Monday, April 30, 2018

Ireland - part two


In 1913, poet Rupert Brooke wrote to the effect of ‘there are no ghosts in Canada’. Product of England - very much of his era and privileged background - his writing suggested the immense Dominion had little history; that was to come. In 2018, we would say there was already much history, he just couldn’t see it. But, it was - and is - true that, by comparison with Ireland and Britain, solid history is not around every Canadian corner.

On a busy Dublin street, I just happen to glance down and there at foot level, unobtrusive and being chipped away, is evidence of Ireland’s struggles for independence.


Robert Emmet didn’t just die, he was executed. He was condemned by the British for rebellion …


… and put to death somewhere in the middle of this intersection. Just another of the many, certainly thousands, who died opposing British rule since the Anglo-Normans came to Ireland in the 12th Century. 

To reassure you, these posts will not be a lengthy course in Irish history. So, quickly forward to …


… my comfortable hotel, the Gresham, in the centre of Dublin.

April 27, 1916, more than a hundred unhappy patrons of the Gresham were huddled in a billiard room at the back. On the roof, British soldiers were firing at Irish rebels and the hotel was a badly damaged mess.


Right across the street, the General Post Office was centre of what became known as the Rising.


The GPO, gutted during fighting, which began Easter Monday, is still pockmarked with scars. 


Inside, the rebuilt post office conducts the usual business of any post office. But, this is a shrine to Irish independence. 


A plaque commemorates rebel leader Patrick (Pádraig) Pearse …


… proclaiming an Irish Republic, free of Britain.


Back across the street and just down from my hotel was then the Wireless School of Telegraphy. Here, a morse code operator sent out a message:

‘Irish Republic declared in Dublin today, Irish troops have captured the city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole country is rising’.

Other than the republic being declared, the rest of the communiqué was, putting it kindly, somewhat inaccurate. A few hundred rebels were facing the British Army. I set out to inspect the small battleground, pausing for a coffee, then lunch.


A short walk to the handsome Custom House. Opposite the building, a British gunboat fired into the city centre.

Slightly up the River Liffey, which runs through Dublin ...



... there was intense fighting here at the Four Courts, even now Ireland’s main courts complex.


At the Mount Street Bridge, British Army recruits, who had never seen battle, were mown down by seventeen rebels holding a nearby building. More than two hundred soldiers were killed or wounded. 


A monument commemorates the Irish dead …



… including Patrick Doyle, a 36-year old workman with five children. In the last minutes of his life, he was heard shouting, ‘Isn’t this a great day for Ireland?’ In the larger sense it was, but the rising was doomed. After six days of fighting, the rebels faced reality.


Here, now a grotty backstreet behind the GPO, Patrick Pearse surrendered. The Easter Uprising was over. But then, the British made their biggest mistake. 

To the British, the rising was a betrayal. The Irish rebels were traitors, criminals taking advantage of vulnerability when hundreds of thousands (including many Irish), were in the Great War against Germany. Indeed, some rebels had relatives fighting in the British Army.

Fifteen of the rebel leaders were swiftly - and I do mean swiftly - executed. The Irish had largely not supported the uprising, but the executed men became near instant patriots and martyrs.


One of the many memorials to Patrick Pearse (right), whose brother, Willie, was also in the rising and executed.


A statue of James Connolly, another rebel leader who faced a firing squad.

The rising and its aftermath led directly to what the Irish call their War of Independence from 1919 to 1921. By 1922, following negotiations, most of Ireland was free of Britain. However, in that ‘most’ was one big problem. The island had been politically divided between the largely Catholic south and mainly Protestant north.


I wander back to my hotel passing a marvellous - and massive - steel spire.


It replaces a pillar topped by British hero Lord Nelson, blown up by Irish republicans in 1966. Fortunately, there were no casualties. Fifty years after the Easter Rising, the British or, at least, a British symbol, were again under attack in Dublin.


I stop at the Spire’s base and remember that, while I was reporting on bloody events in Northern Ireland, unexpected violence came to Dublin.


Here, a few blocks behind my hotel, is Talbot Street where one of three bombs exploded, more or less simultaneously, in 1974. Twenty-six innocents killed. Loyalist paramilitaries from Ulster had brought the Troubles south.

Why all this? In part, this trip is to compensate for a limited understanding of the background when I was here long ago. So now it’s time to leave Ireland and return to the North.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Ireland - part one



In the 1970s, I was a cocky young journalist based in London. The picture above - film in those days - was taken from a television report. When anyone sensible was running from explosions, I was running towards them. And in Ireland there were lots of explosions. 

Many of my memories of Ireland, especially the North, are grim ... ‘The Troubles’ and those explosions. I heard them, the unmistakable crump, but, mercifully, never experienced one, only the aftermath.

I didn't take a lot of personal pictures at the time, but a few survive in a scrapbook.



Sometimes I would travel in army helicopters flying low to avoid IRA rocket fire. 



I had occasional meals and uneasy sleep in British bases in what the soldiers called ‘bandit country’. The netting in both pictures was there - optimistically - to lessen damage from mortar attacks. 

I remember, too, sitting in a brave politician’s car as we drove through country lanes known for terrorist attacks and knowing that he was a prominent target.


A few years later, I covered Lord Mountbatten’s assassination in Sligo and funeral, the chilling ‘Dead March’ reverberating through central London as his coffin on a gun carriage neared Westminster Abbey.

Then, one final, horrific story in Ireland, the 1985 Air India bombing.


329 dead - 268 of them Canadian - when the plane went down off the Irish coast. I spent days covering the aftermath and never went back.


Now, after more than thirty years, I have glimpsed the Irish shoreline. My first sight is not far from where boats set out to recover what was left of the Air India passengers and crew.

I’ve come back, not to exorcize ghosts, that would exaggerate the impact of Ireland on my psyche. But, even in the worst of times, Ireland was beautiful and I want to see it again. To employ that over-quoted phrase of poet W. B. Yeats, Ireland has 'a terrible beauty’. 

Once a largely ignorant young man, I return with the experience of many decades. Reporting of the sort I did in Ireland was reactive. A bomb here, a murder there, a news item quickly filed. But my knowledge of Ireland's past was relatively limited. What had led to all this? My grasp of Irish history - centuries and centuries of conflict and oppression - was superficial. Now is the time to learn.

=======================================================

A Toronto weekend of ice pellets, freezing rain, snow and many flight cancellations meant I departed nearly two hours late, but, at least, I departed.


I have arrived in Dublin on a glorious day. Oh, there are daffodils …


… and pansies …


… and early forsythia brightening quaint cottages.


Even dandelions cheer me up after a miserable winter back home. My trip is off to a good start.