Ireland in Travail

by Joice NanKivell Loch; Sydney Loch

The history of Ireland has been a series of periods of agitation, sometimes culminating in open rebellion, alternating with periods of quiet, at the end of which time political firebrands once more bludgeoned the people into discontent. There had been such a period of calm, and then came the birth of the Gaelic League and a Celtic renaissance to herald in Sinn Fein. It was a bellows for the Sinn Fein spark.

The manner in which the British Government dealt with the Sinn Fein situation when it did become a menace showed lack of imagination and lack of information. Two errors in policy were made, and in the second case the error was persisted in. Irishmen of all shades of political opinion have informed me that the irresolute conduct of the Cabinet over the Irish conscription issue during the European war was directly responsible for subsequent happenings. The young men of Ireland had become impregnated with the bellicose spirit which was abroad in the rest of Europe, and that spirit must finally find a way out through some channel or other. A firm conscription policy would have caused it to flow outwards to the discomfiture of the Empire’s enemies; the irresolution of the Government caused it to flow inwards. The British Cabinet was harassed at the time, and did not dare to put the issue to the test. The youth of Ireland took the Government change of mind as a sign of weakness, all the world knows with what results. Irishmen of all political opinions have assured me conscription could have been carried out.

The second case has been happening before my own eyes during the last eighteen months, and has been evidence of the lack of imagination and the little knowledge of the Irish temperament in Government circles.

There were two alternatives for dealing with the Republican movement. One was to strike it a hammer blow while it was in its infancy, using all the impedimenta of war if necessary, aiming at speed in all things. The other alternative was to be generous and give a satisfactory measure of Home Rule.[1] The course the Government did adopt was doomed to failure. The Irish are a sensitive people and a spirited people. Public opinion in Ireland was dead against the Easter week rising of 1916, the British soldiers were cheered when they arrived; but four or five years of repression, of Irishmen hunted by Englishmen, of mistaken arrests, of wrong houses raided, of troops tramping Irish streets, of police and more police, brought about the alteration in feeling. From my personal observation I am under the impression that the British Government was continually being misinformed on the progress made against the Republicans, and while, like a cancer, Sinn Fein was sending out new shoots about the country, the British Cabinet was officially told the movement was collapsing. Thus the matter was spun out, and first in tens, then in hundreds, finally in thousands, Loyalists went over to the other camp. I saw it for myself. It was obvious to anybody with eyes.

The Government’s influence was further weakened through its affection for Ulster. Though there was repression in the South, repression which was reluctant, but which grew more and more vigorous as difficulties increased, the Government had not the moral strength to adopt a firm attitude to the North. To be found with arms in the South and to be found with arms in the North was a different matter. Absolute impartiality throughout the length and breadth of the country and iron firmness in the beginning might have done much to mend matters; but the Government proved human, and was unable to belabour a man for loving it.

Again, the Government was hampered by the spell which fell on the civilian population at the mention of Sinn Fein. The Republican movement manifested itself as a gigantic and spreading secret society, and the civilian population was as putty in its hands. It was illuminating to the outsider to discover with what ease a small organised, ruthless body of men can overawe and control a vast disorganised body.

It is time to speak of the type of war waged. The Republicans called the struggle a war, and used war’s phraseology in connection with it; but it never assumed the proportions of war. Call it a war and say that it was one of the most inglorious wars ever fought. Own at the same time that it is difficult to suggest what other means of aggression Sinn Fein could have adopted in the face of its military inferiority, and acknowledge also on behalf of the Crown Forces that there was no means of striking at the enemy other than by reprisal. Loyalist and Republican were caught in the web of circumstance. If one judges the struggle by its outer manifestations, it astonishingly lacks elements of glory; but if one searches below the surface one finds alike in Republican and Loyalist the usual qualities bred of war, energy, courage, fortitude, sacrifice.

That is in the past now, and Ireland is in the hopeful present. Sinn Fein has left Ireland with her internal affairs in her own hands.

The door of an enlightened and ordered future is here: it is not yet open; but the key has been given into the hands of Irishmen. Will they throw it wide open, or will they stay arguing outside? Is there to be another Kali Yuga, a dark age, because Irishmen have split again? Let Ireland remember the words of “a certain minister” and stop talking and get on with the work. She is still drunk with nationality. Let her work off her intoxication as quickly as she can, keeping nationality’s choice qualities, a fine inspiration, a noble ideal; but rooting out the faults of nationality, provincialism, prejudice, narrowness. She has won her separation; let her not now set about working herself too much out of the world. To have a world influence, to produce a world people, she must stay within the world.

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