[lbo-talk] Easter Rising Monday

Marv Gandall marvgand2 at gmail.com
Mon Mar 28 10:44:31 PDT 2016


Yes, and there is a wonderful discussion of Yeats’ poem The Song of the Wandering Aengus between the rural villagers, young and old, attending classes in Jimmy’s Hall.


> On Mar 28, 2016, at 10:32 AM, JOANNA A. <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Yeats wrote a poem about it:
>
> I have met them at close of day
> Coming with vivid faces
> From counter or desk among grey
> Eighteenth-century houses.
> I have passed with a nod of the head
> Or polite meaningless words,
> Or have lingered awhile and said
> Polite meaningless words,
> And thought before I had done
> Of a mocking tale or a gibe
> To please a companion
> Around the fire at the club,
> Being certain that they and I
> But lived where motley is worn:
> All changed, changed utterly:
> A terrible beauty is born.
>
> That woman’s days were spent
> In ignorant good-will,
> Her nights in argument
> Until her voice grew shrill.
> What voice more sweet than hers
> When, young and beautiful,
> She rode to harriers?
> This man had kept a school
> And rode our wingèd horse;
> This other his helper and friend
> Was coming into his force;
> He might have won fame in the end,
> So sensitive his nature seemed,
> So daring and sweet his thought.
> This other man I had dreamed
> A drunken, vainglorious lout.
> He had done most bitter wrong
> To some who are near my heart,
> Yet I number him in the song;
> He, too, has resigned his part
> In the casual comedy;
> He, too, has been changed in his turn,
> Transformed utterly:
> A terrible beauty is born.
>
> Hearts with one purpose alone
> Through summer and winter seem
> Enchanted to a stone
> To trouble the living stream.
> The horse that comes from the road,
> The rider, the birds that range
> From cloud to tumbling cloud,
> Minute by minute they change;
> A shadow of cloud on the stream
> Changes minute by minute;
> A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
> And a horse plashes within it;
> The long-legged moor-hens dive,
> And hens to moor-cocks call;
> Minute to minute they live;
> The stone’s in the midst of all.
>
> Too long a sacrifice
> Can make a stone of the heart.
> O when may it suffice?
> That is Heaven’s part, our part
> To murmur name upon name,
> As a mother names her child
> When sleep at last has come
> On limbs that had run wild.
> What is it but nightfall?
> No, no, not night but death;
> Was it needless death after all?
> For England may keep faith
> For all that is done and said.
> We know their dream; enough
> To know they dreamed and are dead;
> And what if excess of love
> Bewildered them till they died?
> I write it out in a verse --
> MacDonagh and MacBride
> And Connolly and Pearse
> Now and in time to be,
> Wherever green is worn,
> Are changed, changed utterly:
> A terrible beauty is born.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> I’ve just finished watching Ken Loach’s latest masterpiece, Jimmy’s Hall, on Netflix and this excellent Jacobin article marking the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising in Ireland makes an excellent companion piece. The article places the rising in its historical context - the forces which shaped it and the consequences which flowed from it.
>
> The uprising was jointly launched by Pádraig Pearse’s nationalist Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Citizens’ Army under the command of the revolutionary socialist trade union leader James Connolly. Many women participated, notably Constance Markievicz, the prominent feminist and socialist who was a close ally of Connolly, and Elizabeth O’Farrell, an ally of Pearse’s who joined him in the occupation of Dublin’s Central Post Office.
>
> The radical principles expressed by the Proclamation of the Irish Republic read out on Easter Monday 1916 bore the imprint of Markievicz and Connelly in particular. It was addressed to both “Irishmen and Irishwomen” and declared an end to British rule and "the right of the people to the ownership of Ireland”. It guaranteed religious and civil liberty and equal rights and equal opportunities for all, including universal suffrage, two years before women in Britain won the vote.
>
> As we know, these principles, particularly the ones relating to gender equality, the separation of church and state, and public ownership were largely set aside by the conservative and clerical leadership of the Irish republic following the the war of independence against the British and partition of the country after World War I.
>
> This weekend’s official ceremonies in Dublin and elsewhere confirmed, as the article notes, that “one hundred years after 1916, many of the most radical events that made Ireland’s revolution a profound challenge to the social order will not be commemorated”.
>
> https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/03/easter-rising-ireland-james-connolly/
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