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How Does She Stand?
Author: Pádraic H. Pearse
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2. Second draft.
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Extent of text: 8705 words
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Text ID Number: E900007-002
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Sources
Select editions- P.H. Pearse, An sgoil: a direct method course in Irish (Dublin: Maunsel, 1913).
- P.H. Pearse, How does she stand? : three addresses (The Bodenstown series no. 1) (Dublin: Irish Freedom Press, 1915).
- P.H. Pearse, From a hermitage (The Bodenstown series no. 2)(Dublin: Irish Freedom Press, 1915).
- P.H. Pearse, The murder machine (The Bodenstown series no. 3) (Dublin: Whelan, 1916). Repr. U.C.C.: Department of Education, 1959.
- P.H. Pearse, Ghosts (Tracts for the Times) (Dublin: Whelan, 1916.
- P.H. Pearse, The Spiritual Nation (Tracts for the Times) (Dublin: Whelan, 1916.
- P.H. Pearse, The Sovereign People (Tracts for the Times) (Dublin: Whelan, 1916.
- P.H. Pearse, The Separatist Idea (Tracts for the Times) (Dublin: Whelan, 1916.
- Pádraic Colum, E.J. Harrington O'Brien (ed), Poems of the Irish revolutionary brotherhood, Thomas MacDonagh, P.H. Pearse (Pádraic MacPiarais), Joseph Mary Plunkett, Sir Roger Casement. (New and enl. ed.) (Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1916). First edition, July, 1916; second edition, enlarged, September, 1916.
- Michael Henry Gaffney, The stories of Pádraic Pearse (Dublin [etc.]: The Talbot Press Ltd. 1935). Contains ten plays by M.H. Gaffney based upon stories by Pádraic Pearse, and three plays by Pádraic Pearse edited by M.H. Gaffney.
- Proinsias Mac Aonghusa, Liam Ó Reagain (ed), The best of Pearse (1967).
- Seamus Ó Buachalla (ed), The literary writings of Patrick Pearse: writings in English (Dublin: Mercier, 1979).
- Seamus Ó Buachalla, A significant Irish educationalist: the educational writings of P.H. Pearse (Dublin: Mercier, 1980).
- Seamus Ó Buachalla (ed), The letters of P. H. Pearse (Gerrards Cross, Bucks.: Smythe, 1980).
- Pádraic Mac Piarais (ed), Bodach an chóta lachtna (Baile Átha Cliath: Chonnradh na Gaedhilge, 1906).
- Pádraic Mac Piarais, Bruidhean chaorthainn: sgéal Fiannaídheachta (Baile Átha Cliath: Chonnradh na Gaedhilge, 1912).
- Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H.
Pearse (Dublin: Phoenix Publishing Co. ? 1910 1919). 4 vols. v. 1. Political writings and speeches. - v. 2. Plays, stories, poems. - v. 3. Songs of the Irish rebels and specimens from an Irish anthology. Some aspects of Irish literature. Three lectures on Gaelic topics. - v. 4. The story of a success, edited by Desmond Ryan, and The man called Pearse, by Desmond Ryan.
- Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H.
Pearse (Dublin; Belfast: Phoenix, ? 1916 1917). 5 vols. [v. 1] Plays, stories, poems.[v. 2.] Political writings and speeches.[v. 3] Story of a success. Man called Pearse.[v. 4] Songs of the Irish rebels. Specimens from an Irish anthology. Some aspects of irish literature.[v. 5] Scrivinni.
- Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse . . . (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company 1917). 3rd ed. Translated by Joseph Campbell, introduction by Patrick Browne.
- Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse. 6th ed. (Dublin: Phoenix, 1924 1917) v. 1. Political writings and speeches v. 2. Plays, stories, poems.
- Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse (Dublin: Phoenix Pub. Co., 1924). 5 vols. [v. 1] Songs of the Irish rebels and specimens from an Irish anthology. Some aspects of Irish literature. Three lectures on Gaelic topics. [v. 2] Plays, stories, poems. [v. 3] Scríbinní. [v. 4] The story of a success [being a record of St. Enda's College] The man called Pearse / by Desmond Ryan. [v. 5] Political writings and speeches.
- Pádraic Pearse, Short stories of Pádraic Pearse (Cork: Mercier Press, 1968 1976 1989). (Iosagan, Eoineen of the birds, The roads, The black chafer, The keening woman).
- Pádraic Pearse, Political writing and speeches (Irish prose writings, 20) (Tokyo: Hon-no-tomosha, 1992). Originally published: Dublin: Maunsel & Roberts, 1922.
- Pádraic Pearse, Political writings and speeches (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin and London: Maunsel & Roberts Ltd., 1922).
- Pádraic Pearse, Political writings and Speeches (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin: Phoenix 1916). 6th ed. (Dublin [etc.]: Phoenix, 1924).
- Pádraic Pearse, Plays Stories Poems (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin, London: Maunsel & Company Ltd., 1917). 5th ed. 1922. Also pubd. by Talbot Press, Dublin, 1917, repr. 1966. Repr. New York: AMS Press, 1978.
- Pádraic Pearse, Filíocht Ghaeilge Pádraig Mhic Phiarais (Áth Cliath: Clóchomhar, 1981) Leabhair thaighde ; an 35u iml.
- Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse (New York: Stokes, 1918). Contains The Singer, The King, The Master, Íosagán.
- Pádraic Pearse, Songs of the Irish rebels and specimens from an Irish anthology: some aspects of Irish literature : three lectures on Gaelic topics (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin: The Phoenix Publishing Co. 1910).
- Pádraic Pearse, Songs of the Irish rebels (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin: Phoenix Pub. Co., 1917).
- Pádraic Pearse, Songs of the Irish rebels, and Specimens from an Irish anthology (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin: Maunsel, 1918).
- Pádraic Pearse, The story of a success (The complete works of P. H. Pearse) (Dublin: Phoenix Pub. Co., 1917) .
- Pádraic Pearse, Scríbinní (The complete works of P. H. Pearse) (Dublin: Phoenix Pub. Co., 1917).
- Julius Pokorny, Die Seele Irlands: Novellen und Gedichte aus dem Irisch-Galischen des Patrick Henry Pearse und Anderer zum ersten Male ins Deutsche übertragen (Halle a.S.: Max Niemeyer 1922)
- James Simmons, Ten Irish poets: an anthology of poems by George Buchanan, John Hewitt, Pádraic Fiacc, Pearse Hutchinson, James Simmons, Michael Hartnett, Eilean Ní Chuilleanáin, Michael Foley, Frank Ormsby & Tom Mathews (Cheadle: Carcanet Press, 1974).
- Cathal Ó hAinle (ed), Gearrscéalta an Phiarsaigh (Dublin: Helicon, 1979).
- Ciarán Ó Coigligh (ed), Filíocht Ghaeilge: Phádraig Mhic Phiarais (Baile Átha Cliath: Clóchomhar, 1981).
- Pádraig Mac Piarais, et al., Une île et d'autres îles: poèmes gaeliques XXeme siècle (Quimper: Calligrammes, 1984).
Select bibliography- Pádraic Mac Piarais : Pearse from documents (Dublin : Co-ordinating committee for Educational Services, 1979). Facsimile documents. National Library of Ireland. facsimile documents.
- Xavier Carty, In bloody protestthe tragedy of Patrick Pearse (Dublin: Able 1978).
- Helen Louise Clark, Pádraic Pearse: a Gaelic idealist (1933). (Thesis (M.A.)Boston College, 1933).
- Mary Maguire Colum, St. Enda's School, Rathfarnham, Dublin.
Founded by Pádraic H. Pearse. (New York: Save St. Enda's Committee 1917).
- Pádraic H. Pearse ([s.l. : s.n., C. F. Connolly) 1920).
- Elizabeth Katherine Cussen, Irish motherhood in the drama of William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, and Pádraic Pearse: a comparative study. (1934) Thesis (M.A.)Boston College, 1934.
- Ruth Dudley Edwards, Patrick Pearse: the triumph of failure (London: Gollancz, 1977).
- Stefan Fodor, Douglas Hyde, Eoin MacNeill, and Pádraic Pearse of the Gaelic League: a study in Irish cultural nationalism and separatism, 1893-1916 (1986). Thesis (M.A.)Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 1986.
- James Hayes, Patrick H. Pearse, storyteller (Dublin: Talbot, 1920).
- John J. Horgan, Parnell to Pearse: some recollections and reflections (Dublin: Browne & Nolan, 1948).
- Louis N. Le Roux, La vie de Patrice Pearse (Rennes: Imprimerie Commerciale de Bretagne, 1932). Translated into English by Desmond Ryan (Dublin: Talbot, 1932).
- Proinsias Mac Aonghusa, Quotations from P.H. Pearse, (Dublin: Mercier, 1979).
- Mary Benecio McCarty (Sister), Pádraic Henry Pearse: an educator in the Gaelic tradition (1939) (Thesis (M.A.)Marquette
University, 1939).
- Hedley McCay, Pádraic Pearse; a new biography (Cork: Mercier Press, 1966).
- John Bernard Moran, Sacrifice as exemplified by the life and writings of Pádraic Pearse is true to the Christian and Irish ideals; that portrayed in the Irish plays of Sean O'Casey is futile (1939). Submitted to Dept. of English. Thesis (M.A.)Boston College, 1939.
- Sean Farrell Moran, Patrick Pearse and the politics of redemption: the mind of the Easter rising, 1916 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1994).
- P.S. O'Hegarty, A bibliography of books written by P. H. Pearse (s.l.: 1931).
- Máiread O'Mahony, The political thought of Padraig H. Pearse: pragmatist or idealist (1994). ThesesM.A. (NUI, University College Cork).
- Daniel J. O'Neill, The Irish revolution and the cult of the leader: observations on Griffith, Moran, Pearse and Connolly (Boston: Northeastern U.P., 1988).
- Mary Brigid Pearse (ed), The home-life of Padraig Pearse as told by himself, his family and friends (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1934). Repr. Cork, Mercier 1979.
- Maureen Quill, Pádraic H. Pearsehis philosophy of Irish education (1996). ThesesM.A. (NUI, University College Cork).
- Desmond Ryan, The man called Pearse (Dublin: Maunsel, 1919).
- Nicholas Joseph Wells, The meaning of love and patriotism as seen in the plays, poems, and stories of Pádraic Pearse (1931). (Thesis (M.A.)Boston College, 1931).
