Opinion

Patrick Murphy: What exactly are Irish people commemorating this Easter?

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Irish News columnist and former director of Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education.

Thousands of republicans are expected to attend Easter Rising parades across the north this weekend
Thousands of republicans are expected to attend Easter Rising parades across the north this weekend Thousands of republicans are expected to attend Easter Rising parades across the north this weekend

Irish men and Irish women, in the name of God and the dead generations, what exactly are we commemorating this Easter?

As the Irish state and various political parties prepare for parades, both military and paramilitary, it would appear reasonable to ask why nationalist Ireland commemorates 1916, when it has abandoned so much of what the Rising aimed to achieve.

An indelicate issue on this Easter Saturday, I hear you say and you have a point. But there would appear to be more than a degree of inconsistency between the tramp of marching feet and the trampling underfoot of what the proclamation advocated.

You may rightly ask for evidence for such an outrageous statement. You will find it in three of the proclamation's main themes: Irish sovereignty, Irish nationhood and social and economic equality.

The main nationalist parties (Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and the SDLP) advocate ending union with Britain, but all four strongly support a new (and remarkably similar) political union with 27 other countries in a single European state.

Almost all of tomorrow's marchers support the principle and practice of political unionism. (That's why it is called the European Union.) Observe the sons of Ireland marching to the tune of Brussels and Berlin.

This does not mean that Ireland should not have trading and customs arrangements with the EU. It is not an argument against economic co-operation. It is merely an uncomfortable question about why free trade requires the creation of a giant super-state with its own flag, currency, social, economic and foreign policy, national anthem and army - all of which take precedence over the Irish sovereignty for which the 1916 Rising was fought.

Indeed supporters of Irish membership of the EU might reasonably insist that tomorrow's marches should be headed jointly by our national flag and the EU flag. Both now have equal status in Ireland.

If you believe that Irish sovereignty has been retained in the EU, you might remember November 28, 2010, when a group of strangers from the International Monetary Fund, the EU and the European Central Bank held a press conference in Dublin. They sat in the seats just vacated by the Taoiseach and two cabinet ministers.

They were the new Irish government, unelected and unwanted. But they were Ireland's new masters, armed with a bill for €60 billion and holding full control over Irish social and economic policy. How is that different from direct rule from London and how can tomorrow's marchers reconcile EU membership with commemorating those who died for Irish sovereignty?

They might also like to explain what happened to the proclamation's concept of the Irish nation, which included unionists. Today, nationalists regard unionists as not being Irish. Thus they fell into the trap identified in the Proclamation that we should resist Britain's efforts to divide the nationalist majority from the unionist minority.

Today that division is enshrined in international law in the Good Friday Agreement, which is supported with enthusiasm by almost all of those who will march tomorrow.

Finally there is the issue of social and economic inequality. Commemoration parades and poverty have a wonderful geographical overlap in the north. It is sadly ironic that the biggest parades tomorrow will be in Derry and west Belfast.

These areas have the highest levels of child deprivation in the north, where more than one third of children live in poverty and where marchers will commemorate those who died to cherish all the children of the nation equally. Poverty damages children's health and education, but ten years of Sinn Féin coalition in Stormont failed to reduce that poverty and now the children's schools are bankrupt as well.

Meanwhile in the south there are 3,755 homeless children, a more relevant issue to 1916 than an Irish army parade.

Of course, there is a simple solution to the contradiction between the proclamation and modern politics. You can reasonably argue that sovereignty, nationhood and social and economic equality are ideas which belong in the past. They have no place in the modern world of advanced capitalism.

That is a perfectly valid argument, but it would require us to stop commemorating out-dated ideas and ideals. We could then quietly shunt the 1916 Rising into a historical siding as a political aberration or a quirky museum piece. But that would mean giving up marching and abandoning all claims to the holy grail of republican purity - and where are the votes and the reflected glory in that?

So we will stick with parading and pretend that the kings of nationalism are all wearing fine suits of clothes. Ready? By the left, quick march....