First
published in Workers' Republic, November 20, 1915
Transcribed by the James Connolly Society - IRSM/IRSP
Formatted and indexed by Workers' Web ASCII Pamphlet project
This
week we are celebrating another anniversary. But it is of a different order to
the anniversary of which we spoke of in our last number. That anniversary was
of one of Ireland's thinkers - a defiant rebel and preacher of rebellion but
one whose rebellion never got further than the spoken or written word. A
thinker and initiator amidst mindless slaves - a scorner and hater of orthodox
formulae amidst men who could not think even of rebellion except according to
formula, and who refused to rebel because some of the ingredients of their
formula were lacking.
This week our Anniversary is not of thinkers, but of
doers, of men who when a duty was to be done did not stop to think, but acted,
and by their action violated every rule of prudence, sanity, and caution, and
in violating them all obeyed the highest dictates of wisdom and achieved
immortality.
THE MANCHESTER MARTYRS! Who were they? A few words
will tell.
Two members of the Fenian organisation - Kelly and
Deasy - were trapped in Manchester, and lay awaiting trial in an English prison.
The Fenians in that city resolved to rescue them. This they did by stopping the
prison van upon the road between Manchester and Salford, breaking open the van,
shooting a policeman in the act, and carrying off their comrades under the very
eyes of the English authorities,
Out of a number of men arrested for complicity in
the deed, three were hanged. These three were ALLEN, LARKIN and O'BRIEN - the
three Manchester Martyrs whose memory we honour today. Why do we honour them?
We honour them because of their heroic souls. Let us
remember that by every test by which parties in Ireland to-day measure
political wisdom, or personal prudence, the act of these men ought to be
condemned. They were in a hostile city, surrounded by a hostile population;
they were playing into the hands of the Government by bringing all the Fenians
out in broad daylight to be spotted and remembered; they were discouraging the
Irish people by giving them another failure to record; they had no hopes of
foreign help even if their brothers in Ireland took the field spurred by their
action; at the most their action would only be an Irish riot in an English
city; and finally, they were imperilling the whole organisation for the sake of
two men. These were all the sound sensible arguments of the prudent, practical
politicians and theoretical revolutionists. But " how beggarly appear
words before a defiant deed ! "
The Fenians of Manchester rose superior to all the
whines about prudence, caution and restraint, and saw only two of their countrymen
struck at for loyalty to freedom, and seeing this, struck back at the enemy
with blows that are still resounding through the heart of the world. The echo
of those blows has for a generation been as a baptismal dedication to the soul
and life of thousands of Irish men and women, consecrating them to the service
of freedom.
Had Kelly and Deasy been struck at in our time, we
would not have startled the world by the vehemence of our blow in return; we
would not have sent out the call for a muster of our hosts to peril all in
their rescue. No, we would simply have instructed our typist to look up the
office files and see if they had paid up their subscription in the Cumann
Cosanta, and were entitled to their insurance benefit.
Thus we have progressed in the path of civilised
methods, far, far away from the undisciplined hatred and reckless fighting of
the '67 men. MORYAH!
ALLEN, LARKIN and O'BRIEN died that the right of
their small nationality to independence might be attested by their blood - died
that some day an Irish Republic might live. The song of their martyrdom was
written by a man who had laboured hard to prevent the fruition of their hopes;
the prayer of their last moments has become the hackneyed catch word of every
political Judas seeking to betray their cause. Everything associated with them
has been stolen or corrupted, except the imperishable example of their
"defiant deed." Of that neither men, devils, nor doubters can deprive
us.
Oh, the British Empire is great and strong and
powerful compared with Ireland. 'Tis true that compared with Germany the Empire
is a doddering old miser confronted with a lusty youth - a miser whose only
hope is to purchase the limbs and bodies of others to protect her stolen
properties. 'Tis true that the Empire cannot stand up alone to any European
power, that she must have allies or perish. 'Tis true that even with allies her
military and financial system is cracking at every point, sweating blood in
fear at every pore. But still all the stolen property that England possesses
our Irish forefathers have helped to steal, and we are helping to defend.
Was it wise then, or commendable, for the men of '67
to rebel against the Empire that their and our fathers have helped to build or
steal? There are thousands of answers to that question, but let the European
battlefields of today provide the one all-sufficient answer.
All these mountains of Irish dead, all these corpses
mangled beyond recognition, all these arms, legs, eyes, ears, fingers, toes,
hands, all these shivering putrefying bodies and portions of bodies - once warm
living and tender parts of Irish men and youths - all these horrors buried in
Flanders or the Gallipoli Peninsula, are all items in the price Ireland pays
for being part of the British Empire. All these widows whose husbands were torn
from their sides and forced to go to war, their prayers and tears for the ones
who will return no more, are another part of the price of Empire. All those
fatherless orphans, who for the last time have heard the cheery laugh of an
affectionate father, and who must for years suffer all the bitter hardships of
a childhood poorly provided for against want and hunger - all those and their
misery are part of the price Ireland pays for Empire. All those shattered,
maimed and diseased wrecks of humanity who for years will crowd our poorhouses
and asylums, or crawl along our roads and streets affronting our health by
their wounds, and our comfort by their appeals for charity - all, all are part
of the price Ireland pays for the glory of being an integral part of the
British Empire.
And for what do we pay this price? Answer, ye
practical ones! Ye men of sense, of prudence, of moderation, of business
capacity!
Ireland is rotten with slums, a legacy of Empire.
The debt of this war will prevent us from getting money to replace them with
sound clean, healthy homes. Every big gun fired in the Dardanelles fired away
at every shot the cost of building a home for a working class family. Ireland
has the most inefficient educational system, and the poorest schools in Europe.
Empire compels us to pay pounds for blowing out the brains of others for every
farthing it allows us with which to train our own.
An Empire on which the sun never sets cannot
guarantee its men and women as much comfort as is enjoyed by the every-day
citizen of the smallest, least military nation in Europe. Nations that know not
the power and possessions of Empire have happier, better educated better
housed, better equipped, men and women than Ireland has ever known, or can ever
know as an integral part of the British Empire.
The British Empire is a piratical enterprise in
which the velour of slaves fights for the glory and profit of their masters.
The Home Rule Party aspire to be trusted accomplices of that conspiracy, the
Manchester Martyrs were its unyielding foes even to the dungeon and the
scaffold. Therefore we honour the memory of the Manchester Martyrs. As future
generations shall honour them.
.