De Valera's Irelands (29 page)

By the 1950s, government ministers and spokesmen, such as Seán MacEntee, were also making public speeches on the day at a range of venues in Britain and the USA, usually concentrating on attacking parti­tion.
60
In 1955 a rare discordant note was struck by Bishop Cornelius Lucy of Cork when, in his St Patrick's Day address, he suggested that emig­ration was a greater evil than partition.
61
Irish leaders in their speeches continued to emphasise links between Ireland and Rome; by the mid-1950s, it was common for the President or Taoiseach to be in Rome on St Patrick's Day. The 1961 Patrician celebrations marked a high point in this religious aspect of the festival. It began with the arrival on 13 March of a papal legate, Cardinal MacIntyre, who in the words of the
Capuchin An­nual
was ‘welcomed with the protocol reception given only to a head of state'. This included a welcome at the airport from the Taoiseach and a full military guard.
62

Annual commemoration of the Dublin Rising of 1916 proved a very contentious issue in the new Irish state, reflecting some of the political divisions which had emerged over the Anglo-Irish Treaty and also per­sonal concerns about any such event.
63
During the commemorations in 1922, a number of prominent politicians from both the pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty sides addressed large crowds in various places, but the event was not marked publicly the following year, owing to the Civil War. On Easter Monday 1924, the government organised a ceremony at Arbour Hill (burial place of the executed rebels) for a specially invited list of guests, including politicians, soldiers and relatives of the deceased.
64
Few rela­tives of the deceased turned up, however, and in this and following years the event was marred by disputes about who should be invited. Also in 1924 republicans organised a march through Dublin to Glas­nevin ceme­tery for the laying of wreaths on the republican plot. Sub­sequently, large parades to Glasnevin were organised and attended each Easter by repub­lican groups, including Sinn Féin and (after 1927) Fianna Fáil. The Cumann na nGaedheal government did not participate in these marches, although there was some official remembrance of the Easter Rising in 1926 and after, in the form of broadcasts on the subject on the new Radio Éireann.

When de Valera came to power in 1932, the situation did not change greatly. In Dublin, there were two parades, the first organised by the semi-official National Commemoration Committee and attended by de Valera and members of Fianna Fáil, which marched to Arbour Hill, and the sec­ond run by other republican groups, including the IRA, which marched to Glasnevin.
65
The Fianna Fáil government changed the guest list to the Arbour Hill ceremony but also ran into difficulties with rel­atives of the deceased about who should be present.
66
In 1935, there was a large Irish army parade on Easter Sunday to the General Post Office where a statue of Cúchulain was unveiled and speeches were made by government min­isters. This statue, supposedly symbolic of the Rising, had in fact been sculpted between 1910 and 1911 and purchased much later for this pur­pose.
67
The twentieth anniversary of the Rising saw some additional meas­ures of commemoration, in particular radio program­mes during Easter week on Radio Éireann. The event continued to be commemorated in Dub­­lin principally by the two rival marches to Arbour Hill and Glas­nevin. Outside Dublin the Rising was commem­orated at Eastertime by compet­ing republican groups. For example, in Cork the Old IRA Men's Associa­tion marched each Easter to several monuments and graves of their dead comrades.
68

On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Easter Rising in 1941, major celebrations were held in Dublin. On Easter Sunday a military parade, described as the largest ever held in Dublin, took place.
69
There were speeches at the GPO from President Douglas Hyde and members of the government. De Valera also made a broadcast from the GPO calling for improvements in the armed forces and for vigilance in preserving Ire­land's independence. For the remainder of the Emergency public cele­brations were severely limited. After 1945, rival parades recommenced in Dublin, with no special government involvement, apart from the ap­pearance of Fianna Fáil ministers at Arbour Hill. In 1949, no doubt for symbolic reasons, the official inauguration of the Irish Republic occurred at one minute past midnight on Easter Monday. Only from 1954 did a military parade at the GPO in Dublin at Easter first become an annual event. It was part of the An Tóstal celebrations of that year but was con­tinued in following years.
70
The fortieth anniversary of the Rising was celebrated extensively in 1956. President Seán T. O'Kelly, the Taoiseach, John A. Costello and other government ministers were on the saluting plat­form at the GPO; there were many radio programmes on the Easter Rising; and various groups in different parts of the country held parades.
71
After this, the commemorations returned to the practice of a military parade in Dublin and other marches in Dublin and elsewhere organised by various groups.

