Remembering Ireland free
The Proclamation of the Republic of Ireland carries in its third paragraph the theme of Ireland’s long historical right to nationhood. While securing the right of self-deliberation and independence for Ireland and her people, the signers declared that the people of Ireland held that right irrespective of the tyranny imposed upon them; in fact, that right has been asserted before: “In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty: six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms.” Pearse forcefully inserted his cultural narrative of Irish history into a political document to point to the foundation upon which he could “[Stand] on that fundamental right and again [assert] it in arms in the face of the world.” The power of the cultural memory which Pearse had helped to develop in the Gaelic Revival and the Gaelic League justified Easter week and motivated the participants to the end of Irish nationhood. Guns were necessary, but they did not all arrive; men were necessary, but they did not all arrive; and though these failures did impede the military feasibility of the operation at hand, it served to move the theme of blood-sacrifice “from the background to centre-stage in the minds of the leaders… Pearse had long preached blood-sacrifice.” The day had come for blood sacrifice. The ritual of nationhood would get its holy festival in the form of Easter week 1916. Pearse drove his audience and his men to believe that the Ireland he had helped them remember – free, Gaelic, independent – could be attained only in bloody rebellion.
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