Tag Archives: Eamon De Valera

U.S.-Irish relations at St. Patrick’s Day: 1916-2016 (P2)

This blog series focuses on U.S.- Irish relations at St. Patrick’s Day over the past 100 years. Since this is the centennial of the Easter Rising, I’m looking at 1916 and each 25 years afterward: 1941, 1966 and 1991. I’m also writing a post on St. Patrick’s Day 1976, the year of the American bicentennial.

Part 2: The Rising’s 25th anniversary & Ireland’s neutrality

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not recognize St. Patrick’s Day 1941 with any Irish guests or events, according to his official calendar. But with the war in Europe now in its second year, Ireland was certainly on the president’s mind nine months before the Pearl Harbor attack.

Roosevelt knew the U.S. would enter the conflict sooner or later. On March 15, 1941, he told the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association:

Upon the national will to sacrifice and to work depends the output of our industry and our agriculture. Upon that will depends the survival of the vital bridge across the ocean—the bridge of ships that carry the arms and the food for those who are fighting the good fight. Upon that will depends our ability to aid other Nations which may determine to offer resistance. Upon that will may depend practical assistance to people now living in Nations that have been overrun, should they find the opportunity to strike back in an effort to regain their liberties and may that day come soon! This will of the American people will not be frustrated, either by threats from powerful enemies abroad or by small, selfish groups or individuals at home.

Perhaps of note to Irish and Irish-Americans who heard the speech or read accounts of it, Roosevelt said:

The world has no use for any Nation which, because of size or because of military might, asserts the right to goosestep to world power over the bodies of other Nations or other races. We believe that any nationality, no matter how small, has the inherent right to its own nationhood. (My emphasis.)

At the time, Roosevelt, U.S. Ambassador to Ireland (since April 1940) David Gray and other American officials were frustrated with Ireland’s position of neutrality in the war. The U.S. and Britain wanted access to Irish ports and airfields. On St. Patrick’s Day 1941 (two days after Roosevelt’s speech) Irish leader Eamon de Valera addressed the Irish people and America in a radio broadcast.

“A small country like ours that had for centuries resisted imperial absorption, and that still wished to preserve its separate national identity, was bound to choose the course of neutrality in this war,” he said.  “It has taken an effort of centuries to win back the independence we have got. We are determined that it shall not be lost again.”

On March 18, Gray wrote to Roosevelt from Dublin. He opened by saying “we are very full of your speech made the other night at the White House Correspondents dinner.” Then he complained about de Valera:

“He cannot get out of this self-centered dream world and realize that the lrish will be goose-stepping if Britain goes down. …  This running a government on hatred of another country is a  very dangerous thing and is bound to land him on the scrap heap eventually.”

The struggle over Irish neutrality would continue through the war years. All of Roosevelt’s Irish-related correspondence for 1941 and other years is available online.

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Roosevelt shortly after re-election to his third term in 1940.

In New York City, County Roscommon native Father Edward Flanagan supported Ireland’s neutral stance in a St. Patrick’s Day homily commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Easter Rising. In Washington, D.C., Irish-Americans gave “serious thoughts to the present situation of their ancestors’ homeland,” The Washington Post reported. Rev. Dr. Tracy John Ellis compared the barbarism of St. Patrick’s fifth century Europe to the “barbarism on the loose” in 1941 Europe.

Very Rev. Ignatius Smith of Catholic University told several hundred men gathered at the Mayflower Hotel for the annual Society of Friendly Sons of St. Patrick banquet that “subjugated nations can learn from Ireland that they are never really conquered as long as they are determined to be free.” The Post‘s reporting is silent as to whether he mentioned the Rising anniversary or offered an opinion about Irish neutrality.

The growing militarism of the day was visible elsewhere in Washington as the Irish War Veterans Post 17 conducted a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, and also laid a wreath at the statue of Commodore John Barry (a Wexford man) in Franklin Park.

Alan Rickman, portrayed Dev, dies at 69

Alan Rickman, the British actor who 20 years ago portrayed Éamon de Valera, died 14 January at age 69.

The Irish Times said Rickman’s “delicious, purse-mouthed take” on the American-born Irish leader in Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins (top) “could hardly have been less flattering if the old fixer (bottom) had horns sprouting from his temples.”

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Forecasting the fate of Fianna Fáil in 2016

Less than a year remains until the next national election in Ireland, which must be called by 3 April 2016. It will be the first general election since 2011, when angry voters ousted the governing Fianna Fáil party from power following the bust of the Irish economy.

