what not to do and what not to say.
The first problem I'd look at is the
retreat from internationalism contained in the
proclamation and in particular of course
the phrase about the' Gallant allies in
Europe' normally understood to mean
German imperialism.  I spent the day
of the 90th anniversary of the rising out at
Baldness (military) airport. I was fairly  alienated
from that one as well
and about 40 of us had gone out there to
try and occupy the airfield to protest the
ongoing refueling of US war planes that
were destined for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. In the nineteen tens and worse
the 1940's Germany was the gallant allie
willing to ship was guns.  In the
nineteen eighties it was Libya and with the
turn to respectability of the peace
process
visits to the White House and US envoys
to Ireland became the goal. So there's always
been that tendency to look at
undermining British power in Ireland by
looking to the other major imperial
powers. The second thing I want  to look at is
the way the proclamation talks
about divisions in our society and in
particular they phrase about 'Cherishing
all the children of the nation equally'
Now in late 1915 and in early
1916 Connolly was seriously
considering staging a rising with just the
Irish Citizens Army. He didn't think the volunteer were
serious about it and in fact at a certain point the the IRB leadership involved in
planning the rising essentially 
kidnapped  him - he vanished for a while in order to bring
him to a meeting and to explain that 'no we are
really serious as well, we should be
working together' on that. And in fact
you capture some of the suspicion the
other leadership out of Connolly from Patrick Pearses
pieces words in 1915 when he said Connolly is
most dishonest in his methods, in public
he says the war is war forced on Germany
by the allies, in privatet he says the
Germans are just as bad as the British
and to be able to do the job I selves as
for lighting the newspaper if you wanted
to record the whole business he couldn't
go a better way about his he will never
be satisfied until he goes into action
and that he will take most of us such a
moderate amount ability of us
however a deal was reached under the
joint rising if the citizen army had
gone out alone it wouldn't have probably
wouldn't have been on the compromise
wording of the population about
cherishing all the children of the
nation equally or the even bigger
footage of the rise of the people of
Ireland to the ownership of out and when
he died four days you've got to ask
which people by the 1910 Saarland wasn't
just a country of tenant farmers and
absentee landlords with the landlord
presumably vanishing post-independence
Dublin wasn't simply the tenement some
slums of stuff it's easy but also the
22,000 households who in the 1911 census
at said they homes had more than 10
bedrooms in fact if you look at the GDP
figures as David McWilliams didn't a
recent article said you know tell you
that maybe that the rising was a mistake
the Irish appeared to be on the page
back to a lot of the rest of the world
because the planning of the GDP figures
and averages is that they often and in
this case very much did extreme
divisions of welcome policy in the same
sort of weight of the phrase people of
Ireland did in the nation
writing into actors republic before the
rising in fact when they thought they
might be going out on their own commonly
included what you can so does read as
what might have been intended program of
the ways in which he said all the right
ways at once to be confiscated and made
public property no compensation be given
to the shareholders all necessary ships
ordered wants to be taken from their
owners without compensation and without
apology last the government to take the
factories from the manufacturers and
immediately confiscate all the idle
lands the enormous quality of splendid
landline island life I lead into menses
and private estates of the nobility and
gentry and put Labour's upon it to grow
crops to feed the multitude as the
property classes have so shamelessly
sold themselves the enemy the economic
description of that property will cause
a few crimes to whosoever shall
administered the Irish government in the
first days of freedom now was pretty
obviously an enormous gap between the
language that use their which is
basically a language class warfare and
what what what appeared in the
proclamation
that becomes important when you move on
from the 1916 period and you look at the
War of Independence OH the time would
have you tried to call us and why the
British Empire found it necessary to
reach a deal I that's i mean remember as
a kid I was quite puzzled by this I mean
the British Empire was coming out of the
period when is that millions of men
under arms it had large stocks of times
had by planes so how the hell did flying
columns involving few hundred people to
be an empire that actually work so I
think part of the story is as i
understand the process that happened to
me once the war got underway and the
primary target will and things like
local local police barracks systems so
in effect the IRA removed British law
and order in that vacuum workers and
farmers quickly fill the vacuum to what
they saw few patients and land
occupations across what affects any
liberated zones so in that period we see
no less than five general strikes this
over a dozen local strikes the whole
time goes on strike you have to limit
the coolest most famously and all these
things are taking place in order to
maintain the exclusion of British law
and order another thing that of
particular importance in that period
with the refusal by train workers to
transport either munitions are armed
soldiers so all those things working
together had the effect of creating a
large areas of the countryside where
essentially law-and-order had broken
down and where you have a big well too
volatile you have people with huge
amounts of land and people with no land
if you remove that sort of rule of law
but what happens is workers act on that
and people without land act on it and
they start season workplaces and they
start taking over land and the general
strike of April 1922 Manchester Guardian
how to other interesting quote on that
but it said the direction of affairs
passed during the strike to these
workers councils which will fall noting
the local town class basis in most
places the police abdicated and the main
maintenance of all it was taken over by
the local workers Council
in fact it is no exaggeration to trace
the flavor of proletarian dictatorship
about some aspects of the strike now I
approached catch as a couple of things
one of the important things is the
international aspect which is that the
British establishment on the
establishment of London elsewhere was
worried not only about what was
happening in Ireland but also about the
Russian Revolution the influence of the
Russian Revolution and a wave of
revolutions to spread across Europe so
they tend to see things through that
sort of contest conventional republican
histories hardly mention this uprising
as anything more than I jumped to the
military struggle and it's not just that
it's not hard to see why because the
carrot that book written to the
negotiation table was the use of the
champagne court system that was set up
on the IRA to limit and in many cases
suppressed the movement of land seizures
returning glad to its former owners Pat
O'Donnell who was officer commanding of
the 2nd brigade of the IRA that so I'm
