CHAPTER XXIX
LOOKING BACK
Out of the whirlpool of lies, misunderstandings, prevarications, distortions, inaccuracies and passions which go to the making up of history, can one secure some of the causes and effects connected with the Irish struggle since the Sinn Fein movement put aside pacific methods and became militant? Are there conclusions to be drawn?
Three separate traditions seem to have been welded together for the purpose of uniting Ireland in a common cause. One tradition is the political tradition that Ireland possesses a national individuality, and must continue to struggle for the expression of that individuality until it is obtained. A second tradition is the Gaelic tradition, that Ireland must revive and cherish the Gaelic spirit, the Gaelic culture, the Gaelic language and literature. The third tradition is the tradition that internal affairs must be altered and improved. These three traditions came together in the Sinn Fein movement. The Irish Republic was to be an independent republic, it was to be as far as possible a Gaelic republic, and as a state it was to be an example to the world.
Each generation of Irish leaders, to grind their patriotic axes, have insisted that Ireland is a conquered country, suffering the fate of the conquered. The statement is too sweeping. Ireland has been part of a united kingdom with a common legislation. She has suffered to a certain extent from the too centralised parliament at Westminster, where her local affairs have frequently been crowded out. She has been legislated for as an industrial country when she is in reality an agricultural country. She has suffered from absentee landlords, another effect of centralisation. She has suffered in other ways; but she has suffered most of all from herself, from her inability ever to become united, to hold an individual opinion, to cease being hag-ridden by religion, which has starved her educationally.
There have been bills passed for the rest of the British Isles which have not been passed in Ireland owing to the veto of the Catholic Church. One has only to compare the educational differences of the Irish people and the Scottish people, two nations of the same size, to comprehend what a heavy reckoning the Catholic Church will have to answer to some day.
The Catholic Church has allowed ignorance and superstition. A certain intolerance can also be laid at its door, but not in any great degree. But in Ulster, Protestant Ulster, Protestantism has bred a ferocity of intolerance, which is astounding in the twentieth century. Ireland staggers about with these two religions upon her back.
The old cry, Home Rule Rome Rule, was probably a false one. One of the results of the struggle for Irish independence has been the breaking of the power of the Catholic Church. The young men have in part educated themselves, and prevailing conditions have, whether for better or worse, matured their characters before their time. There is still a profound reverence and love for the Church; but the day has gone when it can dictate to the nation. While Sinn Fein was in its infancy the Church condemned the movement, when it grew strong the Church had to walk beside it with trembling steps and grave forebodings. The young generation of priests threw themselves into the Republican movement body and soul.
But Ireland is still hag-ridden. So long as North and South take their religions as violently as they do, the two parts of the Irish nation can never come together. It does not look as if North or South will relinquish its belief. Protestantism fits the vigorous masculine Northerner, Catholicism suits the feminine, imaginative, easy-going Southerner. Because Ireland is Ireland the two religions make a fence which keep the peoples apart. It is a calamity. What a people might the intermarriage of North and South produce!
So this fated nation has never had a single voice, and the British Government has perpetually listened to several contrary requests in place of one demand. The result has been that those things which ought to have been done have been left undone. One of the things which ought to have been done was to give Ireland such few original privileges as she asked a very long time ago.
Let us pass on.