Opinion

Deaglán de Bréadún: Memorial may have to wait until a united Ireland

Then Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the unveiling of the Necrology Wall at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin in April 2016. Photo: PA
Then Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the unveiling of the Necrology Wall at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin in April 2016. Photo: PA Then Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the unveiling of the Necrology Wall at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin in April 2016. Photo: PA

THERE has been a lot of coverage of the decision by Dublin Cemeteries Trust to call off its project of listing the names of those who died in the 1916-23 Irish Revolution and Civil War on a memorial wall in Glasnevin Cemetery.

Every known fatality on both sides was being included, as well as civilians. However, because the names of police and British soldiers were appearing, the wall was subjected to attack on three occasions. Paint was thrown at it initially and a sledgehammer used later.

The day may come when such a memorial can be put in place without serious controversy. It won’t be today or tomorrow and might have to wait until a united Ireland is achieved by majority votes north and south. Even people who are not militant republicans found it hard to accept the inclusion of Black and Tans on the list, given the atrocities carried out by those participants in the conflict.

The Necrology Wall was unveiled in April 2016 and was expected to include more than 4,000 names by the time it was finished. It was inspired by the Ring of Remembrance at Ablain-Saint-Nazaire in the north of France, which carries the names of 577,000 soldiers from both sides who were killed in the region during the First World War. Had I been consulted about the Glasnevin plan, I would have cited the Latin dictum ‘festina lente' (hasten slowly). A better approach might have been to confine the list to those who died in the 1916 Rising.

Casualties of the Rising would obviously include the leaders such as Patrick Pearse and others who were executed afterwards, along with Irish Volunteers who died in the fighting, as well as the civilian casualties – including so many children that it is hard to avoid questioning the decision to stage the revolt in the first place. Patrick Pearse was a teacher and I would be surprised if that aspect of the events did not bother him. Indeed, his surrender note to the British cited the need to “prevent the further slaughter of the civilian population”.

The sensitive bit would have been whether to include British soldiers and the police on the wall. The Black and Tans hadn’t yet been created, so there would be no question of having them on the list. However, there were members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (an unarmed force), the Royal Irish Constabulary and the British Army whose lives came to a violent end in Easter Week. Putting their names on the wall would have caused a row and there could well have been some attacks on the structure, but the project might still have survived.

As far I can ascertain, there were 590 casualties in total at that time: 77 Irish volunteers, 139 crown forces (116 British soldiers plus 23 police) and 374 civilians including 38 children, i.e., those aged 16 years or under. In approximate terms, for every three combatants who were killed, five civilians died. RTÉ broadcaster Joe Duffy has written a book, ‘Children of the Rising: The untold story of the young lives lost during Easter 1916’ (Hachette Books Ireland), the first of whom was Sean Foster, a two-year-old shot in crossfire as he was being wheeled in a pram by his mother, Katie, on Dublin’s Church Street.

The biggest blow suffered by the British side was at Mount Street Bridge, where the Sherwood Foresters were ambushed, suffering 28 deaths and almost 200 wounded. A woman I knew, who was very active along with her husband in the fight for Irish independence, said afterwards in a sympathetic tone: “Those young fellows thought they were in France.”

When the Black and Tans came on the scene, they behaved appallingly badly. I have family roots on my mother’s side in County Galway and I’m told that the Tans raided the house: details are scarce, but they were presumably seeking a certain young family member who had become a freedom-fighter.

Last Sunday I paid a visit to Glasnevin Cemetery. After leaving a bunch of flowers at my parents’ grave, I had another look at the wall, which is located beside the grave of Michael Collins. The sight of the sheeting that covers hundreds of names, that are being removed, was a somewhat depressing experience: the actions that made this necessary do not represent the new island of Ireland that emerged from the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.

Email: Ddebre1@aol.com; Twitter: @DdeBreadun