The edition used in the digital edition- Pádraic Pearse How Does She Stand? in Political Writings and Speeches. , Dublin, Phoenix Publishing Co. Ltd. (1924) page 5387
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Created: By Pádraic Henry Pearse (18791916).
Date range: 19131914.
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Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E900007-002
How Does She Stand?: Author: Pádraic H. Pearse
Three Addresses
p.53
Theobald Wolfe Tone
[Footnote: An Address delivered at the Grave of Wolfe Tone in Bodenstown
Churchyard, 22nd June, 1913.]
We have come to the holiest place in Ireland; holier to us even than
the place where Patrick sleeps in Down. Patrick brought us life, but
this man died for us. And though many before him and some since have
died in testimony of the truth of Ireland's claim to nationhood, Wolfe
Tone was the greatest of all that have made that testimony, the greatest
of all that have died for Ireland whether in old time or in new. He was
the greatest of Irish Nationalists;
p.54
I believe
he was the greatest of Irish men. And if I am right in this I am right
in saying that we stand in the holiest place in Ireland, for it must be
that the holiest sod of the nation's soil is the sod where the greatest
of her dead lies buried.
I feel it difficult to speak to you to-day;
difficult to speak in this place. It is as if one had to speak by the
graveside of some dear friend, a brother in blood or a well-tried
comrade in arms, and to say aloud the things one would rather keep to
oneself. But I am helped by the knowledge that you who listen to me
partake in my emotion: we are none of us strangers, being all in a sense
own brothers to Tone, sharing in his faith, sharing in his hope, still
unrealised, sharing in his great love. I have, then, only to find
expression for the thoughts and emotions common to us all, and you will
understand even if the expression be a halting one.
We have come here
not merely to salute this noble dust and to pay our homage to the noble
spirit of Tone. We have come to renew our adhesion to the faith of Tone;
to express once more our full acceptance of
p.55
the gospel of
Irish Nationalism which he was the first to formulate in worthy terms,
giving clear definition and plenary meaning to all that had been thought
and taught before him by Irish-speaking and English-speaking men;
uttered half articulately by a Shane O'Neill in some defiance flung at
the Englishry, expressed under some passionate metaphor by a Geoffrey
Keating, hinted at by a Swift in some biting gibe, but clearly and
greatly stated by Wolfe Tone, and not needing now ever to be stated anew
for any new generation. He has spoken for all time, and his voice
resounds throughout Ireland, calling to us from this grave when we
wander astray following other voices that ring less true.
This, then,
is the first part of Wolfe Tone's achievementhe made articulate the
dumb voices of the centuries, he gave Ireland a clear and precise and
worthy concept of Nationality. But he did more than this: not only did
he define Irish Nationalism, but he armed his generation in defence of
it. Thinker and doer, dreamer of the immortal dream and doer of the
immortal deedwe owe to this dead man more than we can ever repay him by
making pilgrimages to his grave
p.56
or by rearing to him the
stateliest monument in the streets of his city. To his teaching we owe
it that there is such a thing as Irish Nationalism, and to the memory of
the deed he nerved his generation to do, to the memory of '98, we owe it
that there is any manhood left in Ireland.
I have called him the
greatest of our dead. In mind he was great above all the men of his time
or of the after time; and he was greater still in spirit. It was to that
nobly-dowered mind of his that Kickham, himself the most nobly-dowered
of a later generation, paid reverence when he said:
- Oh, knowledge is a wondrous power;
'Tis stronger than the wind
[gap: Lines skipped in quotation.]
And would to the kind heavens
That Wolfe Tone were here to-day.
But greater than that full-orbed intelligence, that
wide, gracious, richly stored mind, was the mighty spirit of Tone. This
man's soul was a burning flame, a flame so ardent, so generous, so pure,
that to come into communion with it is to come unto a new baptism,
p.57
unto a new regeneration and cleansing. If we who stand by
this graveside could make ourselves at one with the heroic spirit that
once inbreathed this clay, could in some way come into loving contact
with it, possessing ourselves of something of its ardour, its valour,
its purity, its tenderness, its gaiety, how good a thing it would be for
us, how good a thing for Ireland; with what joyousness and strength
should we set our faces towards the path that lies before us, bringing
with us fresh life from this place of death, a new resurrection of
patriotic grace in our souls!
Try to get near the spirit of Tone, the
gallant soldier spirit, the spirit that dared and soared, the spirit
that loved and served, the spirit that laughed and sang with the
gladness of a boy. I do not ask you to venerate him as a saint; I ask
you to love him as a man. For myself, I would rather have known this man
than any man of whom I have ever heard or ever read. I have not read or
heard of any who had more of heroic stuff in him than he, any that went
so gaily and so gallantly about a great deed, any who loved so well, any
who was so beloved. To
p.58
have been this man's friend, what
a privilege that would have been! To have known him as Thomas Russell
knew him! I have always loved the very name of Thomas Russell because
Tone loved him.
I do not think there has ever been a more true and
loyal man than Tone. He had for his friends an immense tenderness and
charity; and now and then there breaks into what he is writing or saying
a gust of passionate love for his wife, for his children. O my
babies, my babies! he exclaims. . .Yes, this man
could love well; and it was from such love as this he exiled himself;
with such love as this crushed in his faithful heart that he became a
weary but indomitable ambassador to courts and camps; with the memory of
such love as this, with the little hands of his children plucking at his
heartstrings, that he lay down to die in that cell on Arbour Hill.
