The Neglect of a Centenary

Monday is the centenary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which was the birth of what eventually became the Republic of Ireland. The two major political parties in Ireland originated in different attitudes to the Treaty. It led to a brief but bloody Civil War whose tremors were felt for decades later. Even though the Civil War was brutal there were acts of tremendous sacrifice and idealism on both sides. For instance, Erskine Childers, the head of propaganda on the Anti-Treaty side, shaking the hands of all the members of his firing squad before he was executed, and getting his son to promise to do the same thing when he grew up (which he did).

Astonishingly, this centenary has been almost completely ignored in Ireland. I'm sure there will be a flurry of lectures and ceremonies and documentaries this week, but that's really nothing in comparison to the historic importance of the event. There surely should have been a whole year of discussion and commemoration. I'll admit it crept up on me, too.

People will point to Covid, but I don't think it's Covid. I think it's a profound anti-nationalism and globalism which pervades our whole political, media and other classes.

This historical amnesia is really depressing. The two great themes of Irish history are the religious question and the "national question". Generations of Irish people cherished the aspiration for an independent Ireland, a distinctive Ireland. Not only did many people die for it, but many, many people worked for it their whole lives, not just in the political arena but also in the cultural sphere-- reviving the Irish language, Irish sports and music, and so forth.

I can't believe the indifference of today's Irish to this heritage. Surely SOME appreciation of it is appropriate. Even if you think armed rebellion was a mistake (a very reasonable position), whatever attitude you take towards 1916 or the War of Independence or anything else, it baffles me that today's Irish can be so dismissive of the whole subject.

After the abortion referendum I heard quite a few Irish conservatives essentially renouncing their Irishness. I don't think it works like that, though. A nation is like a family and even when you profoundly disagree, you are still family. And yes, my Catholicism is far more important to me than my Irishness, but that doesn't mean the latter should be UNimportant. Religion and nationality are different things.