The Rising: Kilmainham to Arbour Hill

Well we're all off to Dublin in the green, in the green With the helmets glistening in the sun
  Where the bayonets flash and the rifles crash  To the rattle of a Thompson Gun

Up to Dublin on the train today for the main commemorations of the centenary of the Easter Rising. The actual events began on Easter Monday in April 1916, when members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (a precursor to the IRA), the Irish Volunteers, and the Irish Citizen Army (a group formed to protect workers in the general strike of 1913) took over several locations in Dublin, most notably the General Post Office (GPO) on O'Connell Street, and declared an Irish Republic on behalf of Irish men and Irish women. Among other things, their proclamation declared "the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland" and guaranteed "religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities for all it citizens." The poorly equipped and trained rebels held positions for 5 days. When they surrendered, central Dublin was in ruins, having been shelled by British ships sent in to put down the rebellion. Although public opinion was generally against the rebels, the summary execution of their leaders in the following days led to popular support for independence from Britain, which eventually occurred in 1921 when a Free State was established consisting of 26 of Ireland’s 32 counties. Six counties in the north became Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom. Decades of troubles followed, of course. The history is still so raw and controversial, that the marking of the centenary has been muted and conflicted, witness this editorial in the New York Times. To summarize the writer's position: there shouldn't have been a Rising but there should be a republic. In my humble opinion, I don't know how a republic would have happened without something similar to the Rising …

Wanting to see some nationalist observations, Brad and I attended a Sinn Fein sponsored march from Kilmainham Gaol, where the 1916 leaders were executed, to Arbour Hill cemetery, where they are buried.  

Marchers outside Kilmainham

There were pipe and drum bands from Belfast and New York.

                          

1916 drum

IBEW Local 3 band

A contingent of U.S. labor union members (with Brad, on the left, just retired as Executive Director of the Northwest Local of SAG-AFTRA). 

Local historical society members in period garb. 

 

The president of the women’s auxiliary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (who traveled from Brooklyn and laid a wreath on one of the Arbour Hill graves) and a number of marchers literally wrapped in the flag. 

Gerry Adams, current head of Sinn Fein, was the main speaker at the end of the march. 

Adams (with beard) just before speaking

Sinn Fein is the political arm of the IRA and has recently gained an increasing share of votes in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. Adams is a controversial figure, who was involved with negotiating the Good Friday accord that effectively stopped the fighting in the North but was always suspected of being an active IRA member involved with killings, in particular the notorious 1972 case of a Belfast woman and widowed mother of 10, Jean McConville, killed for suspicion of being a British Army informant. His speech was a defense of the Rising and focused on elements of the original 1916 proclamation but also on current social issues like income inequality, poverty and homelessness, and equality for women. Some claim that Sinn Fein uses these issues only to create a veneer of respectability but I was struck at points by how much Adams sounded like Bernie Sanders!

Up the Republic