First, Tone. Of 1790:
“I made speedily what was to me a great discovery, though I
might have found it in Swift and Molyneux, that the influence of
England was the radical vice of our Government, and consequently
that Ireland would never be either free, prosperous, or happy
until she was independent, and that independence was
unattainable whilst the connection with England lasted.”
Of 1791:
“It [a communication from Russell] immediately set me thinking
more seriously than I had yet done upon the state of Ireland. I
soon formed my theory, and on that theory I have invariably
acted ever since.
“To subvert the tyranny of our execrable Government, to break
the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our
political evils, and to assert the independence of my
country--these were my objects. To unite the whole people of
Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to
substitute the common name of Irishman in the place of the
denominations of Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter--these were
my means.”
I hold all Irish nationalism to be implicit in these words. Davis was to
make explicit certain things here implicit, Lalor certain other things;
Mitchel was to thunder the whole in words of apocalyptic wrath and
splendour. But the Credo is here: “I believe in One Irish Nation and
that Free.”
And before his judges Tone thus testified:
“I mean not to give you the trouble of bringing judicial proof
to convict me, legally, of having acted in hostility to the
Government of his Britannic Majesty in Ireland. I admit the
fact. From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection
between Ireland and Great Britain as the curse of the Irish
nation, and felt convinced that, while it lasted, this country
could never be free nor happy. My mind has been confirmed in
this opinion by the experience of every succeeding year, and the
conclusions which I have drawn from every fact before my eyes.
In consequence, I determined to apply all the powers which my
individual efforts could move in order to separate the two
countries.”
Next, Davis:
“... Will she [England] allow us, for good or ill, to govern
ourselves, and see if we cannot redress our own griefs. ‘No,
never, never,’ she says, ‘though all Ireland cried for
it--never! Her fields shall be manured with the shattered limbs
of her sons, and her hearths quenched in their blood; but never,
while England has a ship or a soldier, shall Ireland be free.’
“And this is your answer? We shall see--we shall see!
“And now, Englishmen, listen to us! Though you were to-morrow to
give us the best tenures on earth--though you were to equalise
Presbyterian, Catholic, and Episcopalian--though you were to
give us the amplest representation in your Senate--though you
were to restore our absentees, disencumber us of your debt, and
redress every one of our fiscal wrongs--and though, in addition
to all this, you plundered the treasuries of the world to lay
gold at our feet, and exhausted the resources of your genius to
do us worship and honour--still we tell you--we tell you, in the
names of liberty and country--we tell you, in the name of
enthusiastic hearts, thoughtful souls, and fearless spirits--we
tell you, by the past, the present, and the future, we would
spurn your gifts, if the condition were that Ireland should
remain a province. We tell you, and all whom it may concern,
come what may--bribery or deceit, justice, policy, or war--we
tell you, in the name of Ireland, that Ireland shall be a
Nation!”
Lest it may be pretended (as it has been pretended) that the nationhood
thus claimed in the name of Ireland by this passionate nationalist was a
mere statutory “nationhood,” federalism or something less, I quote a
passage which makes it clear that Davis (loyally though he supported the
official policy of the _Nation_, which at that stage did not go beyond
Repeal) was thinking all the time of a sovereign independent Ireland.
Urging the need of foreign alliances for Ireland, he writes (the italics
are Davis’s):
“When Ireland is a nation she will not, with her vast
population[6] and her military character, require such alliances
as a _security_ against an English _re-conquest_; but they will
be useful in banishing any _dreams of invasion_ which might
_otherwise_ haunt the brain of our old enemy.”
Elsewhere Davis sums up the national position in a sentence worthy of
Tone:
“Ireland’s aspiration is for unbounded nationality.”
Next, Lalor:
“Repeal, in its vulgar meaning, I look on as utterly
impracticable by any mode of action whatever; and the
constitution of ’82 was absurd, worthless, and worse than
worthless. The English Government will never concede or
surrender to any species of moral force whatsoever; and the
country-peasantry will never arm and fight for it--neither will
I. If I am to stake life and fame it must assuredly be for
something better and greater, more likely to last, more likely
to succeed, and better worth success. And a stronger passion, a
higher purpose, a nobler and more needful enterprise is
fermenting in the hearts of the people. A mightier question
moves Ireland to-day than that of merely repealing the Act of
Union. Not the constitution that Wolfe Tone died to abolish, but
the constitution that Tone died to obtain--independence; full
and absolute independence for this island, and for every man
within this island. Into no movement that would leave an enemy’s
garrison in possession of all our lands, masters of our
liberties, our lives, and all our means of life and
happiness--into no such movement will a single man of the
greycoats enter with an armed hand, whatever the town population
may do. On a wider fighting field, with stronger positions and
greater resources than are afforded by the paltry question of
Repeal, must we close for our final struggle with England, or
sink and surrender.
“Ireland her own--Ireland her own, and all therein, from the sod
to the sky. The soil of Ireland for the people of Ireland, to
have and hold from God alone who gave it--to have and to hold to
them and to their heirs for ever, without suit or service, faith
or fealty, rent or render, to any power under Heaven.”
And again:
“Not to repeal the Union, then, but the conquest--not to disturb
or dismantle the Empire, but to abolish it utterly for ever--not
to fall back on ’82, but to act up to ’48--not to resume or
restore an old constitution, but to found a new nation and raise
up a free people, and strong as well as free, and secure as well
as strong, based on a peasantry rooted like rocks in the soil of
the land--this is my object, as I hope it is yours; and this,
you may be assured, is the easier as it is the nobler and more
pressing enterprise.”
And yet again:
“In the case of Ireland now there is but _one fact_ to deal
with, and _one question_ to be considered. The fact is
this--that there are at present in occupation of our country
some 40,000 armed men, in the livery and service of England; and
the _question_ is--how best and soonest to kill and capture
those 40,000 men.”
Lastly Mitchel takes up his hymn of hate against the Empire:
“_The Ego._--And do you read Ireland’s mind in the canting of
O’Connell’s son? or in the sullen silence of a gagged and
disarmed people? Tell me not of O’Connell’s son. His father
begat him in moral force, and in patience and perseverance did
his mother conceive him. I swear to you there are blood and
brain in Ireland yet, as the world one day shall know. God! let
me live to see it. On that great day of the Lord, when the
kindreds and tongues and nations of the old earth shall give
their banners to the wind, let this poor carcase have but breath
and strength enough to stand under Ireland’s immortal Green!
“_Doppelganger._--Do you allude to the battle of Armageddon? I
know you have been reading the Old Testament of late.
“_The Ego._--Yes. ‘Who is this that cometh from Edom; with dyed
garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in his apparel
travelling in the garments of his strength? Wherefore art thou
red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in
the wine vat? I have trodden the wine press alone, and of the
people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine
anger and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be
sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For
the day of vengeance is in my heart.’ Also an aspiration of King
David haunts my memory when I think on Ireland and her wrongs:
‘_That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and
that the tongue of thy dogs may be red through the same._’”
Thus Tone, thus Davis, thus Lalor, thus Mitchel, thus Parnell. Methinks
I have raised some ghosts that will take a little laying.
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Footnote 6:
Nearly 9,000,000 then.
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