The Free State: A Machinery for our Destruction

There is no political philosophy that has captured the soul of our nation like Irish republicanism. In every generation Irishmen have rallied to its cause and sacrificed their lives in pursuit of its objectives.

Its idealism appeals to the nobility of our instincts; its sense of social justice is rooted in the principles of our ancient civilisation; its martial ethos captures the essence of the Gaelic spirit—warlike, adventurous, irreconcilable. The Irish republican refuses to bow to modernity; he refuses to compromise, to be captured, to be castrated. He is the ‘wild Irishry’ of today.

Throughout our history it was always the small, unconquerable minority who refused to sacrifice one tittle of our native civilisation. It is thanks to these men that the Irish nation still lives. The men of 1916 were the inheritors of this tradition; no Home Rule was theirs. They stood for a free and Gaelic Ireland, under the banner of the sovereign Irish Republic, unfettered and unconquered.

The sacrifice of Easter Week led to a most remarkable event in Irish history: the entire nation rallied behind the sovereign ideal. Compromisers and placehunters were spurned. What was once the cause of an irreconcilable minority was now backed by the entire country, resulting in a gallant display of unity which the enemies of our nation could not break.

The ‘four glorious years’ that followed saw a determined effort to drive out the foreign enemy and build up a Gaelic Ireland that would be the envy of the world. An Dáil agus Óglaigh na hÉireann were at the forefront of this campaign, leading the political and armed resistance of the nation. British jurisprudence was gradually being replaced by a Brehon Law system in the Republican Courts. Thousands of Gaels, young and old, flung themselves into the bearna bhaoil in the face of death or imprisonment.

It was all glorious, all inspiring, and alas! it all led up to a shameful acceptance of English terms and an armed attack on those who refused to accept the compromise. Our free Irish institutions were suppressed and Britain’s colonial regime was continued by other means.

Until 1922 Ireland was producing a new social and political philosophy, alongside nascent legal and economic systems, which would have been a continuation of our native Gaelic civilisation. This was the fruition of immense intellectual effort and sacrifice. However, across the Irish Sea English statesmen were scheming for subversion. The result was the Government of Ireland Act and the two partitionist states we are familiar with today.

Not only did the Free State fail to advance the national ideal in the years that followed, but they harassed and harried, tortured and executed those who displayed unwavering loyalty to the old idea—the true idea—of complete separation from Britain.

Since its establishment the Free State has been a machinery for the destruction of the Irish nation. One hundred years later, its objective is almost complete. Our native language is on its death throes, our religion and customs are spurned, and a new plantation is ravaging our people. Throughout the past century men of goodwill and genuine patriotic feeling have attempted to enter these British-made institutions and make something Irish out of them. Each time they have failed. They have tried to cast out Satan with the power of Satan. Their folly is our lesson.

Only the Republican Movement rejects the alien institutions destroying our nation. It is the sole custodian of that high ideal for which our martyrs fought and died. As such, it demands the allegiance of every Irishman working towards the goal of a free and Gaelic Ireland.