“We declare the right of the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish ies to be sovereign and indefeasable. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign 2 and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished pt by the destruction of the Irish people..." | Proclamation of the Irish Republic a yas answered by the house sister us to come back the next the Priest Father O'Malley had “It's very important that we O’Malley at once,” said ohn in,” said the sister, “and I 2 ather O'Malley, so please nutes later Father O'Malley “What can I do for you gen- “I'm John Lane, the. . .” not the mayor of. . .? “Yes w did you know?” . . . The papers have been full of your dramatic escape.” Turning to me, “You must be Charles .. .” “Yes Father.” Father O'Malley sent for the house- keeper and ordered a meal to be pre- pared. With a twinkle in his eye he said as he went over to the sideboard “Will you gentlemen join me in a tot of good Irish whiskey?” After the sec- ond tot he said to John, “Excuse me a minute. I'll be right back.” He returned with a copy of the New York American, three days old and there on the front page was the story of our escape with a recent picture of John and one of myself taken from a photo five years before from the files of the London Daily Mail. According to the news item we had both been sentenced to be hanged in absentia, Commander Coatsworthy had been transferred to a prison in Eng- land to await trial. John decided to go to his younger brother in Boston and I contacted an old friend William Balfour who was now a very successful business man in New York. I rang up Bill and told him I only had English money and he re- plied take a taxi and I will fix him up. Bill had quite a lot of influential friends including Mayor Hyland, Com- missioner Enright. Grover Whalen and Jimmy Walker and between them they arranged for my asylum in the U.S.A. Two years Jater after Ireland became a Republic a general amnesty was granted and I received a full pardon with my title and all decorations re- turned to me and I proceeded at once to Montreal and a month later I started another military career training young men in gunnery, ballistics and the art of war prior to receiving their com- missions. ‘the Irish uprising of Emmett, its leader, | for treason in an Eng- ced to death, he ad- the court in a plea that through the years: 0 man write my epitaph. no man who knows my dares now vindicate not prejudice or ignor- ess them. m and me rest in ob- ind peace. Let my tomb 1 uninscribed and my me- oblivion until other other men can do jus- character. my country takes her g the nations of the and not till then, ph be written.” were other times and Again and again the > for their freedom from yoke. war came to Europe world in 1914 the Irish on the march. north where those who tial to Britain were do- the magistrates gave per- for armed bodies to pro- gious and political inde- ice in face of the demand Tule for Ireland coming south. south too, military or- at were established — Volunteers. Also under ip of James Con- James Larkin the union had been estab- h its own self-defence ion, the Irish Citizens Irish Republican od was also formed. in the unity between nal and working class the new wave of grew. James Con- ized the confluence of the two sentiments — the socialist and the national. Never a member of the Brotherhood, he said of them that in so far as these people share with me a common objective, I will join hands with them in this national struggle and I will influence them in the process as much as I can by my working class ap- proach, my socialist philosophy. In 1915 the body of O’Dono- van Rossa, a Sein Fein leader, was brought back from the Uni- ted States for burial in Ireland. At the graveside, Padraic Pearse, of the Irish Republican Brother- hood spoke and the coming thunder of Easter week could be heard in his words: “I propose to you then, here by the grave of this unrepen- tent Feinian, we renew our bap- tismal vows. That here by the grave of this unconquered may we ask of God, each one for himself, such unshakeable pur- pose, such high and gallant cour- age, such unbreakable strength of soul as belonged to O’Dono- van Rossa. Irishmen have one al- legiance only. We of the Irish Volunteers and you others who are associated with us in today’s task and duty are bound to- gether henceforth in brotherly union for the achievement of the freedom of Ireland. “The clear eyes of this man visioned Ireland as we of today would surely have her: not free merely, but Gaellic as well; not Gaellic merely, but free as well... “Life springs from death, and from the graves of patriots, men and women, spring living nations. The defenders of Eng- land have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased one half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything. “The fools, the fools, the fools. They have left us our Feinian dead and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.” Catholic, dissenter, atheist, protestant — all were united in the common struggle. And in the direction that the struggle should take there was agree- ment — an armed uprising to arouse Ireland. The unity was exemplified in this poem by Wil- liam Butler Yeats: “O words are lightly spoken,” said Pearse to Connolly, “Maybe a breath of poetic words Has withered our Rose Tree; Or maybe but a wind that blows Across the bitter sea.” “It needs to be but watered,” James Connolly replied, “To make the green come out again And spread on every side, And shake the blossom from the bud To be the garden’s pride.” “But where can we draw water,” Said Pearse to Connolly, When all the wells are parch- ed away? O plain as plain can be There’s nothing but our own red blood Can make a right Rose Tree.” And on April 24, 1916 the up- rising began. Down the streets of Dublin they marched—the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citi- zens Army. They seized the post office and on its steps Pearse read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. But the forces were few and had relied too much on spon- taneity. The English moved in their army troops with machine guns. The Irish were forced to surrender. The leaders were taken to hastly summoned mili- tary courts and sentenced to death. The last to be taken be- fore the firing squad was James Connolly. Wounded in battle, he was carried on a stretcher to his execution. A reign of terror ensued, But the struggle went on. There were those who dismis- sed the uprising as_ useless. There were those, like Karl Radek of the German Social Democratic Party who spoke of it as a petty-bourgeois attempt at putsch and of no concern to the working class. But one man in the social democratic movement had a deep appreciation of the Irish rebellion — Lenin, who in an article in which he argued out the question of self-determina- tion of nations had this to say: “The century-old Irish natio- nal movement, having passed through various stages and com- binations of class interests, ex- pressed itself, inter allia, in a mass Irish National Congress in America which passed a resolu- tion for Irish independence — it expressed itself in street fight- ing conducted by a section of the urban petty bourgeoisie and a section of the workers after a long period of mass agitation, demonstrations, suppression of papers, etc. Whoever calls such an uprising a ‘putsch’ is either a hardened reactionary, or a doctrinaire hopelessly incapable of picturing to himself a social revolution as a living pheno- mena. “To imagine that social re- volution is conceivable without PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 3, 1969—Page 7 United for Irish freedom revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without the revolutionary outbursts of a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejulices, without the movement of non-class con- scious proletarian and semi-pro- letarian masses against the op- pression of the landlords, the church, the monarchy, the fore- ign nations, etc. — to imagine that means repudiating social revolution. Only those who ima- gine that in one place an army will line up and say, ‘we are for socialism,’ and in another place another army will say, ‘we are for imperialism,’ and that this will be the social revolu- tion, only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic opinion could vilify the Irish Rebellion by calling it a ‘putsch’. “Whoever expects a ‘pure’ so- cial revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what -revolution is” In Dublin today stands the monument to the heroes of 1916, where beneath the words of the Proclamation of the Republic are listed the men who died for Irish freedom—and heading the list is the socialist James Con- nolly and along with him the names of Pearse and others who came to the Rebellion from the national sentiment. Joined in action, joined in death, today they are joined in the memory of all who fight for freedom, and in the first place by those who still fight for the complete emancipation of Ire- lion delivered by Bert Kenny at Horizons Research in Toronto, Mar. 28.