Many of the ideals of those involved in the Easter Rising remain unrealised 100 years later, President Michael D Higgins has said. The President was speaking in Liberty Hall following one of the last State ceremonial events of Easter weekend, a wreath-laying ceremony at the statue of James Connolly on Beresford Place.
"Land and private property, a restrictive religiosity and a repressive pursuit of respectability, affecting women in particular, became the defining social and cultural ideals of the newly independent Ireland, " The President told an audience in the Liberty Hall Theatre. He said that the republic for which Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army hoped remained unfulfilled, but that their aspirations could still sustain us today in the task of rebuilding our society and our economy.
“Their vision of a people free from want, free from impoverishment and free from exploitation remains a wellspring of inspiration for us as we seek to respond to the situation of too many workers who, in Ireland today, earn a wage that guarantees neither a life free from poverty, nor access to decent housing, adequate childcare and health services .”
The President said the ambition of those who joined the Irish Citizen Army was not confined to replacing an alien landlord class with a native one, or replacing one form of conservative nationalism with another. “Their objective was to transform Ireland’s social, economic and cultural, as well as political, hierarchies. But their radical ideas of redistribution were staunchly opposed by many nationalists, as well as by the Catholic hierarchy and Arthur Griffith’s Sinn Féin.
“James Connolly was acutely aware that there existed in Ireland, as there did in many other post colonial settings, a class of native predators, a very wealthy class of industrialists and graziers, some of whom were nationalists, who wanted to preserve the economic and social status quo. This class would seek to adopt only a form of independence without workers’ rights. In Connolly’s view, these people, whose livelihoods depended on the perpetuation of inequalities, wanted nothing more than a transfer in their favour of the administration of Ireland.”
The President also emphasised Connolly’s progressive positions on women’s rights, and contrasted his anti-imperialism with those members of the Irish Parliamentary Party who were “content to secure the advantages of a political autonomy for Ireland within the Empire.”
Earlier, the President had been welcomed by Labour party leader and acting Tanaiste Joan Burton to the ceremony on Beresford Place, which was attended by a Captains Guard of Honour from the Defence Forces, the Army No. 1 Band and the Fire Brigade Pipe Band. The Proclamation was read by Sgt James Pearse, a great-grandson of James Connolly. The flag of the Irish Citizen Army was raised outside Liberty Hall, where the President was met by a Guard of Honour from the Dublin Fire Brigade wearing replica Citizen Army uniforms. After unveiling a commemorative plaque, he attended an event in the Liberty Hall Theatre which included readings from members of the Connolly family, and from Micheline Sheehy-Skeffington, granddaughter of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington.*
Siptu president Jack O’Connor told the audience that there were recurring references at the moment to the phrase “putting the country first”, but that the emphasis of Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army had been on “putting the people first”. It was an aspiration for an immensely better society, rather than just a different flag. “It would do a disservice to the memory of those we are remembering here, to let today pass without noting that the value system which inspired them did not prevail in either of the jurisdictions which emerged on the island following the decade of revolution,” he said. “The reality remains that the Ireland which cherishes all the children of the nation equally is still to be realised.”
Leaving the event, the President said it had been wonderful to see so many out on the streets over the course of Easter for the commemorations, and to see reports “from all over the country” of the involvement that people had. He also praised the breadth and level of debate and reflection which was taking place. “We’ve had a very good putting of it all in context. We have to approach these events in the fullness of their context,” he remarked, adding that the celebration this year had done something particularly important. “It has given proper place to women.”
“I tried in my own speeches to touch on something that is one of the great characteristics of that incredible week, that there were people who all wanted freedom, but they had different priorities,” he said. “If you think about it, they were all able to work together.”
* This article was amended on March 30th, 2016. It was stated Micheline Sheehy Skeffington was the grandaughter of Owen (her father).
