Post by voxpopuli on Nov 26, 2007 19:52:47 GMT
Not yet Emmet: a wreath on the grave of Sean Murray.
Peadar O'Donnell
Foreword
Ireland won political independence in 1782. It was expressed in a declaration that only the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland could make laws binding on the Irish people. It was a Parliament without a Government. The Government was in London.
The free Irish Parliament rested comfortably on the economic structure of the regime it displaced - protestant ascendancy in whom is vested ownership of land and the power of majesty. But it was a period of dangerous "French" ideas. The French rabble had stirred themselves out of their stupor and swept the medieval institutions that rotted their lives into the rubbish dump of history. Fear of the rabble rocked governments of the rich for the rich throughout Europe and sparks from it lit a new vision of life in generous minds to whom the rabble were people. The French ideas were an infection that enlightened governments must smother.
They touched Ireland finding tinder-dry conditions in the Protestant North. Carriers of the infection were busy among the Catholics. The British government took prompt steps to fence off the danger areas. This called for the help of two institutions, the Loyal Orange Order and the Catholic Seminary, Maynooth; priests educated in France were a security risk.
The Orange Order was recruited from men of proven loyalty. They were an oath-bound brotherhood but of such disposition they had no need of elaborate pledge - true faith and allegiance to His Majesty George III his heirs and successors by law so long as they supported the Protestant ascendancy; it was landlord orientated and regarded itself as elitist. Landlords led their tenants to inaugural meetings; the unit of organisation was the lodge. So trustworthy was the Orange Order considered that the officer commanding troops in Ulster asked permission to distribute arms through lodges in certain areas so that they might carry out activities which would put discipline at risk if required of regular units of the army.
Presbyterians and other non-conformist sects were denied membership. Maynooth, however, swamped in a sea of Catholics with a long history of disaffection needed to be tied in closer to the British overlordship. The oath imposed on professors and students was more detailed. It ran.
"I.. do take Almighty God and His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, to witness and I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to our most gracious sovereign Lord, King George III, and him will defend to the utmost of my power against all conspirators and attempts whatsoever that shall be made against his person, crown and dignity, and I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to His Majesty, and his heirs, all treason and traitorous conspiracies that may be formed against him or them and I do faithfully promise to maintain, support and defend to the utmost of my power the succession of the Crown in His Majesty's family against any person or persons whatsoever."
And not only was it prescribed, there were frequent thorough checks that it was being observed and operated. This supervision which was practiced from 1795 into the second half of the nineteenth century left its mark on the Catholic Church in Ireland.
But the time came when London was to find Irish pressure, with international and especially Irish-American influence, too strong to withstand and once again a British Government agreed that only the King, and this time, the Dail and Senate, could make laws binding on the Irish people. Ireland had again won freedom.
The Treaty confirming this freedom was signed at 2.15 a.m. on 6th December, 1921. It differed from the 1782 Freedom in that a Government was based on it. Within hours Arthur Griffith met representatives of the Southern Unionists, properties survivors of the protestant ascendancy of the eighteenth century.
He wrote to Lloyd George, the British Premier, that he had assured that propertied group that their interests would be respected, that he would see to it that they were represented in the Dail that he would consult them on the constitution of the "Upper Chamber" and arrange for their representation there too. It was on the propertied tiers of Irish society in general that this version of the 1782 freedom rested.
History never repeats itself on the same level, and the new structure "elevated" a new strip of Irish people into the political superstructure, resting on an unchanged economic system within which the "rabble" was safely contained. How a great struggle for independence came to so unworthy an end must be a puzzle to the youth of the oppressed tiers of Irish society.
www.rsym.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=1
Peadar O'Donnell
Foreword
Ireland won political independence in 1782. It was expressed in a declaration that only the King, Lords and Commons of Ireland could make laws binding on the Irish people. It was a Parliament without a Government. The Government was in London.
The free Irish Parliament rested comfortably on the economic structure of the regime it displaced - protestant ascendancy in whom is vested ownership of land and the power of majesty. But it was a period of dangerous "French" ideas. The French rabble had stirred themselves out of their stupor and swept the medieval institutions that rotted their lives into the rubbish dump of history. Fear of the rabble rocked governments of the rich for the rich throughout Europe and sparks from it lit a new vision of life in generous minds to whom the rabble were people. The French ideas were an infection that enlightened governments must smother.
They touched Ireland finding tinder-dry conditions in the Protestant North. Carriers of the infection were busy among the Catholics. The British government took prompt steps to fence off the danger areas. This called for the help of two institutions, the Loyal Orange Order and the Catholic Seminary, Maynooth; priests educated in France were a security risk.
The Orange Order was recruited from men of proven loyalty. They were an oath-bound brotherhood but of such disposition they had no need of elaborate pledge - true faith and allegiance to His Majesty George III his heirs and successors by law so long as they supported the Protestant ascendancy; it was landlord orientated and regarded itself as elitist. Landlords led their tenants to inaugural meetings; the unit of organisation was the lodge. So trustworthy was the Orange Order considered that the officer commanding troops in Ulster asked permission to distribute arms through lodges in certain areas so that they might carry out activities which would put discipline at risk if required of regular units of the army.
Presbyterians and other non-conformist sects were denied membership. Maynooth, however, swamped in a sea of Catholics with a long history of disaffection needed to be tied in closer to the British overlordship. The oath imposed on professors and students was more detailed. It ran.
"I.. do take Almighty God and His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, to witness and I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to our most gracious sovereign Lord, King George III, and him will defend to the utmost of my power against all conspirators and attempts whatsoever that shall be made against his person, crown and dignity, and I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to His Majesty, and his heirs, all treason and traitorous conspiracies that may be formed against him or them and I do faithfully promise to maintain, support and defend to the utmost of my power the succession of the Crown in His Majesty's family against any person or persons whatsoever."
And not only was it prescribed, there were frequent thorough checks that it was being observed and operated. This supervision which was practiced from 1795 into the second half of the nineteenth century left its mark on the Catholic Church in Ireland.
But the time came when London was to find Irish pressure, with international and especially Irish-American influence, too strong to withstand and once again a British Government agreed that only the King, and this time, the Dail and Senate, could make laws binding on the Irish people. Ireland had again won freedom.
The Treaty confirming this freedom was signed at 2.15 a.m. on 6th December, 1921. It differed from the 1782 Freedom in that a Government was based on it. Within hours Arthur Griffith met representatives of the Southern Unionists, properties survivors of the protestant ascendancy of the eighteenth century.
He wrote to Lloyd George, the British Premier, that he had assured that propertied group that their interests would be respected, that he would see to it that they were represented in the Dail that he would consult them on the constitution of the "Upper Chamber" and arrange for their representation there too. It was on the propertied tiers of Irish society in general that this version of the 1782 freedom rested.
History never repeats itself on the same level, and the new structure "elevated" a new strip of Irish people into the political superstructure, resting on an unchanged economic system within which the "rabble" was safely contained. How a great struggle for independence came to so unworthy an end must be a puzzle to the youth of the oppressed tiers of Irish society.
www.rsym.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=1