During the First World War an estimated two hundred thousand people from Ireland, a majority from the twenty-six counties which became the Irish Free State, served in the British armed forces. On the first Armis­tice Day, on 11 November 1919, in line with a papal decree, mass was held at all Catholic churches in Ireland to mark the occasion.
72
A two min­ute silence at eleven o'clock was observed widely. Subsequently, with the War of Independence and the setting up of the new Irish Free State, com­memoration of this event became very controversial. As Jane Leon­ard has commented: ‘division rather than dignity surrounded the com­me­m­o­­­ration of the war in Ireland'.
73
The civil unrest of the early 1920s restricted public expressions of commemoration. From 1923 onwards, however, Ar­mistice Day was marked not just by a two-minute silence but also by parades and assemblies of ex-servicemen and their friends and families which were held in Dublin and in other parts of Ireland. Such events were organised by several ex-servicemen's organisations until they were even­tually brought together under the British Legion in 1925. War me­morials were erected in many places and the poppy was sold widely.
74

Official attitudes were ambivalent but generally tolerant in the 1920s. Conscious of nationalist and republican susceptibilities, mem­bers of the Free State government looked askance at ideas to build a large war me­morial in central Dublin, and insisted that it be erected at the outskirts at Islandbridge.
75
At the same time, conscious of the many Irish people who had died during the First World War, including members of their own families, the government sent representatives to the wreath-laying cere­monies in Dublin and London. The message on the wreath laid by Colo­nel Maurice Moore, the Irish government representative, at the tem­po­rary cenotaph cross in College Green in Dublin on 11 November read: ‘This wreath is placed here by the Free State government to comme­mo­rate all the brave men who fell on the field of battle.'
76
In 1923, W. T. Cos­grave and some cabinet colleagues attended an Armistice Day mass in Cork.
77

Early Armistice day commemorations in Dublin met with a certain amount of opposition, expressed in actions such as the snatching of pop­pies. From the mid-1920s, however, the intensity of this opposition grew, with various republican groups organising anti-Armistice Day rallies to protest against ‘the flagrant display of British imperialism dis­guised as Armistice celebrations' and with physical attacks being made on some of the parades.
78
In 1926, this led to the main ceremony being moved from the centre of Dublin to Phoenix Park. De Valera spoke at one of the anti-Armistice Day rallies in 1930, and the formation of a Fianna Fáil govern­ment in 1932 led to a further downgrading of the comme­mora­tions. Of­ficial representatives were withdrawn from the main wreath-laying cere­mony in Dublin from November 1932, although the Irish gov­ernment continued to be represented at the Cenotaph in London until 1936. Per­mits for the sale of poppies, previously allowed for several days in the week before 11 November, were now reduced to one day only.
79
Those taking part in the annual parade to Phoenix Park in Dublin were prohibi­ted from carrying Union Jacks or British Legion flags which fea­tured a Union Jack. Work on the National War Memorial Park at Is­land­bridge was completed and handed over to the government in early 1937, but the official opening was put off a number of times by de Valera, until the outbreak of the Second World War led to its indefinite postpone­ment. The official opening of the park occurred only in 1988 and without the direct involvement of the Fianna Fáil government, al­though at a later ceremony in 1994, Bertie Ahern, then Minister of Finance, declared the work on the memorial to be finished.
80

