Connelly

Connelly betrayed the working class the moment he put his name to that disgusting Proclamation, his treachery was complete when he lead them to a blood sacrifice that would in turn justify more blood sacrifices and would forever contaminate socialism with the posion of nationalism.

fuck Connelly up his one legged papist arse!

Actually this pretty much accepts the republican 'blood sacrifice' interpretation produced after the rising. Undeniably on the day of the rising and the night before it was becoming clear that it could not succeed but this was not the case a week before hand. Until the last moment you could honestly have believed in success. And at that last moment the leadership arguably took a similar approach to that my (great *6) uncle in law did in 1803 - the die was cast, repression was inevitable and it was better to make a show in the streets then to die in prison.

This is from something I'm working on at the moment.

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In later generations it would be largely accepted that the rising was a 'blood sacrifice'. That is that the leadership knew all along that it was doomed to failure but that they had organised it to either in Connollys case to make a statement against the imperialist war or in the nationalists case to keep "faith with the past, and hand[ed] a tradition to the future". But as (revisionist and quite anti-republican historian) John A Murphy wrote "it should be remembered that up to the stage of the final confusion, the Military Council believed the rebellion had a real chance of success".[ ]

The First World War meant that the British army in Ireland "stood well below full strength" [ ]. If all the 20,000 Irish Volunteers had been mobilised they would have outnumbered the army around five to one. It was only at the last minute that MacNeill, the Volunteer leader, realised the depth by which he had been tricked by the IRB and had orders printed in the newspapers cancelling the mobilisation order. (This meant less than 1700 turned out). German support which did see diversionary Zapplin raid on London and a naval bombardment of Lowestoft port [ ] would have also supplied a huge qunatitity of arms had not they been intercepted at the last minute off the Irish coast. (News of the interception getting to him was what led MacNeill to cancel the mobilisation).

The military preparations of the rebels were quite well made, they had studied street fighting and had seized and fortified well chosen positions from which they ambushed the British army. Rather than using the streets to move around they tunneled through walls of adjoining buildings and barricaded the doors and windows of their strongpoints. The units of the British Army deployed against them seemed to have had little or no training for urban warfare allowing, for instance, a tiny rebel force of around 17 rebels at the canal at Mount Street caught the Sherwood Foresters in a cross-fire and inflict over 240 casualties. Despite the vastly better equipment of the British army including armoured cars and artillery, their better medical facilities and the fact they outnumbered the rebels 3 to 1 rebel deaths were only 40% of those of the British army and police.

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So if it was 20,000 well armed rebels facing 4,000 British army soldiers (most of whom were also Irish) the immediate outcome would have been different. Whether it would have been 'better' in terms of the interests of the Irish working class is a lot more complex and quite what it might have meant in the Euopean context is hard to work out.

Also of course Connolly was not the major killer of the Irish working class in 1916 - the casualties of the rising were dwarfed by the slaughter in the trenches that summer. The first day of the Somme alone saw the Ulster division take 3 times the casualties that the entire population of Dublin suffered in Easter week. Given that the ITGWU (Connollys union) reckoned half of its 1913 membership were in the British army by 1915 he would have played a very minor part even in terms of the most advanced sections of the class ('the cream'). Remember only around 170 of the combattants were even ICA members - the rest were members of the purely nationalist volunteers. (I think there were only around 17 ICA deaths -which is not really comparable with the 50,000 Irishmen killed in the war)

The fake emotionalism of Jack's version (which in itself is just echoing that of another poster) actually stands in the way of evaluating the real problems of the insurrection and the way Connolly involved the left in it. And the real question is not the chances of the miltary success or failure of the rising but of the politics that surrounded the years before and after that event.

He is meant to have said this to William O'Brien as they marched off but as with a lot of supposed Connolly quotations in that period its wise to take it with a pinch of salt. O'Brien produced it as the then leader of the ITGWU in the period when he was leading the union into simple support for the nationalist struggle - there would have been a certain self-interest in portraying Connolly as simply partaking in the general spirit of blood sacrifice.