Such is the high and sorrowful destiny of the heroes: to turn their
backs to the pleasant paths and their faces to the hard paths, to blind
their eyes to the fair things of life, to stifle all sweet music in the
heart, the low voices of women and the laughter of
p.59
little
children, and to follow only the far, faint call that leads them into
the battle or to the harder death at the foot of a gibbet.
Think of
Tone. Think of his boyhood and young manhood in Dublin and Kildare, his
adventurous spirit and plans, his early love and marriage, his glorious
failure at the bar, his healthy contempt for what he called a foolish
wig and gown, and thenthe call of Ireland. Think of how he put
virility into the Catholic movement, how this heretic toiled to make
free men of Catholic helots, how, as he worked among them, he grew to
know and to love the real, the historic Irish people, and the great,
clear, sane conception came to him that in Ireland there must be, not
two nations or three nations, but one nation, that Protestant and
Dissenter must be brought into amity with Catholic, and that Catholic,
Protestant, and Dissenter must unite to achieve freedom for all.
Then came the United Irishmen, and those journeys through Irelandto
Ulster and to Connachtwhich, as described by him, read like epics
infused with a kindly human humour. Soon the Government realises that
this is the most dangerous man in Ireland
p.60
this man who
preaches peace among brother Irishmen. It does not suit the Government
that peace and goodwill between Catholic and Protestant should be
preached in Ireland. So Tone goes into exile, having first pledged
himself to the cause of Irish freedom on the Cave Hill above Belfast.
From America to France: one of the great implacable exiles of Irish
history, a second and a greater Fitzmaurice, one might say to him as the
poet said to Sarsfield:
- Ag déanamh do ghearáin leis na ríghthibh
Is gur fhág tú Eire 's Gaedhil bhocht' claoidhte, Och, ochón!
But
it was no complaint that Tone made to foreign
rulers and foreign senates, but wise and bold counsel that he gave them;
wise because bold. A French fleet ploughs the waves and enters Bantry
BayTone on board. We know the sequel: how the fleet tossed about for
days on the broad bosom of the Bay, how the craven in command refused to
make a landing because his commander in-chief had not come up, how
Tone's heart
p.61
was torn with impatience and yearninghe saw
his beloved Ireland, could see the houses and the people on shorehow
the fleet set sail, that deed undone that would have freed Ireland.
It is the supreme tribute to the greatness of this man that after
that cruel disappointment he set to work again, indomitable. Two more
expeditions, a French and a Dutch, were fitted out for Ireland, but
never reached Ireland. Then at last came Tone himself; he had said he
would come, if need be, with only a corporals guard: he came with very
little more.
Three small ships enter Lough Swilly. The English
follow them. Tone's vessel fights: Tone commands one of the guns. For
six hours she stood alone against the whole English fleet. What a
glorious six hours for Tone! A battered hulk, the vessel struck; Tone,
betrayed by a friend, was dragged to Dublin and condemned to a traitor's
death. Then the last scene in the Provost Prison, and Tone lies dead,
the greatest of the men of '98. To this spot they bore him, and here he
awaits the judgment; and we stand at his graveside
p.62
and
remember that his work is still unaccomplished after more than a hundred
years.
When men come to a graveside they pray and each of us prays
here in his heart. But we do not pray for Tone men who die that their
people may be free have no need of prayer. We
pray for Ireland that she may be free, and for ourselves that we may
free her. My brothers, were it not an unspeakable privilege if to our
generation it should be granted to accomplish that which Tone's
generation, so much worthier than ours, failed to accomplish! To
complete the work of Tone!. . .
And let us make
no mistake as to what Tone sought to do, what it remains for us to do.
We need not re-state our programme; Tone has stated it for us:
To break the connection with England, the never-failing source of
all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my countrythese were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish
the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of
Irishmen in place of the denominations of Protestant.
p.63
Catholic, and Dissenter these were my means.
I find here
implicit all the philosophy of Irish Nationalism, all the teaching of
the Gaelic League and the later prophets. Ireland one and Ireland free
is not this the definition of Ireland a Nation? To that definition and
to that programme we declare our adhesion anew; pledging ourselves as
Tone pledged himself and in this sacred place, by this graveside, let
us not pledge ourselves unless we mean to keep our pledge we pledge
ourselves to follow in the steps of Tone, never to rest, either by day
or by night, until his work be accomplished, deeming it the proudest of
all privileges to fight for freedom, to fight, not in despondency, but in
great joy, hoping for the victory in our day, but fighting on whether
victory seem near or far, never lowering our ideal, never bartering one
jot or title of our birthright, holding faith to the memory and the
inspiration of Tone, and accounting ourselves base as long as we endure
the evil thing against which he testified with his blood.
p.64
Robert Emmet and the Ireland of to-day
An Address delivered at the Emmet Commemoration in the Academy of
Music, Brooklyn, New York, 2nd March, 1914.
