The Burden of Dublin

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 35, 7 September 1922, Page 31

The Burden of Dublin

(By H. W. Nevinson, in the Nation and the • Athenaeum.)

'7 ■>> , ■//:'--/V; . v ; Dublin. : I clambered in the rain among the ruins of the Four Courts, which for so many years I had known as one of the few beautiful classic buildings in these northern islands. Thick columns of smoke rose upon the wind, bearing halfconsumed -fragments of legal and historical documents far over the city. In three places the flames still roared among the ceilings and beams. The great dome of green copper had melted away. The columns of the drum that supported it Mere split and shattered by the heat. The pavement below it, where the statues of legal orators lately stood, was strewn with fallen fragments. Now and again another arch or wall came crashing down. At the south-east corner gaped the breach battered by. four guns with 181 b shell. The ruin is irretrievable. The original drawings for the plans are said to : exist. and if all the old stones were cleared away,, a new building on the same lines might rise, when the Free State gets a million or two pounds to spare. But the-“ Four Courts” of Irish tradition can never be seen again. • ..Old experience in rebellions has accustomed me to the discomforts of street fighting, and here I find them allrenewed. You never know where the casual firing may come from, or what it is aimed at. At any place you may be exposed, front, flanks, and rear at once. Going. round a corner of Merrion Square, I found three nr four “Irregulars” lounging in the doorway of a big house they had lately seized, and playing with their rifles while they waited for.someone to shoot. .Here and there one runs unexpectedly upon a. house with window's and doors barricaded and sandbagged, rifles sticking out of the loopholes like almonds from a tipsv cake. Here and there one catches a, glimpse of someone lurking behind" a chimney-stack, ready to take a pot - shot at anyone he regards as suitable game. Fired from a. height upon granite pavements, the bullets are battered, and on the, ricochet inflict horrible minds. To return a. borrowed cycle, I ran up the steps to the United Service. Club on Stephen’s Green, and, finding the door locked, peered through the glass. ,-Then 1 perceived the muzzle of a large revolver separated from my muzzle only, by the thickness of the glass, and behind the revolver the white and haggard . lace of a. poor hoy, worn, with nerves and sleeplessness, his tired and hungry eyes expressing anything but welcome. I smiled and waved adieu with lily hand. He did not .smile, ■ nor even "wave the revolver. At the corner of Stephen’s Green and Harcourt Street, just-before midnight last Saturday, a motor lorry rushed past me, and instantly, from the next house but one to the corner on the side of the Green, a large bomb Mas thrown at it. It burst with horrible noise. Violent rifle fire - followed. Bullets and fragments went wdiistling in every direction, as among a storming party in the trenches, J .. think the National soldiers in the lorry escaped unharmed, but if there, had been other civilians beside mvself upon the pavement, some would probably have been killed. In any case, the chief casualties are among civilians, even though they are not directly attacked. I , have heard the situation described as one of great military difficulty tor the National army. But the military difficulty i s not great. If the Government did not mind loss of 'life and ruin of houses, they could clear but the isolated strongholds easily enough, as I saw the end house by the canal 31 ? Harcourt Terrace cleared .outwith machine-guns and rifles so well cleared that all the children and women in the neighborhood helped joyfully in clearing the furniture, bedding, and; other obstructions as well. But the Government—quite rightly in the political and social sense do mind the loss of life and the ruin of houses, and so the advance has hitherto been slow, w Take the case of Rathfarnham, for instance, a village about four miles south of the city, at the foot of the Dublin hills. Poor Pearse’s, model Irish school of St Itdna Avas close there,; and probably the village. i s “Republican ’ by inclination. Anyhow, the “Republicans” occupy it at the time of writing. Thev have commandeered all the provisions and shops. They are said to have seized the great Jesuit College, and to have conscribed the voting men. They have barricaded the approaches with 'carts and any harmless passer-by like mvself is detained to fill sandbags—n monotonous occupation. With four guns and a battalion of only partially trained men, the National arm .V could 6Di3sh find storm the whole dlbcb any sftp.r* noon. -But what Irishman wants to reduce' a beautiful Irish village to the state of Bailleul. or to kill a. lot of Irishmen who were comrades in. suffering and resistance under the hereditary enemy?” xi What is- it that has brought this fresh burden upon tins beautiful city and a country already so over-burdened 9 I think it -is “custom partly,” as the j Cumberland- miller said when asked why his mill was going on Sunday. For centuries past, but especially for the last six years the people have been so accustomed to fighting, bloodshed, and murder, that thev find it hard ..to imagine life without them. Lhe very children have grown up in an atmosphere of violence; and blood. Mrs, Green, the historian,' tells me she saw children playing an exciting game: - placing a board _on wheels to represent a - motor ■ lorry, thev - made one of their number mount the board: another drove it • along, . till, .on approaching a corner, he said with due < solemnity, “Your hour ; has come! and turned round- the corner into the very arms of another child, who proceededv with the playful assassination iii due form What have '

