[IPSM] Against Colonialism: Honouring Bobby Sands and James Connolly

[C.Ailes]

An important article to read for those fighting for
freedom and empowerment.
CL

Honouring Bobby Sands and James Connolly: A Reflection

- Tony Seed, Mac-Talla, annual Gaelic supplement of
Shunpiking magazine, May 2006) - 

The 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising in Dublin
and 25th anniversary of the H-Block hunger strikes in
Belfast have become times of great celebration for the
Irish people and are being commemorated throughout the
world, including Canada. Activities include marches,
seminars, public meetings, plays, films and
exhibitions. The actions of those who stood up and
fought for independence in 1916 and the courageous
sacrifice of the ten hunger strikers who gave their
lives in 1981 represent the best of Ireland. They
typify a valiant spirit that has endured much
suffering over the centuries of armed British colonial
occupation.

The parallel between the two events is very real. The
actions of those who fought in 1916 charted the path
that led to independence for 22 of the 29 Irish
counties in 1921, while Bobby Sands and the Irish
patriots who gave their lives for their rights as
political prisoners began the move toward a democratic
renewal of the political process. The soldiers of the
Easter Rising and the hunger strikers also shared the
vision of an independent and united Ireland, free of
foreign rule.

Huge crowds attended the 90th anniversary events on 15
April throughout Ireland. Many towns and cities saw
the largest demonstrations in recent years. Speaking
at the plot in Milltown Cemetary in West Belfast where
hunger strikers Bobby Sands, Joe McDonnell and Kieran
Doherty are buried, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams
said the British government had "cruelly and
cynically" allowed ten men to die while the Irish
government "stood back." Adams called on republicans
to tell a new generation of Irish republicans and
especially the youth the story of 1981 alongside the
history of 1916.

Quoting Padraig Pearse, Adams said the 1916 leader had
got it "exactly right" when during his court martial
he described the republican desire for freedom as
unstoppable. "To us it is more desirable than anything
in the world. If you strike us down now, we shall rise
again to renew the fight. You cannot conquer Ireland.
You cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom,"
Pearse had said.

James Connolly of the Easter Rising and the H-Block
Hunger Strikers shared another vision; the renewal of
An Ghaeilge, the ancestral Irish language as the right
of an oppressed nation and the vessel of Irish thought
and outlook, and the philosophy of Irish freedom. "It
is well to remember," declared James Connolly, "that
nations which submit to conquest or races which
abandon their language in favour of that of an
oppressor do so, not because of the altruistic
motives, or because of a love of brotherhood of man,
but from a slavish and cringing spirit." One of Bobby
Sands' important and most positive features was his
stand on Irish language and the fine, positive
traditions, culture and heritage of the Irish people.
He was a talented and prolilic author of prose, songs,
and poetry (compiled in 'Skylark Sing your Lonely
Song: An Anthology of the Writings of Bobby Sands'), a
magnificent oral storyteller (as in the "telling" of
books from memory through the cell door after the
screws left the wing), and tradition bearer.

For Bobby Sands, language, culture and heritage was
not something iconically detached from the Irish
people -- all the people of Ireland -- nor as
something nativistic, and its renewal was linked with
freedom and empowerment. Throughout the course of his
political development, he opposed the cosmopolitan,
nihilist culture of British imperialism which, with
related edicts as the Statutes of Kilkenny (1649) and
the consequent dispersal of the Irish clans and the
dismantling of the Irish system of communal land
ownership, aimed to destroy the Irish nation,
assimilate and Anglicise the Irish people, disinform
their world outlook, foster sectarianism and make
Ireland "loyal" once and for all. Bobby Sands saw
language renewal as a prominent component in the
project of nation building of a united Ireland based
on equality, justice and peace, and to empower and
inspire the Irish people to reclaim their national
identity regardless of age, class, creed or political
outlook.

Here is the real spirit of the Irish, for whom
education under the Conquest was an offence against
the law, where a price was put upon the head of a
schoolmaster who was hunted as eagerly as a wolf and
the priest. Still, in the depths of the Long Kesh and
Armagh prisons the hunger for learning persisted, and
overcame the most dehumanizing brutalization of the
British occupiers and the Loyalist screw. In their
solitary cells, deep in these militarized fortresses,
young Irish men and women, garbed only in a blanket,
deprived of clothes and later even of washing and
toilet facilities, strove to snatch illegally the
education and language denied them by the British
occupier.

Bobby Sands who himself learned Irish in his first
term in Long Kesh, indefatigably taught his mates
their national language in prison hellholes without
the benefit of any writing material or tapes. It was
not only a means of communication impenetrable by
prison screws but to reclaim a stolen heritage. This
too was a source of great spiritual strength. Says
Gerry Adams, a leader of the H-Block campaign in
1980-81, cell-mate and friend: "the Irish language was
one of the few aspects of prison life that helped the
prisoners lift their spirits above the horror that was
all around them and helped them resist the brutal
oppression that was being inflicted upon them."

It is widely acknowledged that the transformation of
the jails into Gaeltachts (Ghaeilge-speaking areas)
greatly raised the profile of and created new space
for the Irish language and its revival, as had the
stands of James Connolly and other leaders of the
Easter Rising in 1916 for the An Ghaeilge. Scores of
youth joined Irish language classes as a measure of
solidarity. Said one: "Maybe your best friend went to
jail and came out as an Irish speaker and that would
influence you, you know what I mean?"

Political prisoner Bobby Sands was elected to the
British House of Commons by the Irish people in the
Fermanagh-South Tyrone by-election on 10 April 1981
with 30,492 votes.

He died in Long Kesh prison on 5 May 1981 at the age
of 27 on the 66th day of his historic Hunger Strike.
One hundred thousand attended his funeral.

On 11 June the Irish people elected two of the nine
political prisoners who stood for the Irish Dail
(parliament): Paddy Agnew and Kieran Doherty. Though
MPs of a foreign state, the British allowed both to
die.

Twenty five years later it is the name, memory and
noble ideals of the 1916 and 1981 heroes who are
commemorated the world over.

Wrote Bobby Sands: "We the risen people, shall turn
tragedy into triumph. We shall bear forth a nation!"

(Mac-Talla, annual Gaelic supplement of Shunpiking
magazine, May 2006)








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