1
You ask me to speak of the Ireland of to-day. What can I tell you of
it that is worthy of commemoration where we commemorate heroic faith and
the splendour of death? In that Ireland whose spokesmen have, in return
for the promise of a poor simulacrum of liberty, pledged to our ancient
enemy our loyalty and the loyalty of our children, is there, even though
that pledge has been spoken, any group of true men, any right striving,
any hope still cherished in virtue of which, lifting up our hearts, we
can cry across the years to him whom we remember to-night, Brother,
we have kept
p.65
the faith; comrade, we, too, stand ready to
serve?
For patriotism is at once a faith and a service. A
faith which in some of us has been in our flesh and bone since we were
moulded in our mothers' wombs, and which in others of us has at some
definite moment of our later lives been kindled flaming as if by the
miraculous word of God; a faith which is of the same nature as religious
faith and is one of the eternal witnesses in the heart of man to the
truth that we are of divine kindred; a faith which, like religious
faith, when true and vital, is wonder-working, but, like religious
faith, is dead without good works even as the body without the spirit.
So that patriotism needs service as the condition of its authenticity,
and it is not sufficient to say I believe unless one can say also
I serve.
And our patriotism is measured, not by the
formula in which we declare it, but by the service which we render. We
owe to our country all fealty and she asks always for our service; and
there are times when she asks of us not ordinary but some supreme
service. There are in every generation those
p.66
who shrink from
the ultimate sacrifice, but there are in every generation those who make
it with joy and laughter, and these are the salt of the generations, the
heroes who stand midway between God and men. Patriotism is in large part
a memory of heroic dead men and a striving to accomplish some task left
unfinished by them. Had they not gone before, made their attempts and
suffered the sorrow of their failures, we should long ago have lost the
tradition of faith and service, having no memory in the heart nor any
unaccomplished dream.
The generation that is now growing old in
Ireland had almost forgotten our heroes. We had learned the great art of
parleying with our enemy and achieving nationhood by negotiation. The
heroes had trodden hard and bloody ways: we should tread soft and
flowering ways. The heroes had given up all things: we had learned a way
of gaining all things, land and good living and the friendship of our
foe. But the soil of Ireland, yea, the very stones of our cities have
cried out against an infidelity that would barter an old tradition of
nationhood even for a thing so precious as peace. This the
p.67
heroes have
done for us; for their spirits indwell in the place where they lived,
and the hills of Ireland must be rent and her cities levelled with the
ground and all her children driven out upon the seas of the world before
those voices are silenced that bid us be faithful still and to make no
peace with England until Ireland is ours.
I live in a place that
is very full of heroic memories. In the room in which I work at St.
Enda's College Robert Emmet is said often to have sat; in our garden is
a vine which they call Emmet's Vine and from which he is said to have
plucked grapes; through our wood runs a path which is called Emmet's
Walkthey say that he and Sarah Curran walked there; at an angle
of our boundary wall there is a little fortified lodge called Emmet's
Fort. Across the road from us is a thatched cottage whose tenant in 1803
was in Green Street Courthouse all the long day that Emmet stood on
trial, with a horse saddled without that he might bring news of the end
to Sarah Curran. Half a mile from us across the fields is Butterfield
House, where Emmet lived during the days preceding the rising. It is
easy to imagine his
p.68
figure coming out along the Harold's Cross Road to
Rathfarnham, tapping the ground with his cane, as they say was his
habit; a young, slight figure, with how noble a head bent a little upon
the breast, with how high a heroism sleeping underneath that quietness
and gravity! One thinks of his anxious nights in Butterfield House; of
his busy days in Marshalsea Lane or Patrick Street; of his careful
plansthe best plans that have yet been made for the capture of
Dublin; his inventions and devices, the jointed pikes, the rockets and
explosives upon which he counted so much; his ceaseless conferences, his
troubles with his associates, his disappointments, his disillusionments,
borne with such sweetness and serenity of temper, such a trust in human
nature, such a trust in Ireland! Then the hurried rising, the sally into
the streets, the failure at the Castle gates, the catastrophe in Thomas
Street, the retreat along the familiar Harold's Cross Road to
Rathfarnham. At Butterfield House Anne Devlin, the faithful, keeps
watch. You remember her greeting to Emmet in the first pain of her
disappointment: Musha, bad welcome to you! Is Ireland lost by you,
p.69
cowards that you are, to lead the people to destruction and then to
leave them? And poor Emmet's replyno word of blame for the
traitors that had sold him, for the cravens that had abandoned him, for
the fools that had bungled; just a halting, heartbroken exculpation, the
only one he was to make for himselfDon't blame me, Anne; the
fault is not mine. And her woman's heart went out to him and she
took him in and cherished him; but the soldiery were on his track, and
that was his last night in Butterfield House. The bracken was his bed
thenceforth, or a precarious pillow in his old quarters at Harold's
Cross, until he lay down in Kilmainham to await the summons of the
executioner.
No failure, judged as the world judges these things,
was ever more complete, more pathetic than Emmet's. And yet he has left
us a prouder memory than the memory of Brian victorious at Clontarf or
of Owen Roe victorious at Benburb. It is the memory of a sacrifice
Christ-like in its perfection. Dowered with all things splendid and
sweet, he left all things and elected to die. Face to face with England
in the dock at Green
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Street he uttered the most memorable words ever
uttered by an Irish man; words which ringing above a century's tumults,
forbid us ever to waver or grow weary until our country takes her place
among the nations of the earth. And his death was august. In the great
space of Thomas Street an immense silent crowd; in front of St.
