1916: The Irish Rebellion
Narrated
by Liam Neeson
Shown on 28th March 2016 on BBC4
On till 28th April
Reviewed by
With the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising the historicity of the
event the prototype of the Bolshevik revolution itself, a dry run so to
speak, with all the harsh lessons and mistakes analysed to the core by
the remnants going on to forming the bulk of the GPGB membership.
In fact the predominance of Irish activist in the revolutionary labour
movement the founding of the communist party both here and in the United
States are a testament to the epoch-making game changer the Easter rising
was.
A collection of dreamy nationalist reviving Gaelic language and culture
loving visionaries’ poets writer artist and extreme nationalist
forming their own militias with the solidly working class contingents
of Connolly’s socialists leaning ICA or Irish citizens army. Several
1000 all told.
The North or Ulster had been militarised openly with Lord Carson arming
½ million men mostly rabid Protestants resisting the home rule
bill, only the 1st world war bleached off some off that movement and open
clash.
Despite being buried in a mountain of the filth and calumny of the British
press, totally pro imperialist: characterised it as a crazy event unlike
some of the 200,000 conscripted normal Irishmen fighting in trenches for
the ruling class. Some has chosen or dared not to support either king
or Kaiser but national sovereignty and independence. Like Murdoch’s
rags, distortion of the happenings was hiding a real fear of the British
ruling class; the national rising caught the British on the hop and completely
flummoxed them. The critical mistakes of one section of the Irish republican
brotherhood, over cautious, calling off the rising as cold feet and nerves
getting the better of them.
Sending totally contradictory messages, at the last minute, countermanding
the military orders of Pearse, Connolly and co dooming it, and confining
it largely to a Dublin affair. The British Empire savagely engaged in
the slaughter of the Somme let some of that fury loose on the streets
of Dublin and the bloody reprisals woke up a stunned population to the
full effects of the rising, seething with rage: the ruling classes cold
blooded execution of Connolly strapped to a chair from his hospital bed.
Patrick Pearse’s uttering “what we have done will live on
forever not what the conquerors do.” Actually foreshadowed the whole
developments of the civil war, the battles of the Free-Staters and the
division of the north being ratified as a short term solution to independence.
Footage and lively interviews with old timers’ veterans picking
the bones and even the daughter of James Connolly recalling the day her
father told her mother to “make a brave face so as not to unman
him before the firing squad”.
Like all great risings and revolutions precedents and follow-ups were
quick to be highlighted from the commune to the October revolution in
Russian which had 4 or 5 years following on from a successful revolution.
Echoing perhaps Lenin that epoch of wars and revolutions was upon us.
The aftermath a divided country literally with protestant under siege
in the north and the republican south divided over the Collins treaty
Eamon de Valera heading one wing opposed to Collins acceptance of the
north under British rule.
What is sure the Indian peaceful opposition under Ghandi, changed to
armed struggle led by Indian nationalist as the empire was slowly broken
up. Lessons were soaked up and learnt by the oppressed around the world
bitter pills to swallow.
Coincidentally the anniversary of the great poll tax rebellion 1990 that
hastened the demise of Thatcher and led to full scale rioting on Trafalgar
Square Britain was one step from revolution.
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