such people, bred on such tradition, to do with . peace? Not all, but most of the “Republicans” . are youngyoung men and maidens, the average age being under 20. They have never known such advantages as domestic comfort and solid regularity of work may .promote. As for most of us—certainly for most Irish industrious routine and useful / drudgery have no charms - for them. Take a girl (and I know a good many like her) who has spent the last few years dashing about the country y carrying messages, smuggling provisions to men hiding in "the ’hills,, organising secret patrols, / supplying information to tjfe officers, conscious of service to the divine abstraction of her country, feeling that figure almost visibly "at hand to hearten or console, and longing only to add . her name to the roll of Ireland’s martyrs. Of that spirit in the young, and in many of the old as well, we English must take account, as the Free Staters take account. Right at the hack of it all lies the ancient and deep-rooted hatred of our countrythe hatred and distrust. That is; w'hat made Mr. Churchill’s speech in. the House of Commons on June 26 so fatal a blunder. It was at once panned* at by the “Republicans,” and interpreted as an ultimatum or even a direct - command to the Free State Government to attack the Four 1 Courts and put down the rebellion bv violence. No amount of evidence or assertion that the plans of attack were completely ready before the speech was made has the smallest effect. In all the yellow or pink Manifestoes (the “Stop Press” leaflets issued by the “Republicans”) the charge is repeated. Let me take just the opening paragraphs of only two that may not be familiar in England. One Manifesto, pasted on nearly all the lamp-posts and walls of the city, begins; “i be fateful hour has come. At the dictation of our hereditary enemy our rightful cause is being treacherously assailed by recreant Irishmen.” That was signed by Rory O’Connor. Liam /'Mellowes and many other “Republican” officers then in the Four Courts. A Manifesto signed by de Valera began: i At the bidding of the English, the Agreement has been broken, and at the bidding of the English Irishmen are to-day shooting down on the streets of our capital other Irishmen—old comrades in arms, companions in the recent struggle for Ireland’s independence and its embodiment— the Republic.” • • All the “Republican” Manifestoes that I have seen insist upon the charge, no matter how false or how easily disproved. The suspicion that the Free State Government has England s support or is acting on England’s dictation 18 a disadvantage far more disastrous than any military difficulty. It is not for nothing that through all these centuries we have been regarded as Ireland’s only enemy. Lather than have the conciliation with England as represented by the Treaty and the Constitution, the Republicans would welcome back the British troops to Ireland* they would welcome back the “Black-and-Tans,” the Auxiliaries and the rest of the abominations that the English people now repudiate with shame and rejoice to see abolished, as we hope, for ever. To the doctrinaire Republican any conciliation implies the abandonment of the ancient ideal, and for no peace or prosperity will he sacrifice that. Besides, _in Ireland the sympathy AA r e all feel with the under dog is unusually strong. For the under dog has nearly always been her own people. The party that is attacked is likely to be the popular party.. It is a country well accustomed to failure, and inclined to honor it as patriotic martyrdom “Breves et infa-ustos pomdi Romani amo/p.s. It was said of /Rome, but it is true of Ireland. And that was why, directly • the attack began, even apart from the rage aroused by Mr. Churchill’s misbegotten speech, the popular feeling tended to swing round to the rebels —always a ;magic word in Irish ears. That I sxippose was why .even the shrewd and reasonable leaders of the Labor Party, which is certainly Pro-Treaty in the main and has won such strength in' the elections, condemned the attack, urging that the Government had no mandate to proceed to extremities without the consent of the elected Bail. Well, one can imagine that debate, but could one fix any month this - year as a limit to it? I have not been out into the country, but good authorities who have lately come into the city tell me the general feeling there is strong for peace and the Treaty, Ihe ‘Republicans”' have done their cause much -harm bv stopping all business, by making ordinary life impossible, and especially by ruthless pillaging of provisions and banks! lo speak in generalities of a nation’s character -is a silly and commonplace habit, but I , can hardly agree with Bernard Shaw when, judging his own people by himself, he describes them as strictly and peculiarly, practical. Yet the daily risk of violent death, poverty, and starvation does act in a practical manner upon most of the human race, and one cannot doubt that throughout' Ireland there is now a deep longing for “peace and the ordinary course of Irish, lifer-or- perhaps a quieter, course than the ;i ordinary has been. I can imagine those who have, read children’s hooks . saying to Mr. Erskine Childers and the other doctrinaires, no matter of what nationality: “Remember little Johnnie Head-in-Air. who walked with eyes fixed •on the unvisited stars, fell into the river, and had to be dragged out, while all, the fishes laughed.” “Our : chosen governors are learning responsibility, and it’s a difficult: lesson ’’ said one of the wisest men in Ireland ’or elsewhere. And’l suppose it is with the same: feeling that Mrs. Green in the splendor of a long life, spent: in the service of her -country ; goes round- the . Dublin streets with a paste-pot sticking tip Manifestoes for the Free State myopes ?oufftS,t ™ . the. unceasing : propaganda of turmoil. ’ counteracting