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Secret Scripture -Final Secret Scripture: Two Irish war poets: a lecture delivered at the 'Ireland, Wales and the First World' conference at the University of Cardiff, 10 September 2014 Introduction: It is instructive to look at the index to Paul Fussell's classic book about the literature of the First World War, The Great War and Modern Memory. It contains copious references to Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and other English poets who experienced life in the trenches of the First World War. Only two Irish writers rate a mention in Fussell's book, James Joyce and WB Yeats, both decidedly non-combatants. Joyce's anti-war doggerel is quoted: "Poor Europe ambles/Like sheep to shambles." There is no reference to Tom Kettle or Francis Ledwidge, even though both were published poets and both died on the Western Front. The two Irish war poets are also absent from the Imperial War Museum's centenary collection First World War: poems from the front (2014) although they do appear in some other World War 1 anthologies. Kettle and Ledwidge were also Irish nationalists. Their stories provide an intriguing insight into Irish involvement in the First World War. Their poetic response to the war differed somewhat from that of their English literary counterparts. This can, I think, be accounted for by the particular predicament they experienced of being Irish nationalists in British uniform during World War 1, and especially after the Easter Rising of 1916, 1 which remade the Irish political landscape. A classic Home Ruler: Part of the Catholic nationalist community that was on the rise in late 19th century Ireland, Tom Kettle was a contemporary of James Joyce's at university. His father, Andrew, had been active in the Land League, which, alongside the Irish Parliamentary Party, had been a key driver and shaper of 19th century Irish nationalism. Tom Kettle was elected as an Irish Party MP at Westminster in 1906. He was what might be called a classic Home Ruler, a member of a coming generation who would have gone on to run a self-governing Ireland had history not changed course dramatically. Kettle stepped down from Parliament in 1910 to pursue an academic career in Dublin. As Professor of National Economics, he developed a pragmatic economic philosophy, once writing that 'the State is you and me and the man around the corner.' He saw Ireland's Imperial connection as critical to the country's future development. Although Kettle wrote poems, he was far more accomplished as an essayist and was also a convinced European. He once wrote of Ireland that, 'in order to become deeply Irish, she must become European.' His university classmate, James Joyce, would readily have endorsed such a sentiment. After his departure from the Westminster Parliament, Kettle remained a committed nationalist and, in 1913, joined the Irish Volunteers, set up in opposition to the Ulster Volunteers as part of the struggle for Irish Home Rule, a consuming issue in the politics 2 of these islands throughout the summer of 1914. Perhaps the most striking thing about the advent of war in Britain in 1914 is the extent to which the political establishment was unprepared for it, having spent months obsessing about the looming crisis in Ireland. It was not until the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia had been digested in London that, as Winston Churchill put it, 'the parishes of Fermanagh and Tyrone faded back into the mists and squalls of Ireland and a strange light began immediately ... to fall and grow upon the map of Europe.' A poet of the blackbirds: Before the war, Francis Ledwidge was a promising poet in a pastoral mode: My thoughts are, where Peace shuts the blackbirds' wings, And it is cherry time by all the springs. He had grown up in rural County Meath, where his poetic talent had been spotted and encouraged by the local landowner and writer, Lord Dunsany. A rural labour activist and a member the local authority in his home area, Ledwidge was a supporter of the Gaelic League which was dedicated to reviving the Irish language and from whose ranks many of those who went on to lead the Easter Rising of 1916 were drawn. He went on to become secretary of his local branch of the Irish Volunteers. All of this points to a political philosophy that went beyond Home Rule into the realms of advanced 3 nationalism. When the Irish Volunteers split in 1914 on account of divisions about participation in the war, Ledwidge initially went with those who opposed Irish Party leader, John Redmond, in his strong support for the British war effort. Yet, Ledwidge subsequently decided to enlist in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and saw service with the 10th Irish Division in the Dardanelles in 1915, in the Balkans and later on the Western Front. He later explained his rationale for joining up. "I joined the British Army because she stood between Ireland and an enemy common to our civilisation and I would not have her say that she defended us while we did nothing but pass resolutions." There is a record of an exchange at the Navan Rural Council in which Ledwidge is asked if he was an Irishman or pro-German to which he replied "an anti-German and an Irishman." The plight of Belgium: Visiting Belgium in the summer of 1914, on a mission to purchase arms for the Irish Volunteers, Tom Kettle witnessed at first hand the German invasion of that country and the destruction of the great Library at Louvain, a place of significance over the centuries for exiled Irish scholars. He reported from Brussels for The Daily News in which he sympathised deeply with the plight of Belgium. From the start, he saw the war as a struggle for civilised European values against the threat posed by Imperial Germany. The plight of Belgium moved him and he admired "the courage and anguish of this glorious little nation, fighting now for its life." He saw Europe being "tortured to the 4 pattern of a new devilry". Kettle returned to Ireland and became a determined recruiting officer, traveling around Ireland to urge his countrymen to commit themselves to the defence of values shared by Ireland and Britain. Together with his fellow soldier/parliamentarian, Stephen Gwynn, Kettle published a collection of battle songs associated the Irish Brigades which had fought over the centuries in the armies of Europe's Catholic powers. He saw the First World War as an opportunity for the Irish once more to demonstrate their martial virtues. For first time in centuries, Irish men were now going out 'to fight for the sake of Ireland and for Ireland's cause.' Bravely, Kettle stated that, if forced to choose, he cared for liberty more than he cared for Ireland. He believed that the tears and blood being shed in Europe would be a prologue to two reconciliations - between Protestant Ulster and the rest of Ireland and between Ireland and Britain. He had high hopes for the future of Ireland's relations with Britain. Bond, from the toil of hate we may not cease: Free, we are free to be your friend. ... Soldier with equal soldier must we sit, Closing a battle, not forgetting it. 5 A terrible beauty: As W.B. Yeats wrote with great perceptiveness at the time, Ireland was 'changed utterly' by the Easter Rising of 1916. It certainly changed things for Tom Kettle and Francis Ledwidge. Kettle's brother-in-law, the pacifist, Francis Sheehy- Skeffington, was shot by a deranged British officer during the fighting in Dublin. As he returned to the front in the summer of 1916, Kettle clearly realised that he was likely to end up on the wrong side of Irish history. He sensed that the leaders of the Easter Rising would 'go down in history as heroes and martyrs' while he would be viewed 'as a bloody British officer.' Kettle's best-known poem, written just days before his death, reflects that awareness of changed circumstances. In it, he tries to explain to his daughter why he had sacrificed his life: So here, while the mad guns curse overhead And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor, Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead Died not for flag, nor King nor Emperor - But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed, And for the secret Scripture of the poor. This tenacious idealism about the war's purpose on the part of someone who had 6 experienced the horrors of the Battle of the Somme in 1916 is quite striking. It has echoes of Yeats's better-known poem 'An Irish airman foresees his death': Those that I fight I do not hate Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan's poor. An Irish poet at war: Francis Ledwidge wrote quite a few poems with wartime settings. However, when the war features in Ledwidge's poetry, it is as a realm of duty and honour rather than violent horror. A keen-edged sword, a soldier's heart Is greater than a poet's art. And greater than a poet's fame A little grave that has no name.' In ‘The Irish at Gallipoli’ he expresses sentiments similar to those of Tom Kettle. The Irish fought: Neither for lust of glory nor new throne 7 ... we but war when war Serves Liberty and Justice, Love and Peace. Ledwidge was on home leave recuperating from war wounds when the Easter Rising broke out. The execution of its leaders, troubled him greatly.
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