On balance I think you can assume that the situation was quite clear that morning because at least in the city centre he'd have seen that the turn out was tiny. But I'm cynical about that supposed exchange in particular as until mid week Connolly seems to have been less than honest with those he commanded as to the real situation.

On this Nick how much more benefitial to the proletariat was this blow against imperialism that was the Easter Rising?

Armed largely by the German empire and relying on German aid, most of which never made it, this really cannot be presented as a blow against imperialism any more than it can be presented as a blow for the imperialism of the other of the First World Wars imperialist protagonists. Sections of the labour movement were involved in a cross class alliance that identified the 'British' presence as the root of all of 'Ireland's' problems and agreeing with Fenian doctrine saw Englands difficulty as Ireland's opportunity. As a result no coherant let alone radical working class social policy could be formulated and labour was very much sacrificed at a nationalist alter. Its a sacrifice that we've been ham-strung by ever since.

Joeblack makes some pretty fair points here - except of course conscription was not actually introduced in Ireland at all - put on the statute books and delayed and delayed until the war ended is what actually happened. Joes short assessment of motives for enlistment are okay as far as they go but he really should examine the fact that more workers in secure jobs joined up than unemployed during the war - this bucked Irelands pre-war enlistment trends that were dominated by the unemployed. The evidence on this also seems to contradict his notion of poverty being the factor other than patriotism that played a role in recruitment.

Ideas such as defending 'Empire' and the 'Rights of Small Nations' played their part, as did a desire for 'adventure' fed by inceased militarism and a sort of machoism that had become popular not only in Ireland but across Europe. The divide in recruits was not so much Protestant /Catholic as rural urban in Ireland (although this is by necessity of brevity a simplification). Nicks 'chavinist backlash' complete with 'working class militants being sent to the front' simply does not equate with the situation on the ground in Ireland - the chavinist bit is naive in its oversimplicity and the 'being sent to' bit is, as Joeblack states, simply untrue in Irelands case.

Not sure about arguing what ifs but indulging it - In the post war period in Ireland, which also saw agitation in the north-east that was more in keeping with 'British' working class agitation in relation to the lack of any 'land fit for heroes' than it was with working class agitation associated with the advanced nationalist 'revolution' in the south (for pretty obviuous reasons), there may well have been greater opportunity for unity on a class basis had the southern labour movement not been associated with the Rising and subsequently went on to support Sinn Fein. Had Connolly simply decided post the Dublin Lock-Out "fuck, Ireland's fucked" and went back to the states for a bit then yeah, perhaps things MAY have turned out a bit differently. But he didn't though, and there were many more labour activists in the south who were of a decidedly nationalist bent to make that association at the time or later. I'm not sure at all, for instance, that Irish Labour standing aside in the 1918 general election to allow Sinn Fein a clear run would not have happened whether Connolly was involved in the Rising or not.

Revisionist arguments that claim many in the Irish Volunteers believed they could carry out a successful Rising don't hold water imo, particualrly not after after MacNeill's countermand. In that context its pretty likely that the comment to O'Brien was accurate don't you think? Its also the case that the blood sacrifice myth had at least its foundations laid by Pearse and Connolly before the Rising. There is also the fact (perhaps overlooked by the rebels) that due to the war there were many many more troops than usual garrisoned the short distance across the sea in England - a great many of whom were actually mobilised. Some were reportedly shocked to find the inhabitants of the town they landed in speaking English, albeit with funny accents, apparently quite a few of them thought they had been sailing to France.

Some, even a majority of the leadership, may initially have believed they could have succeeded but there is significance for the blood sacrifice in the date chosen and in the writing prior to the the Rising of Pearse and Connolly - who knows what way the construction of the mythology may have went had they actually defeated the British but it would have been questionable as mythology nonetheless. Only the question would then have been how many of the leadership actually believed they were gonna succeed?

