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A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

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THE ROLE OF THE GAELIC LEAGUE THOMAS MacDONAGH PATRICK PEARSE EOIN MacNEILL A League of extraordinary gentlemen Gaelic League was breeding ground for rebels, writes Richard McElligott EFLECTING on The Gaelic League was The Gaelic League quickly the rebellion that undoubtedly the formative turned into a powerful mass had given him nationalist organisation in the movement. By revitalising the his first taste of development of the revolutionary Irish language, the League military action, elite of 1916. also began to inspire a deep R Michael Collins With the rapid decline of sense of pride in Irish culture, lamented that the Easter Rising native Irish speakers in the heritage and identity. Its wide was hardly the “appropriate aftermath of the Famine, many and energetic programme of time for memoranda couched sensed the damage would be meetings, dances and festivals in poetic phrases, or actions irreversible unless it was halted injected a new life and colour DOUGLAS HYDE worked out in similar fashion”. immediately. In November 1892, into the often depressing This assessment encapsulates the Gaelic scholar Douglas Hyde monotony of provincial Ireland. the generational gulf between delivered a speech entitled ‘The Another significant factor participation in Gaelic games. cursed their memory”. Pearse the romantic idealism of the Necessity for de-Anglicising for its popularity was its Within 15 years the League had was prominent in the League’s revolutionaries of 1916 and the Ireland’. Hyde pleaded with his cross-gender appeal. The 671 registered branches. successful campaign to get Irish military efficiency of those who fellow countrymen to turn away League actively encouraged Hyde had insisted that the included as a compulsory subject would successfully lead the Irish from the encroaching dominance female participation and one Gaelic League should be strictly in the national school system. independence struggle five years of English culture before they of its attractions lay in the apolitical. But he never fully For IRB men like Thomas later. lost forever their sense of a opportunities it provided for accepted the radical political Clarke and Seán Mac Diarmada, But perhaps the idealism of the separate nationality. romantic and sexual contact. The implications of his warning the League represented the rebels of 1916 is understandable. He observed how “Irish League also developed close ties that Ireland needed to be de- perfect platform to help spread The Rising was precipitated by sentiment sticks in this half- with the GAA and both would Anglicised. Many others would. their republican doctrine. Both a generation who had come of way house — how it continues become the supporting pillars of The League would soon provide became enthusiastic members age amidst the heady optimism to apparently hate the English, the Gaelic Revival. In particular, a valuable breeding ground for of the organisation, using it as of Ireland’s Gaelic Revival — a and at the same time continues the League was instrumental revolutionary republicanism. conduit to recruit its more radical moment when the possibilities to imitate them”. Hyde’s remedy in the early development of In the decade before the Rising, members into the IRB. for fundamentally reshaping was to rediscover as much as camogie and women’s formal British intelligence reports It was through their shared Irish political, social and cultural possible from Ireland’s past — repeatedly noted that the Gaelic membership of the Gaelic League makeup seemed endless. its language, its customs, its A cartoon League had come under the in Dublin that Mac Diarmada Realising that the myriad of traditions. Hyde’s speech offered of influence of men “of extreme indoctrinated Pearse and Éamon cultural organisations emerging the blueprint for the emerging Douglas views”. Ceannt into the Brotherhood. across Ireland could provide cultural nationalism that the Hyde It was Patrick Pearse who would Meanwhile Thomas MacDonagh a valuable stream of potential likes of Arthur Griffith’s Sinn in An personify the direct link between wrote of how his first Gaelic recruits, a newly reenergised IRB Féin would subsequently develop Claidheamh cultural and physical force League meeting became his began to systematically infiltrate into political theory. Soluis nationalism. Having joined the “baptism in nationalism”. them in the years after 1900. Thus In July 1893, Hyde and Eoin Gaelic League as a 17-year-old in Through him, his close friend participation and membership in MacNeill launched the Gaelic 1896, within two years Pearse had Joseph Plunkett also joined. these societies helped bring Irish League, a society which aimed been co-opted onto the League’s In the two years before the men and women into contact to preserve and revive the Ruling Executive Committee. In Great War, the Gaelic League with the revolutionary republican Irish language. 