observed in 1963 looking back at this
case and that many and I have a man in
jail in nineteen 22 and 23 coast is used
as a defender of pure ideals to patrol
estate wills and forced to Greece for
rent
arrest and even ordered out of the
country leaders of local and agitation
another aspect that particularly when we
look back at the proclamation from now
is what I called the guard bothering
aspects about the Trainspotting because
now we know what was to come so not only
does the proclamation open within the
name of God closes with putting the
irish republic under the protection of
the Most High God if the vagueness which
covers the wealth of ID must be the
materialist basin basis for the reaction
that followed 1921
religion will provide the ideological
blew the not only made reaction possible
but escalated from the economic soviets
the social sphere of course the excuse
that odd is that the text was off its
time everybody was religious but they're
so what did you expect and there's a
certain amount of truth to that it saves
a true the nationalist revival of the
eighteen eighties had raised the earlier
anti-clerical aspects of republicanism
in a successful compromise with the
catholic church that had cemented sudden
nationalism as fairly as an alienated
many northern products
but it wasn't the only option at the
proclamation of the 1803 rebellions that
no that's not what it's about you not
only felt no need to open and close with
references to god it isn't there in the
middle and it declared church lands to
be properly of the nation
hello charged under something of a favor
making two films that explain the
unloading of reacting in a popular and
easily accessible way the first is the
obvious one of the most people have seen
it which is the Wind That Shakes the
barley which doesn't just tell the story
of the battle against the life and times
but also those dates the tensions within
the revolution over the wealth divide
but his more recent and less than on
film jimmy hold that a decade later to
tell I think the same story it's almost
an extension of what happens next and
that looks at the my religion was used
at the ideological view of the action in
this case by telling the true story of
had to radical organized amigo godson
was driven out not only from his bets
placed so that you know the time was
born in but bizarrely departed to the
united states and I remember when I
first came across that story was like
last time that happened I was the legal
basis of us and put them into legal
basis it was an extrajudicial alliance
between the goddess and the institutions
of power now at times you can call
that's an exceptional story you know
that's because we determined the middle
of the Titans what the hell was that
about
but actually I also realized nothing
exceptional me that that extrajudicial
vote of the gaudy was also develop that
dumped women into the Magdalene
laundries throughout most of the history
of the studies without any sort of legal
process in most cases and also captured
and returned women who escaped the
clutches writing to the 1960's and to
push the time coverage here but the most
extraordinary weakness of the
proclamation is its complete attempt to
evade the sectarian division which many
things even more apparent in the 1910
than it is today instead was simply told
that the Republic is oblivious to
differences can be followed by an alien
government but have divided the minority
in the past I mean it's really quite
hard to work out how that ended up there
after the nineteen commemorations of the
title nationalism socialism and petition
that looks at
reality unlock the possibilities where
intensive ready mobile media does
possibilities would have had you have to
be starting out of the 1916 to make any
use of them and so Joe W Bob Geldof
having showed that I simply can't seem
to get away with listing some of the
negative lessens the rising without
entering into them presents associations
like going to quickly close ally take up
three of the most important but that's
not all that positive lessons the first
one and the least controversial is that
it spearheaded an anti-colonial evoke
revolt that became global and are
basically almost all that the map not
just before the other major empires as
well and we tend to see the D-day
international connection is mostly just
being about tus but it's actually I
think part of a much wider process as
some of the participants like education
Suncoast connelly will relatively
explicit about that out but in fact if
you go back to the opinions they've made
limited attempts to build links with
other anti-colonial movements including
helping to fund an internationalist
paper backing the eighteen eighties and
in the aftermath of the rising with
apparent partial victory of the war of
independence on and became an example
for the construction of anti-colonial
movements elsewhere I don't know people
had a radio quite an interesting
interview basically which was with an
Indian woman who migrated to ireland and
she was just talking about how the
rising influence the politics of her
grandfather who otherwise was a pretty
terrible Hindu nationalist party
describing you can see you can see that
sort of influence there as well
the second thing is looking at the
rising through the lens of revolutionise
into collision if you take a small step
back and look at the rising not on its
own but as one advantage to period of
militant struggles that extended from
the 1909 duck striking Belfast through
the 1913 like I was here in Dublin who
doesn't and factory occupations of the
1918 and 1919 period and then go back to
belfast the 1919 engineering strike and
here you discovered not only that
militant protestant what does will also
deeply involved in militant struggle in
the same period against the
establishment but that this type of
struggle didn't stop at the Irish Sea it
also extended across Britain to Europe
usme alms and this is what some
historians and the Irish context an
attack on his work is wet reading at the
simplest wave back up a period of a
couple of decades will work as
internationally organized militant
rank-and-file general unions in order to
just not win better wages but to see
what places and institute a new society
that wave was defeated in some countries
by fascism but in most places that was
divided into detail time stages project
of Leninism on one hand but also in
anti-colonial context like our own
context internationalism the final
positive last night I want to mention is
direct action the movement of this
period was not one of electoral -ism and
lobbying was a certain amount of
electron isn't that was not what the
finders it was one of protest has not
been protesting go home but a practical
direct action this is very literally
true of 1916 itself the entire basis of
which was to use i'm forced under siege
of government buildings to declared a
republic in to be but that's about as
far as the bush BuzzFeed petition as you
can guess but it's also true of the
revolution movement I just talked about
internationally solving the land
question by seizing the land of taking
over your workplace and declaring you so
be it was a very long way indeed from
the modern practices of the Labor
Relations Board or the Land Commission
so a bit and on that I've written a
number of pieces most of the night the
90th anniversary if it were interested
in finding out more about the stuff I've
been talking about you look at WSM
website at www.irs.gov / 1960 you'll
find out there
