They hung out the flag of war

In 1916 Britain was the centre of the first transglobal imperium in human history.

It ruled over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time, and the Royal Navy was the biggest on the planet.

Indeed, it was not an idle boast that the sun never set on the British Empire.

Ireland was firmly part of the United Kingdom and in 1916 there had been no serious attempt to break Britain’s hold on this island for over a century.

Consequently, the idea that a few hundred poorly armed rebels could turn the tide of history was risible.

Yet it happened.

To say the least, it was a tough break to be the neighbouring island of such a geopolitical behemoth.

By the agreed definitions of contemporary academe, at least two genocides were unleashed on this island’s people as the strong state emerged on the island of Britain.

The second such crime, An Gorta Mór, convinced those who survived it that Ireland had to rule her own affairs.

For the avoidance of doubt, British hegemony on this island was not simply a matter of “common travel”.

Where to start with that?

British rule meant that an island that produced more food than it needed could see one million starve to death and another million emigrate to avoid the same fate.

The survivors of those awful years would pass that essential truth onto their children.

It is undeniable that An Gorta Mór created a politicised Irish diaspora.

Two of the signatories to the Easter proclamation were born in the years after the Famine, Tom Clarke in 1858 and James Connolly a decade later in 1868.

It is also worth noting that neither was born in Ireland.

Clarke first saw the light of day Clarke was born at Hurst Castle near Milford-on-Sea in England; he was the son of a sergeant in the British Army.

Connolly himself first set foot in Ireland as a young man in the King’s uniform, an economic conscript.

He had been born in the Cowgate in Edinburgh, which was then the very identifiable Irish ghetto in the Scottish capital.

Throughout my life, I have been drawn to the story of Connolly, an Irishman born in Scotland, a trade union organiser and socialist.

I can’t think why.

When Sinn Féin in Belfast moved to a new HQ, they called it Connolly House.

The indomitable spirit of the Fenians, the first truly revolutionary generation in Ireland struggle, is also a compelling story.

Easter Week was very much Tom Clarke’s Rising.

Sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood at 20 in 1878, his entire adult life was dedicated to the cause of the Irish Republic.

Tom Clarke was 58 years of age when he was led out to the Stonebreakers Yard in Kilmainham. In his final letter to his wife Kathleen, it was clear that he was at peace.

He knew he had won, and his spirit was unbroken, although the enemy had tried to do just that after the fighting was over in Dublin.

District Inspector Percival Lea-Wilson had ordered Clarke to strip naked in front of the other prisoners after the surrender in Easter Week.

Unfortunately for the RIC man, this ill-treatment was witnessed by a young fella from West Cork.

I can imagine young Mick taking mental notes in Frongoch and putting that fekker on the To-Do List.

The good news is that he was duly done!

District Inspector Percival Lea-Wilson was shot dead on June 15th, 1920, on the streets of Gorey, County Wexford by IRA  Volunteers acting on the express orders of Michael Collins.

When Tom Clarke was marched to the sandbags in Kilmainham, he knew that the GPO, Moore Street and the other outposts had been sovereign Irish soil for several crucial days.

After that, there was no going back.

The Irish Republic was, after that moment, a reality to be defended and not an aspiration to be achieved at some point in the future.

Without the Rising, I would not be writing these words as an Irish Citizen and the holder of a passport that is issued by a state that has a seat at the United Nations.

The Proclamation remains the touchstone for all of us on this island and in the global diaspora who want the people of this island to be in charge of our destiny.

Of course, we still have our issues in the North East, and it would appear that the Brits will never be not at it.

Albion is incurably perfidious and is something that Clarke and his Fenian brethren were acutely aware of.

The Rising itself was nothing less than a putsch against Redmondism.

The Third Home Rule Bill, if it had ever become a reality after the Great War, would have offered little more than a type of Scottish Devolution.

Connolly got that, which is why he joined the project later in the day with his excellently trained Irish Citizen Army.

John Redmond died the archetypal broken man in March 1918.

He had put his trust in the British establishment.

Redmond was a useful idiot to them, and his speech at Woodenbridge condemned thousands of Irish Volunteers to a muddy grave in Flanders.

I’m enormously proud and grateful that my own kin did not listen to his shite about “the rights of small nations”.

It was indeed “better to die beneath an Irish sky”.

When the prisoners came home from Frongoch at the end of 1916, all was changed, changed utterly.

It was only a matter of time before Collins, and the other graduates of the University of Revolution got into gear.

Sinn Féin, founded by the monarchist Arthur Griffiths, became the electoral vehicle for Republicans to smash the Irish Parliamentary party into political oblivion.

With Dáil Éireann established in January 1919, it was time to strike, this time in a way that suited us and not the enemy.

You know the rest.

Without Éirí Amach na Cásca, there would have been no Dáil Éireann and no liberation struggle against the Brits.

Today, the idea that Britain is a global behemoth would have Putin’s work experience assassins laughing into their Salisbury guidebook.

Moreover, our gallant allies in Europe have put the Six Counties into an economic departure lounge, and our exiled children in America have made it clear to the Brits that this is one treaty that they cannot break.

For the day that’s in it, we should remember that it started in Easter Week.

History forgotten is a betrayal.

History remembered is a weapon.

Who fears to speak of Easter Week?