Catherine's church a gallows upon a platform; a young man climbs to it,
quiet, serene, almost smiling, they sayah, he was very brave;
there is no cheer from the crowd, no groan; this man is to die for them,
but no man dares to say aloud God bless you Robert Emmet. Dublin
must one day wash out in blood the shameful memory of that quiescence.
Would Michael Dwyer come from the Wicklow hills? Up to the last moment
Emmet seems to have expected him. He was saying Not yet when the
hangman kicked aside the plank and his body was launched into the air.
They say it swung for half-an-hour, with terrible contortions, before he
died. When he was dead the comely head was severed from the body. A
friend of mine knew an old woman who told him how the blood
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flowed down
upon the pavement, and how she sickened with horror as she saw the dogs
of the street lap up that noble blood. Then the hangman showed the pale
head to the people and announced; This is the head of a traitor,
Robert Emmet. A traitor? No, but a true man. O my brothers, this was
one of the truest men that ever lived. This was one of the bravest
spirits that Ireland ever nurtured. This man was faithful even unto the
ignominy of the gallows, dying that his people might live, even as
Christ died.
Be assured that such a death always means a
redemption. Emmet redeemed Ireland from acquiescence in the union. His
attempt was not a failure, but a triumph for that deathless thing we
call Irish Nationality. It was by Emmet that men remembered Ireland
until Davis and Mitchel took up his work again, and '48 handed on the
tradition to '67, and from '67 we receive the tradition unbroken.
You ask me to speak of Ireland of to-day. What need I say but that
to-day Ireland is turning her face once more to the old path? Nothing
seems more definitely to emerge when one looks at the movements that are
stirring both above the surface and
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beneath the surface in men's minds
at home than the fact that the new generation is reaffirming the Fenian
faith, the faith of Emmet. It is because we know that this is so that we
can suffer in patience the things that are said and done in the name of
Irish Nationality by some of our leaders. What one may call the
Westminster phase is passing: the National movement is swinging back
again into its proper channel. A new junction has been made with the
past: into the movement that has never wholly died since '67 have come
the young men of the Gaelic League. Having renewed communion
with its origins, Irish Nationalism is to-day a more virile thing than
ever before in our time. Of that be sure.
I have said again and
again that when the Gaelic League was founded in 1893 the Irish
Revolution began. The Gaelic League brought it a certain
distance upon its way; but the Gaelic League could not
accomplish the Revolution. For five or six years a new phase has been
due, and lo! it is with us now. To-day Ireland is once more organising,
once more learning the noble trade of arms. In our towns and country
places Volunteer
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companies are springing up. Dublin pointed the way,
Galway has followed Dublin, Cork has followed Galway, Wexford has
followed Cork, Limerick has followed Wexford, Monaghan has followed
Limerick, Sligo has followed Monaghan, Donegal has followed Sligo. There
is again in Ireland the murmur of a marching, and talk of guns and
tactics. What this movement may mean for our country no man can say. But
it is plain to all that the existence on Irish soil of an Irish army is
the most portentous fact that has appeared in Ireland for over a hundred
years: a fact which marks definitely the beginning of the second stage
of the Revolution which was commenced when the Gaelic League
was founded. The inner significance of the movement lies in this, that
men of every rank and class, of every section of Nationalist opinion, of
every shade of religious belief, have discovered that they share a
common patriotism, that their faith is one and that there is one service
in which they can come together at last: the service of their country in
arms. We are realising now how proud a thing it is to serve, and in the
comradeship and joy of the new service we
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are forgetting many ancient
misunderstandings. In the light of a re-discovered citizenship things
are plain to us that were before obscure:
- Lo, a clearness of vision has followed, lo
a purification of sight;
Lo, the friend is discerned from the foeman,
the wrong recognised from the right.
After
all, there are in Ireland but two parties: those who stand for the
English connection and those who stand against it. On what side, think
you, stand the Irish Volunteers? I cannot speak for the Volunteers; I am
not authorised to say when they will use their arms or where or how. I
can speak only for myself; and it is strictly a personal perception that
I am recording, but a perception that to me is very clear, when I say
that before this generation has passed the Volunteers will draw the
sword of Ireland. There is no truth but the old truth and no way but the
old way. Home Rule may come or may not come, but under Home Rule or in
its absence there remains for the Volunteers and
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for Ireland the
substantial business of achieving Irish nationhood. And I do not know
how nationhood is achieved except by armed men; I do not know how
nationhood is guarded except by armed men.
I ask you, then, to
salute with me the Irish Volunteers. I ask you to mark their advent as
an augury that, no matter what pledges may be given by men who do not
know Irelandthe stubborn soul of Irelandthat nation of
ancient faith will never sell her birthright of freedom for a mess of
pottage; a mess of dubious pottage, at that. Ireland has been guilty of
many meannesses, of many shrinkings back when she should have marched
forward; but she will never be guilty of that immense infidelity.
p.76
An Address delivered at the Emmet Commemoration in the Aeolian
Hall, New York, 9th March, 1914.