Then again, the incorporation of more radical land agitation and particularly in this case labour elements, in an 'advanced nationalist' rising that was to leave both high and dry after the 'revolution' is a much more pertinent question. As is success in the south and west of Ireland of the creation of a political legacy and inheritance to the Rising itself.

Hope that makes sense.

Cheers;

ps on Nicks original point, not sure whether Connolly was bluffing the Catholics in a bid to make the ITGWU or his various leftwing parties more attractive to them, or whether in Glasgow he was bluffing the Athiests in a bid to fit in but he did make a thing of his attendance at mass at least while he was living in wee Belfast. (Which funny enough doesn't seem to be a way to endear yoursel' to workers as workers in a city divided on a sectarian basis now does it?).

Excellent point cantdo, well it would be if conscription had been introduced in Ireland and it actually had been a military mutiny, rather than a nationalist blood letting aided by German imperialism and with next to no popular support, ah well as a theist I see no reason why you should break with tradition and let the facts stand in the way.

And it's not irrelevant at all cantdo as the labour movement in Ireland is haunted by the dovetailing of nationalism and socialism.

Of course you wouldn't mind dying in a Dublin Post Office cos you'd go straight to heaven.

H'mm the estimates I've seen are 40,000 to 50,000 - is the 30,000 just casualties in the Irish regiments or does it include a guess at Irish killed in British based regiments (I'm guessing that would account for the discrepancy). I have a copy of Irish regiments in the Great war upstairs, I suppose I should really get off the couch and check.

I was counting fatilities but discounting the British army ones - this is a bit crude though as some of them would have been Irish but then I guess we should really count German casualties as well for the Somme. Which is all a bit too much work as I only wanted to point out the ratio of 'working class deaths due to the rising' v 'working class deaths due to the war' made it a bit silly to see Connolly as the main problem at the time.

Yeah it depends whos giving the estimates - some other estimates for service go from around 100,000 to half a million Irish service men - both represent largely discredited extremes. The figures of around 50,000 casualties actually suffer from a lack of appreciation of the fact that after initial deployment the Irish regiments became less Irish - that is the 10th and 36th Divisions, and to a lesser extent the 16th, were increasingly to be 'dilluted' by non-Irish recruitment. The higher figures treat all deaths in Irish divisions as Irish - they weren't.

The figures for service that are based largely on research by David Fitzpatrick, and tested by quite a few other Irish and British war historians, includes those in Irish regiments at the start of the war, those recruited throughout in Ireland and 3,700 officers obtaining direct commissions throughout the British army and navy by early 1916. They don't include Irish who joined units in Britain, the 'colonies' or the USA - which is almost impossible to account for with any level of accuracy. Though much of the discrepancy arises as I said from counting non-Irish in Irish regiments as Irish casualties.

Yeah, I agree with your point that the First World War removed more of the 'cream' of the Irish labour movement than Connolly's involvement of the ICA in the Rising. It remains though that the involvement of labour in a subsidiary role to Irish nationalism was damaging to the interests of labour in Ireland - I've already mentioned this though.

Cheers;

ps another wee problem with comparing working class deaths in the Rising and First World War is the class composition of the Volunteers. Largely middle, not working, class as far as most recent research indicates. But then again not an insignificant amount of recruits in Ireland to the British army, particularly to the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers were middle class too.

don't be a fuck wit.

Having been shown that it was a million miles from a military mutiny you have decided to claim that it was an uprising aimed at stopping the implementation of conscription?

Jesus whats happened to you? You used to have somewhat decent analysis but now you've turnt into the most reductionist lil economist wanker this side of Berstein.

And it's not ancient history in Ireland you arrogant lil cock as the legacy of nationalism and it's intanglement with socialism has helped perpeuate a divisive civil war that divided and continues to divide the working class.