The Insurrection in Dublin | Page 2

understand what is wrong
with us, and why through centuries we have been "disthressful." Let
them look at us, I do not say through the fumes that are still rising from
our ruined streets, but through the smoke that is rolling from the North
Sea to Switzerland, and read in their own souls the justification for all
our risings, and for this rising.
Is it wrong to say that England has not one friend in Europe? I say it.
Her Allies of to-day were her enemies of yesterday, and politics alone
will decide what they will be to-morrow. I say it, and yet I am not
entirely right, for she has one possible friend unless she should decide
that even one friend is excessive and irks her. That one possible friend
is Ireland. I say, and with assurance, that if our national questions are
arranged there will remain no reason for enmity between the two
countries, and there will remain many reasons for friendship.
It may be objected that the friendship of a country such as Ireland has
little value; that she is too small geographically, and too thinly
populated to give aid to any one. Only sixty odd years ago our
population was close on ten millions of people, nor are we yet sterile;
in area Ireland is not collossal, but neither is she microscopic. Mr.
Shaw has spoken of her as a "cabbage patch at the back of beyond." On
this kind of description Rome might be called a hen-run and Greece a
back yard. The sober fact is that Ireland has a larger geographical area
than many an independent and prosperous European kingdom, and for
all human and social needs she is a fairly big country, and is beautiful
and fertile to boot. She could be made worth knowing if goodwill and
trust are available for the task.
I believe that what is known as the "mastery of the seas" will, when the
great war is finished, pass irretrievably from the hands or the ambition
of any nation, and that more urgently than ever in her history England
will have need of a friend. It is true that we might be her enemy and

might do her some small harm--it is truer that we could be her friend,
and could be of very real assistance to her.
Should the English Statesman decide that our friendship is worth
having let him create a little of the political imagination already spoken
of. Let him equip us (it is England's debt to Ireland) for freedom, not in
the manner of a miser who arranges for the chilly livelihood of a needy
female relative; but the way a wealthy father would undertake the
settlement of his son. I fear I am assisting my reader to laugh too much,
but laughter is the sole excess that is wholesome.
If freedom is to come to Ireland--as I believe it is--then the Easter
Insurrection was the only thing that could have happened. I speak as an
Irishman, and am momentarily leaving out of account every other
consideration. If, after all her striving, freedom had come to her as a
gift, as a peaceful present such as is sometimes given away with a
pound of tea, Ireland would have accepted the gift with shamefacedness,
and have felt that her centuries of revolt had ended in something very
like ridicule. The blood of brave men had to sanctify such a
consummation if the national imagination was to be stirred to the
dreadful business which is the organizing of freedom, and both
imagination and brains have been stagnant in Ireland this many a year.
Following on such tameness, failure might have been predicted, or, at
least feared, and war (let us call it war for the sake of our pride) was
due to Ireland before she could enter gallantly on her inheritance. We
might have crept into liberty like some kind of domesticated man,
whereas now we may be allowed to march into freedom with the
honours of war. I am still appealing to the political imagination, for if
England allows Ireland to formally make peace with her that peace will
be lasting, everlasting; but if the liberty you give us is all half-measures,
and distrusts and stinginesses, then what is scarcely worth accepting
will hardly be worth thanking you for.
There is a reference in the earlier pages of this record to a letter which I
addressed to Mr. George Bernard Shaw and published in the New Age.
This was a thoughtless letter, and subsequent events have proved that it
was unmeaning and ridiculous. I have since, through the same

hospitable journal, apologised to Mr. Shaw, but have let my reference
to the matter stand as an indication that electricity was already in the air.
Every statement I