THE INSURRECTION IN DUBLIN

BY JAMES STEPHENS

MAUNSEL & COMPANY, LTD. DUBLIN AND LONDON 1916

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

The day before the rising was Easter Sunday, and they were crying joyfully in the Churches "Christ has risen." On the following day they were saying in the streets "Ireland has risen." The luck of the moment was with her. The auguries were good, and, notwithstanding all that has succeeded, I do not believe she must take to the earth again, nor be ever again buried. The pages hereafter were written day by day during the Insurrection that followed Holy Week, and, as a hasty impression of a most singular time, the author allows them to stand without any emendation.

The few chapters which make up this book are not a history of the rising. I knew nothing about the rising. I do not know anything about it now, and it may be years before exact information on the subject is available. What I have written is no more than a statement of what passed in one quarter of our city, and a gathering together of the rumour and tension which for nearly two weeks had to serve the Dublin people in lieu of news. It had to serve many Dublin people in place of bread.

To-day, the 8th of May, the book is finished, and, so far as Ireland is immediately concerned, the insurrection is over. Action now lies with England, and on that action depends whether the Irish Insurrection is over or only suppressed.

In their dealings with this country, English Statesmen have seldom shown political imagination; sometimes they have been just, sometimes, and often, unjust. After a certain point I dislike and despise justice. It is an attribute of God, and is adequately managed by Him alone; but between man and man no other ethics save that of kindness can give results. I have not any hope that this ethic will replace that, and I merely mention it in order that the good people who read these words may enjoy the laugh which their digestion needs.

I have faith in man, I have very little faith in States man. But I believe that the world moves, and I believe that the weight of the rolling planet is going to bring freedom to Ireland. Indeed, I name this date as the first day of Irish freedom, and the knowledge forbids me mourn too deeply my friends who are dead.

It may not be worthy of mention, but the truth is, that Ireland is not cowed. She is excited a little. She is gay a little. She was not with the revolution, but in a few months she will be, and her heart which was withering will be warmed by the knowledge that men have thought her worth dying for. She will prepare to make herself worthy of devotion, and that devotion will never fail her. So little does it take to raise our hearts.

Does it avail anything to describe these things to English readers? They have never moved the English mind to anything except impatience, but to-day and at this desperate conjunction they may be less futile than heretofore. England also has grown patriotic, even by necessity. It is necessity alone makes patriots, for in times of peace a patriot is a quack when he is not a shark. Idealism pays in times of peace, it dies in time of war. Our idealists are dead and yours are dying hourly.

The English mind may to-day be enabled to understand what is wrong with us, and why through centuries we have been "disthressful." Let them look at us, I do not say through the fumes that are still rising from our ruined streets, but through the smoke that is rolling from the North Sea to Switzerland, and read in their own souls the justification for all our risings, and for this rising.

Is it wrong to say that England has not one friend in Europe? I say it. Her Allies of to-day were her enemies of yesterday, and politics alone will decide what they will be to-morrow. I say it, and yet I am not entirely right, for she has one possible friend unless she should decide that even one friend is excessive and irks her. That one possible friend is Ireland. I say, and with assurance, that if our national questions are arranged there will remain no reason for enmity between the two countries, and there will remain many reasons for friendship.

It may be objected that the friendship of a country such as Ireland has little value; that she is too small geographically, and too thinly populated to give aid to any one. Only sixty odd years ago our population was close on ten millions of people, nor are we yet sterile; in area Ireland is not collossal, but neither is she microscopic. Mr. Shaw has spoken of her as a "cabbage patch at the back of beyond." On this kind of description Rome might be called a hen-run and Greece a back yard. The sober fact is that Ireland has a larger geographical area than many an independent and prosperous European kingdom, and for all human and social needs she is a fairly big country, and is beautiful and fertile to boot. She could be made worth knowing if goodwill and trust are available for the task.

I believe that what is known as the "mastery of the seas" will, when the great war is finished, pass irretrievably from the hands or the ambition of any nation, and that more urgently than ever in her history