The Red And The Green (5 page)

‘And all this nonsense about reviving the Irish language,' Hilda was going on. ‘With all due respect to you, Christopher …'

‘Oh, but I entirely agree with you. Gaelic should be left to us scholars. One should be content to be born to the language of Shakespeare. And in fact the Irish have always written the best English.'

‘The Anglo-Irish have.'

‘True for you! Those aristocrats who think themselves superior both to the English and to the Irish!'

‘And when you think of all the money we've poured into this country. . . . The Irish farmers have never been better off.'

‘Not everyone would agree with that,' said Christopher. ‘I read an article in the
Irish Review
only yesterday saying that Alsace-Lorraine was far better off under German rule than Ireland under English rule.'

‘That couldn't possibly be true. It's just Irish spite. I wonder why people think the Irish have such sunny characters? Don't they realize there's a war on? Now they've been promised Home Rule and everything they want they ought to be grateful.'

‘Perhaps they don't feel they've got much to be grateful for,' said Frances. ‘A million people died in the potato famine.'

‘My dear Frances, that was regrettable but has nothing whatever to do with the present situation. You argue like a street-corner orator. There may have been some unfortunate things in the past, but they're all long ago now, and I'm sure England never purposely hurt Ireland, it was just economics.'

‘There's something in what Hilda says,' said Christopher. ‘Ireland had several bits of sheer historical bad luck, and one of them was that the potato famine coincided with the hey-day of Manchester free trade. In the eighteenth century England would have relieved the famine.'

‘What were the other bits of bad luck, sir?' asked Andrew.

‘Eighteen hundred and one and nineteen fourteen. It was very unfortunate that this war started just before Home Rule went through. Remember Churchill saying that if Belfast wouldn't submit to Home Rule the British fleet would teach them to? The Liberals were really exasperated with the North. A year or two of enforced religious toleration and everything would have settled down. Whereas now we shall have endless trouble. But the Act of Union was the big Irish disaster. English government in the eighteenth century was the most civilized government in history. Fear of the French put an end to eighteenth-century civilization. Perhaps it put an end to civilization. It certainly put an end to the Irish parliament. Ireland was really becoming an independent country, the great landowners thought of themselves as Irish. And of course that began to scare the English stiff. Hence the Act of Union and all our tears.'

‘You think Ireland might have had a quite different history if it hadn't been for that?' said Andrew.

‘I do. There was a real Irish culture at that time, a culture with its own brilliance and with international ties. Do you remember that monument I once showed you, Hilda, in St Patrick's Cathedral, which talks about “that exalted refinement which in the best period of our history characterized the Irish gentleman”? The date of that is twelve years after the Act of Union. Oh, they knew what had happened all right. If the Irish parliament had survived, Ireland wouldn't be the provincial backwater it is today.'

‘Home Rule will make it even more provincial,' said Hilda.

‘I fear it may,' said Christopher. ‘And idiots like Pearse don't help when they invent a romantic Irish tradition which just ignores the English ascendancy. Ireland's real past
is
the ascendancy. Ireland should turn back to the eighteenth century, not to the Middle Ages. Goldsmith and Sterne would turn in their graves to hear the nonsense about Holy Ireland that's talked nowadays.'

‘All that can't be quite right,' said Frances. ‘I mean, you seem to be talking as if Ireland were just the grand people. You remember what Grattan said about
we
are not the people of Ireland. It's everyone having always been so poor that's awful. Compare the Irish countryside with the English countryside. There are no real towns and villages in Ireland. There are the same little featureless houses or hovels everywhere, and then nothing else till you come to the country mansions and the cathedrals of Christ the King.'

‘Catholicism is the curse of this country,' said Hilda. ‘If only Ireland had followed England at the Reformation.'

Christopher laughed. ‘You mean the Irish, having rejected the most civilized religion in the world, Anglicanism, deserved their fate? That's arguable! But they were just that much farther away, and the Fitzgeralds and the O'Neills went on being Catholics and being warlords in a quiet way. As for Ireland being the grand people, it's unfortunately true that until lately history has been made by the grand people. Frances is really right, though. What this country lacks is a yeomanry. The Irish peasant remained primitive and remained poor.'