1
We who speak here to-night are the voice of one of the ancient
indestructible things of the world. We are the voice of an idea which is
older than any empire and will outlast every empire. We and ours, the
inheritors of that idea, have been at age-long war with one of the most
powerful empires that have ever been built up upon the earth; and that
empire will pass before we pass. We are older than England and we are
stronger than England. In every generation we have renewed the struggle,
and so it shall be unto the end. When England thinks she has trampled
out our battle in blood, some brave man rises and rallies us again; when
England thinks she has purchased us with a bribe, some good man redeems
us by a sacrifice. Wherever England goes on her mission of empire we
meet her and we strike at her; yesterday it was on the South
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African veldt, to-day it is in the Senate House at Washington, to-morrow it may
be in the streets of Dublin. We pursue her like a sleuth-hound; we lie
in wait for her and come upon her like a thief in the night; and some
day we will overwhelm her with the wrath of God.
It is not that
we are apostles of hate. Who like us has carried Christ's word of
charity about the earth? But the Christ that said My peace I leave
you, My peace I give you, is the same Christ that said I bring
not peace, but a sword.There can be no peace between right and
wrong, between truth and falsehood, between justice and oppression,
between freedom and tyranny. Between them it is eternal war until the
wrong is righted, until the true thing is established, until justice is
accomplished, until freedom is won.
So when England talks of
peace we know our answer: Peace with you? Peace while your one hand
is at our throat and your other hand is in our pocket? Peace with a
footpad? Peace with a pickpocket? Peace with the leech that is sucking
our body dry of blood? Peace with the many-armed
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monster whose tentacles
envelop us while its system emits an inky fluid that shrouds its work of
murder from the eyes of men? The time has not yet come to talk of
peace.
But England, we are told, offers us terms. She holds
out to us the hand of friendship. She gives us a Parliament with an
Executive responsible to it. Within two years the Home Rule Senate meets
in College Green and King George comes to Dublin to declare its sessions
open. In anticipation of that happy event our leaders have proffered
England our loyalty. Mr. Redmond accepts Home Rule as a final
settlement between the two nations; Mr. O'Brien in the fullness of
his heart cries God Save the King; Colonel Lynch offers England
his sword in case she is attacked by a foreign power.
And so this
settlement is to be a final settlement. Would Wolfe Tone have accepted
it as a final settlement? Would Robert Emmet have accepted it as a final
settlement? Either we are heirs to their principles or we are not. If we
are, we can accept no settlement as final which does not break the
connection with England, the never-failing
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source of all our political
evils; if we are not, how dare we go in annual pilgrimage to
Bodenstown, how dare we gather here or anywhere to commemorate the faith
and sacrifice of Emmet? Did, then, these dead heroic men live in vain?
Has Ireland learned a truer philosophy than the philosophy of '98, and a
nobler way of salvation than the way of 1803? Is Wolfe Tone's definition
superseded, and do we discharge our duty to Emmet's memory by according
him annually our pity?
To do the English justice, I do not think
they are satisfied that Ireland will accept Home Rule as a final
settlement. I think they are a little anxious to-day. If their minds
were tranquil on the subject of Irish loyalty they would hardly have
proclaimed the importation of arms into Ireland the moment the Irish
Volunteers had begun to organise themselves. They had given the Ulster
faction which is used as a cats paw by one of the English parties two
years to organise and arm against that Home Rule Bill which they profess
themselves so anxious to pass: to the Nationalists of Ireland they did
not give two weeks. Of course, we can
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arm in spite of them: to-day we
are organising and training the men and we have ways and means of
getting arms when the men are ready for the arms. The contention I make
now, and I ask you to note it well, is that England does not trust
Ireland with guns; that under Home Rule or in the absence of Home Rule
England declares that we Irish must remain an unarmed people; and
England is right.
England is right in suspecting Irish loyalty,
and those Irishmen who promise Irish loyalty to England are wrong. I
believe them honest; but they have spent so much of their lives
parleying with the English, they have sat so often and so long at
English feasts, that they have lost communion with the ancient
unpurchaseable faith of Ireland, the ancient stubborn thing that
forbids, as if with the voice of fate, any loyalty from Ireland to
England, any union between us and them, any surrender of one jot or
shred of our claim to freedom even in return for all the blessings of
the British peace.
I have called that old faith an indestructible
thing. I have said that it is more powerful than empires. If you would
understand its
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might you must consider how it has made all the
generations of Ireland heroic. Having its root in all gentleness, in a
man's love for the place where his mother bore him, for the breast that
gave him suck, for the voices of children that sounded in a house now
silent, for the faces that glowed around a fireside now cold, for the
story told by lips that will not speak again, having its root, I say, in
all gentleness, it is yet a terrible thing urging the generations to
perilous bloody attempts, nerving men to give up life for the
death-in-life of dungeons, teaching little boys to die with laughing
lips, giving courage to young girls to bare their backs to the lashes of
a soldiery.
It is easy to imagine how the spirit of Irish
patriotism called to the gallant and adventurous spirit of Tone or moved
the wrathful spirit of Mitchel. In them deep called unto deep: heroic
effort claimed the heroic man. But consider how the call was made to a
spirit of different, yet not less noble mould; and how it was answered.
