Oration at Ballyseedy Centenary Commemoration
By Dr Tim Horgan
And so it began, in 1916, with these immortal words: “Irishmen and Irishwomen, in the name of God and the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.”
Ireland did summon her children to her flag and her sons did strike for her freedom. Many young men from County Kerry would answer that summons.
They would see their comrades fall at Lispole, at Headford and at Gortaglanna. But on they fought.
They would take what England would not give, they would succeed where heroic generations before them had failed, they would drive the forces of the Crown from our county, but alas, alas, not from Ireland.
Pearse and Connolly
The Republic of Pearse and Connolly was not to be. Ireland would be ruled not by Britain but for Britain.
The British general, Bernard Montgomery, writing at the time to a fellow officer stated that he agreed with Lloyd George when he signed the Treaty.
The British Army, Montgomery suggested, would in time have defeated the republicans, but the rebellion would only have broken out again. It was better to give the Irish a degree of self-rule and they would do to each other what the British could not do to them. After eight hundred years, the English knew the Irish well.
An Oath to the Crown
They knew who could be bought and who could be bribed, who could be flattered and who could be fooled. Pragmatism would replace principle, an oath to the Crown would replace an oath to the Republic, a new subservient state would replace our proud nation. Weak hands would tumble what great men had built.
But there are always those would not betray, those could not be bullied or bribed, men who had no price, men who had declared from a Republic and would live under no other law. In Kerry such men were the many and not the few. The eight men who died here were of their people, were of our people, a people who had been dispossessed and displaced, who had been massacred and murdered, who had been starved and exiled.
Out-Gunned – Not Out-Fought
Great men had fought in Kerry’s ditches and bogs, mountains and villages, so that British rule in our land would be no more. They had been out-gunned but not out-fought, they had buried comrades and seen the suffering inflicted on their people. Their rifles had done what generations of rebel pikes and muskets, insurgent spears and swords, had failed to do, it drove the British from County Kerry.
They bought you your liberty, but alas not Ireland its freedom. The task was unfinished. For that freedom they would fight on. The men of Kerry would not be separated from the old Cause except in death, and death did come here at Ballyseedy Cross.
In 1963, John F Kennedy declared that ‘A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but it also by the men it honours, the men it remembers.’
Gathered to Remember
We are gathered here today to honour, to remember eight such great men, for it is such as their idealism and sacrifice that define what the Irish nation is and what the Irish state should be. They died terrible deaths, faithful to cause of Ireland’s freedom and loyal to that cause alone. In 1922, such fidelity had become a crime against the new state and so these eight men would follow the well-trod patriot’s path to death, here at Ballyseedy Cross.
The greatest honour any community on can bestow is that of remembrance. The lives of the dead are placed in the memory of us, the living. It is fitting that we gather here today, not beneath political banners nor to utter hollow slogans, not to garner votes nor increase our profile, but that we assemble here as a community, a people remembering its own.
It’s Our Duty
We have gathered not because we were summoned but because we should, because it’s our duty, because it our small repayment of a large debt that we owe to these eight brave men who paid for our liberty with their lives.
To ignore might be convenient to some, but for us to forget would be to betray. We are proud to remember, for we, the men and women of Kerry, are descendants of a people who rose, were felled but rose again and again, descended from generations who were slaughtered, dispossessed, starved, evicted and exiled, we are of a people who refused to yield, who refused to bow. We will not be told who to commemorate and who to forget. We will remember those eight true men whom Ireland had summoned to her flag to strike for her freedom. We remember those who fell at Ballyseedy Cross.
What the ‘Wise Men’ Told Us
The ‘Wise Men’ have told us that what happened at Ballyseedy is best forgotten, it is not something for modern, mature Ireland to remember. History, like religion, is being pushed from the classroom, the ‘Wise Men’ have decreed that there is now little need for either. Ireland is told what is to be remembered and what is to be forgotten, what is to be commemorated and what is to be ignored, all must rhyme with present day political requirements.
But the history of Ireland is not theirs re-write, not theirs to revise, not theirs to define. Seventy years ago, Ballyseedy had been nudged from the agreed narrative that was beginning to pass as history. But those true to the ‘Old Cause’ rallied to the memory of their fallen comrades.
Exiles Still Remembered
Pence, pounds and dollars were collected, the ordinary people had not forsaken, exiles still remembered. Bronze was fashioned, stone was inscribed, this monument would stand lest any would forget. When it was unveiled, Cáit Larkin, daughter of John O’Connor, who died here, would write; ‘I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I feel for getting this monument erected and my father’s memory dug up from the oblivion to which it was consigned.’
We will be told by historians and politicians that one side in the Civil War was as bad the other, there were dreadful things done by both sides. But that is a lazy and dishonest conclusion.
No Hierarchy of Grief
As a human, I know that there is no hierarchy of grief, as a Christian I cannot but regret the loss of every life, as Irish people we should be embarrassed that we allowed ourselves to be divided by our colonial masters.
However, in our county, there was not an equivalence between those fought to defend the Republic and those who sought to destroy it. There was a difference between those who were tied to a mine here and those who detonated it. There was a difference between those who faced firing squads at Ballymullen Gaol and those who would fire the deadly volleys.
There was a difference between Kerry’s tortured prisoners and their tormentors. There was a difference between the edicts of Bishop O’Sullivan and the laws of God.
History Casts its Judgement
One hundred years later, history has cast its judgement. It is those who suffered the most that are remembered and those that inflicted the most who are forgotten. And so it should be.
A century has passed but their memory has endured. Today we can gather here not in anger, not even in sorrow but in pride, proud to commemorate these eight young soldiers who sought freedom for all of Ireland, a freedom unfettered by foreign interference, a freedom for all Irish people so that they and, they alone, can decide our nation’s destiny.
The victims of war are counted by numbering the dead. But those that suffered most and the longest, are those left behind to mourn.
Convenient to Forget – Subversive to Remember
They are never recalled, their lifelong suffering is forgotten, their loss unending. As an ungrateful state moved on, to forget became convenient, to remember subversive.
Many who benefitted from Civil War politics would find it easy to sleep on other men’s wounds but for those bereaved they would be no rest. John O’Connor would leave a wife and two young children; Patrick Buckley a widow to rear their five children; all the Ballyseedy victims had mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, comrades and friends. While ten thousand tears would be shed at funerals in Tralee, Kilflynn, Lixnaw and Castleisland, for the eight families the silent mourning would last a lifetime. To those left behind to grieve the longest, our nation’s debt should be the greatest.
A Needless War
For they too have paid the price for our freedom. All we can offer is our gratitude and remembrance, small acknowledgements of great sacrifices.
That dreadful conflict cost so many Irish lives on both sides. It was a needless war that divided and beggared us, but for its British architects that was what it was supposed to do. It is called the Irish Civil War but the name is not quite accurate. In essence, it was Britain’s Civil War. For Britain instigated it, it was fought with British weapons and Britain benefited from it.
We should have been oblivious to the differences fostered by an alien power, but we were not, we are not. In the words of the patriot priest, Fr. Michael O’Flanagan, they had fooled us again.
Our Troubled History
Perhaps one day, we will learn the lessons from our troubled history and righteous men, and women, will make our land a nation once again.
WB Yeats would say of the heroes of 1916; We know their dream; enough to know they dreamed and are dead. We say of the heroes of Ballyseedy Cross ‘We too know their dream, enough to know they dreamed and dead.’
Today we remember, Kerry remembers, and let Ireland remember its noble sons who died at Ballyseedy Cross.
Go raibh maith agaibh.
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