Lately, there’s been a wavelet of political analysis in Ireland and the U.S. about Fianna Fáil’s prospects for next spring. But before speculating about the future, a little about the past. Fianna Fáil was founded by Éamon de Valera in the split from Sinn Féin following Ireland’s bitter civil war. Fianna Fáil were the anti-Treaty crowd. The pro-Treaty side, represented by Michael Collins, evolved into Fine Gael, Ireland’s second largest party.

A recent opinion piece in the Irish Independent further explained:

Fianna Fáil was founded in 1926 and has been in government 61 of the 79 years since, 13 times as a minority government or in coalition. Throughout that period Ireland has moved from a poor and rural, deeply conservative Roman Catholic country to become urbanised, industrialised, hi-tech, one of the leading economies in Europe, and on the verge of voting for same-sex marriage. (We’ll see about that come 22 May.)

The Independent suggests Fianna Fáil get credit for what’s gone right as well as what’s gone wrong. It says some of the anger directed at the party is softening, “which should come as no surprise as the economy lifts and people return to their daily affairs with something more of a spring in their step and the promise of a few quid in their pocket. The great irony is that as the economy lifts under the stewardship of Fine Gael and Labour, on a plan drawn up by Fianna Fáil, so too will the fortunes of Fianna Fáil rise, just as the cause and effect of austerity has damned them all too.”

At Irish Central, John Spain takes the opposite view, writing “at the moment the party appears to be going nowhere, condemned to the political wilderness by a population still very angry at what Fianna Fáil did to the economy and the country. In spite of faint hopes of a revival due to widespread unhappiness at some of the things the government has been doing, the outlook for Fianna Fáil remains grim.”

Here’s more coverage:

  • At the Slugger O’Toole portal, founding editor Mike Fealty offers this analysis of Fianna Fáil.
  • Hugh Linehan at The Irish Times, joined by other political pundits, did a recent podcast on the party’s fate.
  • And below, a Late Late Show interview with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin:

Remarks of former taoiseach stir debate over Home Rule, revolution

UPDATE:

Some thoughtful pieces have been added to the debate: Ronan Fanning writes on why it is unwise to commemorate the September 1914 Home Rule Bill. Stephen Collins says that Bruton’s proposal deserves serious consideration. Both are good reads.

ORIGINAL POST:

Former taoiseach John Bruton has stirred up debate in Ireland by insisting that it’s better to note the centenary of Home Rule, this September, than the 1916 Easter Rising and subsequent War of Independence.

Such armed revolutions would have been “completely unnecessary,” Burton says, if Ireland had stuck to the parliamentary path. In public comments and a post on his website, Bruton argues:

Ireland could have achieved better results, for all the people of the island, if it had continued to follow the successful non violent parliamentary Home Rule path, and had not embarked on the path of physical violence, initiated by the IRB and the Irish Citizen Army in Easter Week of 1916.

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Others disagree, among them (no surprise here) Gerry Adams. He was quoted in The Irish Times as saying:

For the record, the 1916 Rising was a seminal event in Irish history, a decisive blow in the struggle for Irish freedom. It is incredible that a former taoiseach – a position that would never have existed but for the Easter Rising and the [Black and] Tan War – would denigrate the sacrifice of the participants and their families in this way.”

And here’s a more detailed op-ed by Éamon Ó Cuív, a grandson of Irish-American republican leader Éamon de Valera.

Fianna Fail to debate “church gate” collections

There’s been a lot of reporting about Ireland becoming a more secular country in general and Catholics “fleeing the church“ in particular.

But if fewer people are attending Mass and other religious services, Fianna Fail apparently hasn’t got the message. The republican party founded by Eamon De Valera and other opponents of the 1921 Free State Treaty continues to collect money outside of churches.

The Irish Independent reports:

The lucrative money-spinner outside mostly Catholic chapels across the country netted close to a quarter of a million euro for the party coffers last year alone. The cash has made a huge contribution towards halving Fianna Fail’s bank debts since being ejected from government [in 2011].

Now some party members want to stop so-called church gate collections.

“It’s about time political parties gave up church collections,” the Independent quoted Galway County Councillor Malachy Noone. “It is not the place to do it. It is not in the best of taste.”

Supporters of the practice said it doesn’t align the party solely with the Catholic church. “We are not fussy what church we collect outside, we will collect outside any church,” another party official told the newspaper.

Party leaders are set to debate the issue at a weekend conference in Dublin, just as they also prepare to begin their annual three-month church gate collection across the country.

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1998 FF ”church gate” ad from Irish Election Literature blog