fired with the hope of political and social eman- cipation. Abroad he sought alliance with the French Republic -- the incarnation of the politic- al, social, and religious unrest and revolution of the age, and in Great Britain he formed alliance with the 'Sassenach' reformers who were conspiring to overthrow the English monarchy. ... Even some of the more sympathetic of his panegyr- ists do not seem to realise that they dim his glory when they represent him as the victim of a protest against an injustice local to Ireland in- stead of as an Irish apostle of a world-wide movement for liberty, equality and fraternity. Yet this latter was indeed the character and position of Emmet, and as such the democracy of the future will revere him. ... He believed in the brotherhood of the oppressed and in the community of free nations, and died for his ideal. (Nov 1910) [On William Thompson:] Fervent Celtic enthus- iasts are fond of claiming, and the researches of our days seem to bear out the claim, that Irish missionaries were the first to rekindle the lamp of learning in Europe, and dispel the intellectual darkness following the downfall of the Roman Empire; may we not also take pride in the fact that an Irishman also was the first to pierce the worse than Egyptian darkness of capitalist barbarism and point out to the toilers the conditions of their enslave- ment, and the essential pre-requisites of their emancipation? (Nov 1913) Eventually the Government seized upon the really dangerous man -- the man who had hatred of injustice deeply enough rooted to wish to destroy it at all costs, the man who had faith enough in the masses to trust a revolutionary outbreak to their native impulses, and who possessed the faculty of combining thought with action, John Mitchel. With his arrest 22
the people looked for immediate revolution, so did the Government, so did Mitchel himself. All were disappointed. John Mitchel was carried off to penal servitude. ... The working class of Dublin and most of the towns were clamouring for their leaders to give the words for a rising; in many places in the country the peasants were acting spontaneously. ... The Young Ireland chiefs who had so fervently declaimed about the revolution were utterly incap- able of accepting it when at last it presented itself to them. (Nov 1910) So wrote Mitchel when, burning with a holy hatred of tyranny, he poured the vitriol of his scorn upon all the pedants who strutted around him, pedants who were as scrupulous in polishing a phrase for a lecture as a sword for a parade -- and incapable of advancing beyond either. (Nov 1910) Fintan Lalor, like all the really dangerous revolutionists in Ireland, advocated his principles as part of the creed of the democracy of the world, and not merely as applicable only to the incidents of the struggle in Ireland against England. (Nov 1910) Just as '98 was an Irish expression of the tend- encies embodied in the First French Revolution, as '48 throbbed in sympathy with the democratic and social upheavals on the Continent of Europe and England, so Fenianism was a responsive throb in the Irish heart to those pulsations in the heart of the European working class which elsewhere produced the International Working Men's Association. (Nov 1910) The movements of Ireland for freedom could not and cannot be divorced from the world-wide upward movements of the world's democracy. (July 12 1913) 23
The socialist does not cease to love his coun- try when he tries to make that country the common property of its people; he rather shows a greater love of country than is shown by those who wish to perpetuate a system which makes the great maj- ority of the people of a country exiles and out- casts, living by sufferance of capitalists and landlords in their native land. (Aug 1910) To me, therefore, the socialist of another country is a fellow-patriot, as the capitalist of my own country is a natural enemy. I regard each nation as the possessor of a definite contribution to the common stock of civilisation, and I regard the capitalist class of each nation as being the logical and natural enemy of the national culture which constitutes that definite contribution. Therefore, the stronger I am in my affection for national tradition, literature, language, and sympathies, the more firmly rooted I am in my opposition to that capitalist class which in its soulless lust for power and gold would bray the nations as in a mortar. (Aug 15 1914) Is it not well and fitting that we of the work- ing class should fight for the freedom of the nation from foreign rule, as the first requisite for the free development of the national powers needed for our class? It is so fitting. There- fore on Sunday, April 16th 1916, the green flag of Ireland will be solemnly hoisted over Liberty Hall as the symbol of our faith in freedom, and as a token to all the world that the working class of Dublin stands for the cause of Ireland, and the cause of Ireland is the cause of a separate and distinct nationality. (April 8 1916) 27
IRELAND A NATION Kim Jong Il: Defending Chajusong is an absolute requirement of man as a social being and his inalienable fund- amental right. It is natural that man who regards Chajusong as his life and soul, combats any en- croachment on his Chajusong. (OJI 23) James Connolly: This Ireland of ours is a nation distinct and apart from all others, and capable of working out its own destiny and living its own life. (Oct 31 1914) The small conquered nations of Europe have in a thousand ways fought to propagate the idea of nationality, to emphasise the value of small nations and their special contributions to civili- sation. (Sept 26 1914) In this hour of her trial Ireland cannot afford to sacrifice any one of the things the world has accepted as peculiarly Irish. She must hold to her highest thoughts, and cleave to her noblest sentiments. Her sons and daughters must hold life itself as of little value when weighed against the preservation of even the least important work of her separate individuality as a nation. Therefore we honour St.Patrick's Day (and its allied legend of the shamrock) because in it we see the spiritual conception of the separate identity of the Irish race -- an ideal of unity in diversity, of diversity not conflicting with unity. (March 18 1916) 28
The Irish Citizen Army in its constitution pledges its members to fight for a Republican Freedom for Ireland. Its members are, therefore, of the number who believe that at the call of duty they may have to lay down their lives for Ireland, and have so trained themselves that at the worst the laying down of their lives shall constitute the starting point of another glorious tradition -- a tradition that will keep alive the soul of the nation. We are, therefore, present to honour O'Donovan Rossa by right of our faith in the separate destiny of our country, and our faith in the ability of the Irish workers to achieve that destiny. (July 1915) However it may be for others, for us of the Citizen Army there is but one ideal -- an Ireland ruled, and owned, by Irish men and women, sovereign and independent from the centre to the sea, and flying its own flag outward over all the oceans. (Oct 30 1915) We can only hope to carry our flag to victory by securing the aid of all those workers every- where who desire to see an effective force carrying the green flag of an Irish regiment whilst uncon- ditionally under the red flag of the proletarian army. (July 4 1914) The Irish Volunteers of our time have that great quality the want of which betrayed their predecessors. That quality is: complete faith in their own country, complete confidence in her destiny to be a nation, and complete reliance upon the power of Ireland to survive all the shocks an adverse fate may bring upon her. (Jan 8 1916) We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire, and to estab- 29
Only such a party that strikes its roots deep among the masses and enjoys their support and trust and that knows how to organise and mobilise them, can demonstrate an invincible might and discharge its mission as the General Staff of the revolution and the political leader of the popular masses. (WPK 26) James Connolly: The forces of our enemies were united and wielded with all the precision and relentlessness with which the general staff of an army would wield the battalions and brigades which formed the component parts of that army, but the battal- ions and brigades of the army of labour when en- gaged in battle had no efficient general staff to guide and direct the whole army to the salvation of its individual units; and, worse still, had none of that esprit-de-corps which on the military battlefield would make the desertion of any sec- tion to its fate an unthinkable course to the officers of the divisions not engaged. (Feb 9 1914) FACTIONALISM AND FLUNKEYISM Kim Jong Il: What is important for a working-class party in establishing Juche is to eradicate flunkeyism and dogmatism. (WPK 19) The nationalists and self-styled Marxists followed the evil practices of flunkeyism and factional strife which had resulted in the coun- try's ruin in the past. They did not try to carry out the revolution by their own initiative 31