Armistice ceremonies were held at Phoenix Park in 1939 and at Is­landbridge in 1940, although without parades.
81
Thereafter public demon­strations in Dublin relating to this event were banned until after the war. Indeed the government maintained its ban in November 1945, after the end of the war, because it did not want to see any public demon­stra­tion of Irish involvement in the allied war effort. In fact, an estimated fifty thou­sand men and women went from the twenty counties of Ire­land, along with many other Irish people already living in Great Britain, to serve in British armed forces during the war.
82
The Irish government, however, con­tinued to ignore this matter. As elsewhere Armistice Day was replaced by Remembrance Sunday, on the Sunday closest to 11 No­vember, and the event was marked by a parade of ex-servicemen in Dublin from Smith­field Market along North Quays to Islandbridge and by discrete wreath-laying ceremonies in other centres.
83
These parades and other commemo­rative events continued during the 1950s, but for many of those involved, as declining numbers attending Remembrance Day and veterans' me­mo­ries showed, there was a clear sense that they had become margina­lised and excluded from the new Irish identity and sense of history that had now become dominant.
84

Before 1921, Orange parades had occurred regularly in the three Ul­ster counties of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, which went on to be­come part of the Irish Free State. These parades were restricted in the early 1920s because of disturbances and violence during the Civil War but recommenced in 1923. At the main Orange parade at Clones in County Monaghan in 1923 an Orange spokesman declared that:

They did not desire to be placed under their present regime, but they paid tribute to whom tribute was due. They were not going to rebel, because it would be useless and would not be right. In face of great difficulties and trials the Free State government had done a great deal, but they had a great deal more to do …
85

In 1925 it was reckoned that 10,000 people attended an Orange demon­stration in July at Newbliss in County Monaghan.
86
At a large 12 July de­monstration at Rockcorry, County Monaghan, in 1930, resolutions were passed which declared allegiance to King George V as head of the com­monwealth, support for Orange principles, rejoicing in the good rela­tions in County Monaghan and protest against compulsory use of the Irish language.
87
In the 1920s Orange parades were not so common in Donegal, because members from the county, especially the eastern part, often attended 12 July parades in Derry or other northern locations. South Donegal Orangemen held July demonstrations at Ross­nowlagh and Darney.
88
In spite of incidents at Orange events in Cavan town in 1930 and in Newtowngore in County Leitrim in 1931, 12 July Orange demonstrations passed off reasonably peacefully in 1931 in Cootehill, County Cavan, and in Monaghan town.
89
The year 1931, how­ever, proved to be the last time that Orange parades took place in count­ies Cavan and Monaghan.

A month after these 12 July celebrations in 1931, a large body of re­publicans, including IRA units, occupied Cootehill on the eve of a plan­ned demonstration on 12 August by members of the Royal Black Institu­tion from counties Cavan and Monaghan.
90
The railway line through the town was blown up and there were reports of armed men on the streets. The authorities reacted strongly and troops and extra police were dis­patched to Cootehill to restore law and order. Although the Black demon­­stration did not take place the government gave assur­ances to local Orange and Black leaders that their parades would be protected.
91
In 1932, how­ever, the Grand County Lodges of Cavan, Done­gal and Monaghan can­celled all demonstrations in their counties. The minutes of the County Monaghan Grand Lodge show that in June 1932 members received in­formation that ‘arms were being distributed by the same party who had caused all the trouble at Cootehill with the object of interfering with our July demonstration'.
92
The Grand Lodge decided to cancel both this de­monstration and also all parades to church services.

In future years Monaghan lodges did have limited marches to church services, but in spite of the fact that members throughout the 1930s want­ed to resume their 12 July demonstrations, this never happened because of fear of the consequences.
93
Orange activities in counties Cavan and Monaghan were now restricted to church services and private meetings, and lodges attended the 12 July parades in Northern Ireland. In County Donegal, however, July Orange parades resumed in the 1930s at Ross­nowlagh in the south of the county.
94
After the Second World War many of the lodges from Cavan and Monaghan attended the Rossnowlagh de­monstration. By the 1950s the date of this parade had been moved to the Saturday prior to 12 July, so allowing Orange members from Northern Ireland to attend the event and south­ern members to take part in 12 July parades across the border.