In Emmet it called to a dreamer and he awoke a man of action; it called
to a student and a recluse and he stood forth a leader of
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men; it called
to one who loved the ways of peace and he became a revolutionary. I wish
I could help you to realise, I wish I could myself adequately realise,
the humanity, the gentle and grave humanity, of Emmet. We are so
dominated by the memory of that splendid death of his, by the memory of
that young figure, serene and smiling, climbing to the gallows above
that sea of silent men in Thomas Street, that we forget the life of
which that death was only the necessary completion; and the life has a
nearer meaning for us than the death. For Emmet, finely gifted though he
was, was just a young man with the same limitations, the same
self-questionings, the same falterings, the same kindly human emotions
surging up sometimes in such strength as almost to drown a heroic
purpose, as many a young man we have known. And his task was just such a
task as many of us have undertaken: he had to go through the same
repellent routine of work, to deal with the hard, uncongenial details of
correspondence and committee meetings; he had the same sordid
difficulties that we have, yea, even the vulgar difficulty of want of
funds. And he had the
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same poor human material to work with, men who
misunderstood, men who bungled, men who talked too much, men who failed
at the same moment . . .
Yes, the task we take up again is
just Emmet's task of silent unattractive work, the routine of
correspondence and committees and organising. We must face it as bravely
and as quietly as he faced it, working on in patience as he worked on,
hoping as he hoped; cherishing in our secret hearts the mighty hope that
to us, though so unworthy, it may be given to bring to accomplishment
the thing he left unaccomplished, but working on even when that hope
dies within us.
I would ask you to consider now how the call I
have spoken of was made to the spirit of a woman, and how, equally, it
was responded to. Wherever Emmet is commemorated let Anne Devlin not be
forgotten. Bryan Devlin had a dairy farm in Butterfield Lane; his fields
are still green there. Five sons of his fought in '98. Anne was his
daughter, and she went to keep house for Emmet when he moved into
Butterfield House. You know how she kept vigil there on the night of the
rising. When all was lost and
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Emmet came out in his hurried retreat
through Rathfarnham to the mountains, her greeting wasaccording
to tradition it was spoken in Irish, and Emmet must have replied in
Irish Musha, bad welcome to you! Is Ireland lost by you,
cowards that you are, to lead the people to destruction and then to
leave them? Don't blame me, Anne; the fault is not mine, said
Emmet. And she was sorry for the pain her words had inflicted, spoken in
the pain of her own disappointment. She would have tended him like a
mother could he have tarried there, but his path lay to Kilmashogue, and
hers was to be a harder duty. When Sirr came out with his soldiery she
was still keeping her vigil. Where is Emmet? I have nothing to
tell you.To all their questions she had but one answer: I have
nothing to say; I have nothing to tell you.They swung her up to a
cart and half-hanged her several times; after each half-hanging, she was
revived and questioned: still the same answer. They pricked her breast
with bayonets until the blood spurted out in their faces. They dragged
her to prison and tortured her for days. Not one word did
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they extract
from that steadfast woman. And when Emmet was sold, he was sold, not by
a woman, but by a manby the friend that he had trustedby
the counsel who, having sold him, was to go through the ghastly mockery
of defending him at the bar.
The fathers and mothers of Ireland
should often tell their children that story of Robert Emmet and that
story of Anne Devlin. To the Irish mothers who hear me I would say that
when at night you kiss your children and in your hearts call down a
benediction, you could wish for your boys no higher thing than that,
should the need come, they may be given the strength to make Emmet's
sacrifice, and for your girls no greater gift from God than such
fidelity as Anne Devlin's.
It is more than a hundred years since
these things were suffered; and they were suffered in vain if nothing of
the spirit of Emmet and Anne Devlin survives in the young men and young
women of Ireland. Does anything of that spirit survive? I think I can
speak for my own generation. I think I can speak for my contemporaries
in the Gaelic League, an organisation which has not yet
concerned itself with politics, but
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whose younger spirits are accepting
the full national idea and are bringing into the national struggle the
passion and the practicalness which marked the early stages of the
language movement. I think I can speak for the young men of the
Volunteers. So far, they have no programme beyond learning the trade of
arms: a trade which no man of Ireland could learn for over a hundred
years past unless he took the English shilling. It is a good programme;
and we may almost commit the future of Ireland to the keeping of the
Volunteers. I think I can speak for a younger generation still: for some
of the young men that are entering the National University, for my own
pupils at St. Enda's College, for the boys of Fianna
Eireann. To the grey-haired men whom I see on this platform,
to John Devoy and Richard Burke, I bring, then, this message from
Ireland: that their seed-sowing of forty years ago has not been without
its harvest, that there are young men and little boys in Ireland to-day
who remember what they taught and who, with God's blessing, will one day
takeor make an opportunity of putting their teaching into practice.
p.87
Appendix 1
An Addendum
(August 1914)
Since I spoke the words here reprinted there has been a quick
movement of events in Ireland. The young men of the nation stand
organised and disciplined, and are rapidly arming themselves; blood has
flowed in Dublin Streets, and the cause of the Volunteers has been
consecrated by a holocaust. A European war has brought about a crisis
which may contain, as yet hidden within it, the moment for which the
generations have been waiting. It remains to be seen whether, if that
moment reveals itself, we shall have the sight to see and the courage to
do, or whether it shall be written of this generation, alone of all the
generations of Ireland, that it had none among it who dared to make the
ultimate sacrifice.