TOWARD EASTER: IRELAND AND THE GREAT WAR

INTRODUCTION:  THE GREAT WAR.  "Kommt der Krieg ins Land /  Gibt’s Lügen wie Sand."  = "When war enters a country /  It produces lies like sand." 

I.  PREPARING FOR WAR

A.  THE UNIONISTS.  Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

B.  THE NATIONALISTS.  Irish Volunteers, est. Nov. 1913; Eóin MacNeill (1867-1945), professor of Early Irish History at University College Dublin.  Sinn Féin, est. 1905 by Arthur Griffith.  John Devoy, Clan na Gael; Sir Roger Casement, Alice Stopford Green; Robert Erskine Childers.  UVF guns landed at Larne (April 1914); IV guns landed at Howth (July 26, 1914).  Lord Kitchener, Minister of War.  Suspensory Bill.  National Volunteers vs. anti-Redmondite Volunteers ==> Irish Republican Army.  I.R.B. Military Council--Bulmer Hobson, Joseph Plunkett, Thomas MacDonagh, Tom Clarke.

C. AWAKENING. 

II.  THE WAR AND THE SPLIT IN IRISH NATIONALISM. 

A.  REPUBLICANS AGAINST THE WAR.  Kathleen Clarke; Amiens Street; Parnell Street; Tom Clarke.

B.  WAR AS OPPORTUNITY.  James Connolly, "What is Our Programme?" (22 January 1916: " The time for Ireland's battle is NOW, the place for Ireland's battle is HERE."  "The Foggy Dew."  Suvla (Gallipoli); Flanders.

III.  BRITISH OR IRISH?

A.  FRANK O'CONNOR'S CONVERSION.  Frank O'Connor (1903-1966), An Only Child (1958).  Daniel Corkery (1878-1964), The Hidden Ireland (1924).  The Gem and the Magnet.  Eleanor Hull, Cuchulain.  St. Enda's School (Patrick Pearse).  Daniel Corkery, A Munster Twilight.

B.  TOM KETTLE'S ORDEAL.  Thomas Kettle (1880-1916); son of Andrew J. Kettle, an organizer of the Land League; educated by the Christian Brothers in North Richmond Street, at Clongowes Wood College, and at the Catholic University; called to the Irish Bar, 1905; MP for East Tyrone, 1906; Professor of National Economics at University College Dublin, 1910; Irish Volunteers, 1913.  Married Mary Sheehy, daughter of David Sheehy, Fenian and MP, and Elizabeth ("Bessie") McCoy of Loughill, Co. Limerick; Hanna, m. Francis Skeffington (1878-1916), a socialist, pacifist, and feminist, murdered during the Easter Rising; Kathleen, married Cruise O'Brien, mother of Conor Cruise O'Brien.  Jesuit College on St. Stephen's Green; James Augustine Joyce (1882-1941), "Dirty Jimmy."  Father Eugene Sheehy (1841-1917),  "the Land League priest."  "Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, /But for a dream, born in a herdsman's hut / And for the secret scripture of the poor."