I
There has been nothing more terrible in Irish history than the failure
of the last generation. Other generations have failed in Ireland, but
they have failed nobly; or, failing ignobly, some man among them has
redeemed them from infamy by the splendour of his protest. But the
failure of the last generation has been mean and shameful, and no man
has arisen from it to say or do a splendid thing in virtue of which it
shall be forgiven. The whole episode is squalid. It will remain the one
sickening chapter in a story which, gallant or sorrowful, has everywhere
else some exaltation of pride.
“Is mairg do ghní go holc agus bhíos bocht ina dhiaidh,” says the Irish
proverb. “Woe to him that doeth evil and is poor after it.” The men who
have led Ireland for twenty-five years have done evil, and they are
bankrupt. They are bankrupt in policy, bankrupt in credit, bankrupt now
even in words. They have nothing to propose to Ireland, no way of
wisdom, no counsel of courage. When they speak they speak only untruth
and blasphemy. Their utterances are no longer the utterances of men.
They are the mumblings and the gibberings of lost souls.
One finds oneself wondering what sin these men have been guilty of that
so great a shame should come upon them. Is it that they are punished
with loss of manhood because in their youth they committed a crime
against manhood?... Does the ghost of Parnell hunt them to their
damnation?
Even had the men themselves been less base, their failure would have
been inevitable. When one thinks over the matter for a little one sees
that they have built upon an untruth. They have conceived of nationality
as a material thing, whereas it is a spiritual thing. They have made the
same mistake that a man would make if he were to forget that he has an
immortal soul. They have not recognised in their people the image and
likeness of God. Hence, the nation to them is not all holy, a thing
inviolate and inviolable, a thing that a man dare not sell or dishonour
on pain of eternal perdition. They have thought of nationality as a
thing to be negotiated about as men negotiate about a tariff or about a
trade route, rather than as an immediate jewel to be preserved at all
peril, a thing so sacred that it may not be brought into the market
places at all or spoken of where men traffic.
He who builds on lies rears only lies. The untruth that nationality is
corporeal, a thing defined by statutes and guaranteed by mutual
interests, is at the base of the untruth that freedom, which is the
condition of a hale nationality, is a status to be conceded rather than
a glory to be achieved; and of the other untruth that it can ever be
lawful in the interest of empire, in the interest of wealth, in the
interest of quiet living, to forego the right to freedom. The contrary
is the truth. Freedom, being a spiritual necessity, transcends all
corporeal necessities, and when freedom is being considered interests
should not be spoken of. Or, if the terms of the countinghouse be the
ones that are best understood, let us put it that it is the highest
interest of a nation to be free.
Like a divine religion, national freedom bears the marks of unity, of
sanctity, of catholicity, of apostolic succession. Of unity, for it
contemplates the nation as one; of sanctity, for it is holy in itself
and in those who serve it; of catholicity, for it embraces all the men
and women of the nation; of apostolic succession, for it, or the
aspiration after it, passes down from generation to generation from the
nation’s fathers. A nation’s fundamental idea of freedom is not affected
by the accidents of time and circumstance. It does not vary with the
centuries, or with the comings and goings of men or of empires. The
substance of truth does not change, nor does the substance of freedom.
Yesterday’s definition of both the one and the other is to-day’s
definition and will be to-morrow’s. As the body of truth which a true
church teaches can neither be increased nor diminished--though truths
implicit in the first definition may be made explicit in later
definitions--so a true definition of freedom remains constant; it cannot
be added to or subtracted from or varied in its essentials, though
things implicit in it may be made explicit by a later definition. If the
definition can be varied in its essentials, or added to, or subtracted
from, it was not a true definition in the first instance.
To be concrete, if we to-day are fighting for something either greater
than or less than the thing our fathers fought for, either our fathers
did not fight for freedom at all, or we are not fighting for freedom. If
I do not hold the faith of Tone, and if Tone was not a heretic, then I
am. If Tone said “BREAK the connection with England,” and if I say
“MAINTAIN the connection with England,” I may be preaching a saner (as I
am certainly preaching a safer) gospel than his, but I am obviously not
preaching the same gospel.
Now what Tone taught, and the fathers of our national faith before and
after Tone, is ascertainable. It stands recorded. It has fulness, it has
clarity, the sufficiency and the definiteness of dogma. It lives in
great and memorable phrases, a grandiose national faith. They, too, have
left us their Credo.
The Irish mind is the clearest mind that has ever applied itself to the
consideration of nationality and of national freedom. A chance phrase of
Keating’s might almost stand as a definition. He spoke of Ireland as
“domhan beag innti féin,” a little world in herself. It was
characteristic of Irish-speaking men that when they thought of the Irish
nation they thought less of its outer forms and pomps than of the inner
thing which was its soul. They recognised that the Irish life was the
thing that mattered, and that, the Irish life dead, the Irish nation was
dead. But they recognised that freedom was the essential condition of a
vigorous Irish life. And for freedom they raised their ranns; for
freedom they stood in battle through five bloody centuries.