1903 he succeeded MacNeill as the became increasingly associated tradition. Little wonder that More than editor of the society’s newspaper, with the militant developments many would experience what this, the Gaelic An Claideamh Soluis. within Irish nationalism. In one veteran of 1916, Padraig League aimed For Pearse, the language was particular, Eoin MacNeill O’Kelly, described as “a kind to reconstruct seen as the essence of Ireland’s was warming to the political of natural graduation” from a populist rural separate national identity. He expediency of physical force. In cultural nationalism to republican Gaelic civilisation. warned that if the Irish allowed response to the emergence of violence. In the process they their language to die, they “would the Ulster Volunteers, MacNeill Foremost among these new hoped to recover go down to their graves with the used the pages of An Claidheamh cultural associations was the Ireland’s perceived knowledge that their children Soluis to publish his celebrated Gaelic League. Gaelic golden-age. and their children’s children article, ‘The North Began’ in 10 | Irish Independent 1916 Collection Irish Independent I 26 November 2015 SOCIETY IRELAND IN 1916 Ireland reliant on shipping and stout for employment H&W and Guinness dominated, writes Fergus Cassidy N the 30 years up to the outbreak of the First World War, world trade grew by 40pc. Economies I were growing fast, driven by huge changes in railroads, refrigeration and steamships. By 1913, European countries accounted for 80pc of world trade. Forty years earlier, Britain was the sole economic superpower, accounting for almost one-third of global manufacturing output. Even though competition, especially from Germany, France and USA, saw its share of world trade beginning to erode in the early 1900s, it remained an economic giant. Industrial expansion, along with population growth, meant that in 1913 Britain accounted for 17pc of all global imports and remained the largest shipbuilder in the world. The Irish economy was small compared with Britain, with Extract from statement to the a Gross Domestic Product of Bureau of Military History by around 6pc of the British total. Seán T Ó Kelly, President Agriculture was the mainstay, of Ireland 1945-1959, who with output twice that of faciltated the September 1914 industrial manufacture. In Harland & Wolff employed almost 9,500 people between 1907 meeting in the offices of the 1911, 846,000 people worked in and 1912, when the Titanic was completed. GETTY IMAGES Gaelic League in Parnell (then agriculture and food, and 401,000 Rutland) Square in September in industry, with most of that ruins. In the Directories of 60 curing, grain-milling and 1914. output based in the north-eastern and 50 years ago, industries biscuits. There were about six Credit: Irish Military Archives. part of the island, and Dublin. predominated in this area — biscuit factories in the country, Shipping, linen, food, drink, today it is tenements.” where up to 9,500 people were brewing and distilling were the Mechanisation accounts employed. Jacob’s in Dublin was products of industry. for some of the decline but by far the largest, employing Outside Dublin, manufacturing globalisation was also a more than 3,000 in 1907. was directed at the home significant factor. Faster The output from brewing which he argued that Irish ideal of a Gaelic-speaking and market, in areas such as railway transport enabled products like trebled between the 1850s and nationalists needed to similarly free Irish nation, free from all engineering, construction, American and Canadian grain, 1914, of which about 40% went arm to protect their right to subjection to foreign influences.” printing and flour milling. From Argentine beef, Australian abroad. Guinness was the largest secure Home Rule for Ireland. This radical pledge of support around 1850 small, craft-based mutton, and New Zealand butter brewery in the world by 1914 and Once the Irish Volunteers were for Irish sovereignty marked a manufacture lost out, as observed to be sold abroad. accounted for about two-thirds established, local Gaelic League definite break with the non- by Tom Kelly walking around In 1907 Belfast was Ireland’s of all Irish output. The combined branches were instrumental political policy of the League’s the Francis Street area of Dublin major industrial city accounting output of Cork-based Murphy’s, in spreading the movement. In founder Douglas Hyde who in 1909: “Today they are nearly for two-thirds of exports. Its and Beamish and Crawford, was September 1914, Republicans subsequently stepped down as all gone... Boot-making, brogue- population
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