‘Why?' asked Andrew.

‘It's largely the same answer. No parliament. Think how important parliament was in England from the very start. Ireland remained a country of overlords. The big estates were political prizes. Ireland was always a property being handed about. An insecure ruling class without a parliament is soon demoralized. And ever since the Irish princes sold out to Henry the Second there's been collusion between Irish gentry and English power. “Her faithless sons betrayed her”, as the song says. Ireland's only hope of pulling herself out of feudalism was to develop a steady ruling class with its own culture and its own civilized organs of power, and that began to be possible in the eighteenth century, only the Act of Union wrecked it all just as it was becoming a reality. And by eighteen fifteen standards in English political life had declined so much, England was so gross with triumph, there was no help for Ireland there.'

‘So it looks as if the French are the villains of Europe,' said Andrew. ‘A view I've long held!'

‘Why do people in Ireland always talk about
history?'
said Hilda. ‘My head's always swimming with dates when I'm over here. English people don't talk about English history all the time.'

‘They don't have to ask the question, What went wrong?' said Christopher. ‘For them nothing went wrong.'

‘Well, I'm afraid Ireland is a thoroughly self-centred country.'

‘All countries are, my dear Hilda. Only selfishness shows more in the unfortunate.'

‘And now there's all this Trade Union nonsense and stopping the trams. It's so demoralizing. And all this playing at soldiers and marching about in green uniforms and so on. Even Barney got tied up with it at one time. Something ought to be done about it. People ought not to play at war when there's a real war on.'

Christopher blew out a curl of blue smoke and watched it rise to where the rain was running steadily and now almost silently along the glass roof of the conservatory. A soft salty mist was filling the garden, penetrating the curtain of the rain. There was a raw smell of the sea. Christopher spoke now with a more deliberate slowness, like one who feels he has been too vehement or is afraid of becoming so. ‘After the Ulster Volunteers came into existence, and especially after they were armed, it was inevitable that there would be a similar movement down here. After all, it's the right of free men to prepare themselves to defend their freedom.'

‘The British Navy will defend their freedom. It always has done!'

Andrew, who sensed that both Christopher and Frances were getting a bit tired of hearing from his mother, interposed in his most objective and manly manner, ‘Wasn't it rather a mistake, sir, for the British Army not to recognize the Volunteers in the South? I gather General Mahon recommended it to Kitchener. Especially after the Ulster Volunteers were formed into a division.'

‘Yes,' said Christopher. ‘You'll find the Red Hand of Ulster in the British Army, but there's no sign of the Harp.'

‘Kitchener is afraid to arm the Irish,' said Frances.

‘I'm sure he's no such thing,' said Hilda. ‘He told Mr Redmond and Lord Carson that he'd like to knock their heads together.'

‘Do you agree,' said Andrew, adopting Christopher's slow tempo, ‘with the people who say that Redmond ought to have demanded immediate Home Rule in exchange for Ireland's participation in the war?'

Christopher laughed. ‘Good heavens no. I'm not an extremist. Home Rule is a certainty after the war. Or else a hundred thousand men back from the army will know the reason why!'

‘Is it conceivable that the Castle would be so insane as to try to disarm the Volunteers?'

‘No, no. The English will behave correctly. After all, people are watching them.'

‘So you agree with Casement that the Irish question is an international question now, and not a local British matter any more?'

‘Oh no! The notion of “joining Europe” is just another illusion. Poor old Ireland will always be a backwater. Imagine the most god-forsaken hole in the world and go on several hundred miles into the unknown and there you'll find Ireland!'

‘I can't hear calmly about that man Casement,' said Hilda. ‘To go over to the Germans and try to stab England in the back like that just when she's up against it….'

‘It's the old story. “England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity.” Casement belongs to a classical tradition. And in a way I can't help admiring the fellow. It must be a lonely bitter business out there in Germany. He's a brave man and a patriot. He does it purely for love of Ireland. To love Ireland so much, to love anything so much, even if he's wrong-headed, is somehow noble.'

