If any proof were required that an all-Ireland
unitary State would be a cold place for Protestants, it was
provided by the day-long homage paid by the Republic of Ireland
to 10 I.R.A. men hanged by the British for murder and high
treason during the Troubles of the early 1920s.
Church and State united to pay tribute to the memory of Kevin
Barry and the nine other men convicted and sentenced for crimes
in the 1920-21 period. The passage of 81 years did not dilute
the devotion and the fervour of republicans for Barry and
his fellow I.R.A. men and the applause which rang out along
the route of the cortage from Mountjoy Prison through the
centre of Dublin, the GPO and outside Glasnevin Cemetery proved
that there is certainly no feeling on the part of many people
in the Republic that physical force to remove the British
was wrong.
For Protestants the most comforting aspect of the whole affair
was the address by Cardinal Daly inside the Pro-Cathedral
in which he stressed to the packed cathedral the fact that
one million Protestants in Northern Ireland would not and
should not be bombed into a united Ireland.
He spoke very well and reminded everyone that there is another
dimension - the Protestant one - but apart from this the long
day belonged to 'Catholic nationalist Ireland'.
Of course, the Republic of Ireland is entitled to honour
the memory of its heroes and icons of the struggle of the
1920s, but it cannot have it both ways, paying lip service
to the need to end physical force and at the same time glorifying
those who took up the gun and murdered to achieve their ideals.
The 1920s struggle was a dirty and vicious affair, and the
crimes for which the 10 men paid the ultimate penalty included
the murder of soldiers and policemen, mostly in ambush.
The case of Kevin Barry is a moot point, and amid all the
orations delivered on the day, there was no reference to the
victims. Barry was 18 and that is why he has been remembered
in ballad and song for the 81 years since.
But there was another lad of 18 summers whose name was not
mentioned - Private Matthew Whitehead. He was the young soldier
Barry was convicted of murdering on September 20, 1920. The
young private was one of three teenage soldiers shot dead
at the junction of Church Street and King Street in central
Dublin, one a boy soldier of 15 years of age.
The three unarmed soldiers had gone to Monks bakery to collect
bread - there was an armed guard - when they were ambushed
and shot dead. Barry was found under one of the lorries with
his gun which had jammed, and he was later tried at a court
martial, convicted of murder, and hanged at Mountjoy Prison
on November 20, 1920.
Two of the young soldiers were from Yorkshire, and their
mothers were widows, and the other boy soldier - an orphan
- from Salford, Manchester.
All this was a long time ago but the decision of the Fianna
Fail Government to accord them State funerals with all the
panolopy involved proves that there is no rejection by the
Irish Government of the concept of physical force which led
to British withdrawal.
The deaths of the three boy soldiers amounted to 'collateral
damage' to coin a modern term and like the murder of all the
other soldiers and police since, in the name of Ireland, they
are regarded as but agents of a foreign State.
Yet, as the nephew of Kevin Barry rightly pointed out in
a recent interview, there are undoubtedly a great many Irish
people today whose relatives gave their lives for the Crown
- for King and Country - in the 1920-22 period whether serving
in the British Army or Royal Irish Constabulary, but their
memory does not initiate any feeling of regret, far less remorse.
Protestants of the Orange tradition in Dublin learned a year
ago that their tradition and culture counted for nothing when
bully boys forced the cancellation of an innocent service
of dedication and unveiling of a plaque in the city to mark
the bicentenary of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland meeting
in that city.
The meek surrender of a Church of Ireland city centre church
in refusing to allow its premises to be used in connection
with the proposed event, underlined the fact that modern Ireland
has not changed as far as its rigid nationalist and Catholic
loyalties are concerned.
Ulster Protestants will have been indifferent to the State
event for the executed I.R.A. men and the hardline and triumphalist
attitudes - the applause from the crowded pavements - will
have merely reinforced them in their feelings that their religion
and their British traditions and loyalties would have no recognition
in an all-Ireland State.
Their co-religionists learned this from 1922 onwards, as
Orange and Armistice Day ceremonies were brutally attacked
and spoiled, and the enactment of legislation recognising
the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in the country
made the minority Protestants - and pro-British Roman Catholics
- feel like aliens in their own land.
For those who would like friendlier and live-and-let-live
attitudes on this island, the event of October 14 was a disillusioning
affair, while for those who perceive the Republic to be hostile
and unfriendly, it will bolster their cause.
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