‘He does it for love of gold, you may be sure,' said Hilda. ‘It's the traitor mentality.'

Christopher thought for a moment. ‘I think that word “traitor” ought to be removed from the language. It's just a muddled term of abuse. Casement's crime, or mistake, if it is one, is much more complex than anything that blunted word could name.'

‘So you don't think there'll be any trouble in Ireland?' asked Andrew quickly before his mother could expostulate further.

‘Trouble with the Sinn Feiners? No, I don't. And what could they make it with, hurley sticks? I was talking to Eoin MacNeill's brother about it all the other day. Eoin has quite returned to his Gaelic studies. He was never a firebrand leader in any case. The Volunteers are really just like Boy Scouts and James Connolly's lot, the Irish Citizen Army, are ten men and a dog. If the Germans actually invaded Ireland, a few hotheads might help them, but with the blockade that's an impossibility. And anyway, as I say, what trouble could the Irish make, even if they wanted to? They've got no arms and they're not insane. I saw a squad of Volunteers drilling the other day with ten-foot pikes. It was pathetic!'

Andrew laughed. ‘Don't tell the Sinn Feiners, but our reserve squadron at Longford only has about a hundred rifles, and half of them are D.P., drill purposes only. They'd probably explode if you tried to fire them!'

‘Your lot at Longford had better look out then,' said Christopher. ‘That place is a hot-bed of disaffection.'

‘You shouldn't say things like that, Andrew,' said his mother. ‘You never know who's listening.'

Andrew felt justly rebuked, and recalled suddenly to mind a rather unpleasant incident which had marked his arrival in Ireland. The one really constructive thing which he had managed to do when in France had been to get hold of a magnificent Italian rifle with telescopic sights. This extremely precious object had somehow or other disappeared at some point between the mail boat and Finglas. Christopher's gardener had sworn that the rifle had simply not been with the luggage when it arrived from the boat. Andrew now of course realized that it had been insane of him to take his eyes off it for a second in this gun-hungry country. Some time later he overheard Christopher saying casually that his gardener was connected with the Citizen Army. Andrew thought he would probably never know the truth of the matter: but he felt the disappearance of the rifle as a hostile act, upsetting and menacing.

‘No, no,' Christopher was going on. ‘I don't exactly see Ireland as explosive material. I agree with Bulmer Hobson. Ireland is a damp bog which will yet extinguish many a flaming torch and gunpowder barrel! The fact is the Irish are far more sentimental and emotional even than one imagines. It all ends in talk. This morning, for instance, when I was down in town I witnessed a curious little scene. I meant to tell you of it earlier. I was passing near Liberty Hall, you know, the Transport and General Workers Union place, and I saw that some sort of ceremony was going on. There was a big crowd, and a girl in the Citizen Army uniform was climbing on the roof and unfurling a flag. It was a green flag with the Irish harp on it. And the I.C.A. men were all drawn up in ranks presenting arms and the bugles were blowing and the pipe bands were playing and then everyone started cheering, and do you know, quite a lot of people in the crowd had tears in their eyes.'

Andrew was disturbed by this account; and he felt that Christopher had perhaps been more interested than he pretended to be. Frances had put down her sewing.

‘But what did it mean?' said Andrew.

‘Nothing. That's my point. The Irish are so used to personifying Ireland as a tragic female, any patriotic stimulus produces an overflow of sentiment at once.'

‘“Did you see an old woman going down the path?” “I did not, but I saw a young girl, and she had the walk of a queen.”'

‘Precisely, Frances. St Teresa's Hall nearly fell down when Yeats first came out with that stuff. Though in fact if you recited the Dublin telephone directory in this town with enough feeling you'd have people shedding tears!'

‘Well, I think it ought to be stopped,' said Hilda. ‘I can't imagine how they can do it, with the town full of wounded soldiers, you'd think they'd be ashamed. And I'm very surprised indeed that Pat Dumay hasn't enlisted. I really must have a word about it with his mother. An able-bodied young fellow like that ought to be longing to get out to the Front. I have the impression that he's becoming a rather disagreeable young man.'