1916 and the ongoing danger of conservative revolution

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EDITOR

Michel Smih

edior@villgemgzine.ie

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DESIGN  PRODUCTION

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EDITORIAL BOARD

Nill Crowley, Jon Fizprick,

Bride Rosney, Michel Smih

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Nill Crowley, John Gormley

PRINTERS

Boylns, Droghed,

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VILLAGE IS PUBLISHED BY:

Ormond Quy Publishing

 Ormond Quy Upper,

Dublin 

Issue 44

April 2016

1916 and the ongoing

danger of conservative

revolution

f there’s been one new idea introduced into the dis-

course by the 2016 commemorations, we haven’t

registered it.

The Rising was an irrational response to a colo-

nialist foe. The proper approach would have been

to analytically survey the strengths and weaknesses of

the occupying power, and to have respectively avoided

and exploited them with the view of achieving speciﬁc

military and then political goals.

The fact the Rising was a martyrdom, with in Pearse’s

case a Resurrectionist underpinning, is a very bad start

to a nation. This has been debated for its ethical rami-

ﬁcations but the political ramiﬁcations have been more

dangerous and pervasive.

The indulgence of mythology in politics pervaded the

civil war and the parties it spawned, the 1937 Constitu-

tion and the perpetuation of non-speciﬁc Republicanism

with no stress on parties that would actually stand for

something like an ideology, most obviously a left or

right agenda, or the data-and-evidence-based policies

it might have spawned. Connolly himself considered

some of the revolutionaries were motivated, according

to Edward Townsend in his recent history of the Rising,

by “either vacuous romanticism, or a mindless commit-

ment to 'physical force' without social content’".

The Proclamation came nearly a century and a half

after the American Declaration of Independence and

the French Declaration of the Rights of Men. It should

have been more secular and more explicitly egalitarian.

While celebrating the training of its “manhood”, it did

at least summon both men and women to the cause,

though why it didn’t just refer to people is a good ques-

tion, the phrase "suffrages" suggests some form of

parallel franchises may have been intended, and worst

of all for some (ungallant?) reason Cumann na mBan's

role is not registered in the Proclamation, though it is

generally recognised as the unsung third participant in

the Rising. The Proclamation should not have sum-

moned in aid any (expansionist German) gallantry from

Europe, assuming it was viscerally anti-colonial.

It is not difﬁcult to summon declaratory or constitu-

tional principles. It was not then and it is not now. The

principles must be transcendent. They must not date.

Equality, Freedom, Sustainability, Efﬁciency, Open-

ness would have done it.

Article I of the Declaration of the Rights of Men [sic]

isn’t bad: “Men [sic] are born and remain free and equal

in rights. Social distinctions can be founded only on the

common good”. Not getting it quite right (and the

replacement of the brutally executed culturally imagi-

native 1916 leaders by mediocrities and religious

zealots) opened the door to the mean weirdness of the

1937 Constitution which is invoked in the name of the

holy spirit “from whom is all authority” and recognises

the special position of its womanhood but only because

of “her life within the home”, and the associated

“duties”.

If Ireland in 2016 is not serious about either ideology

or policy it is in part because the grounding documen-

tation of the republic depends on mythology, on

religion, on machismo. None of our politicians seems

imbued with an iota of political philosophy and it

passes for a credo to believe in a Republic (as opposed

presumably to a monarchy) without any positive deﬁni-

tion of what precisely that imports, for then, for now,

forever.

This is no small thing. 100 years on we still have par-

ties with no ideology and no driving policies. We have

a short-termism which survived one of the worst gov-

ernments in the history of the state. We have as our two

biggest parties, dinosaurs almost indistinguishable the

one from the other. We have a Labour Party which is

prepared to sell out a fundamental vision each time it

enters government and we have radical left parties that

prefer to campaign on opposition to water and property

taxes rather than promote the simple internationalist

socialist message of equality. Indeed ironically this

‘revolutionary socialist’ stance is rooted in the cam

paign-for-the sake-of-it mentality that drove most of our

revolutionary conservatives.

The proclamation and its idealistic progenitors

looked to the past and the present. Their analysis was

not inaccurate. But they did not lay down any or any

adequate template for the future. Their lack of interest

in doing so partly explains the lack of interest of our

current political generation in doing so.

1916 has left us bereft in 2016.

Villge Mgzine promoes

in is columns he fir

disribuion of resources,

welfre, respec nd

opporuniy by he nlysis

nd invesigion of

inequliies, unsusinble

developmen nd

corrupion, nd he medi’s

role in heir perpeuion;

nd by cue culurl

nlysis.

EDITORIAL

4 April 

EDITORIAL

 Letters to the editor

  nd the ongoing dnger of

conservtive revolution

NEWS

 Villger news miscellny

 Connolly nd Perse:

nti-bloodshed brothers

Frank Connolly

 Asylum-seekers' plight in Irelnd

exposed in FOI Ken Foxe

 Norm Smurﬁt's Merrion Squre

vnity project Michael Smith

 Hlf-collpsed Plnning Tribunl is

too kind to itself Anthony Harris

 Lw Society cse ginst solicitor

Colm Murphy Michael Smith

POLITICS

 Adrin Hrdimn: brillint but

prejudiced David Langwallner

 LGBTIrelnd report highlights

mentl helth issues

Moninne Grifﬁth

 Plnning-corruption prllels in

Irelnd nd Austrli Julie Walton

 Enct hte-crime legisltion

Shane O’Curry

 A minority government leding to 

new politicl force Robert Dunne

 EU Commission’s Strtegy for

sustinble nd inclusive growth in

limbo Niall Crowley

 Why I’m running for the

Send Oisín Coghlan/Rory Hearne

 Young don't vote, old re

disillusioned John Waters

 Noonn should hve stopped

Project Egle Frank Connolly

 The Left must co-operte

Frank Connolly

 'Hndbook of the Irish Revivl':

pen to culturlly rich, politiclly

limited ptriots John Gormley

 Ntionlists s Rel Men

Aidan Joseph Beatty

 Re-Ligion! - re-engging

with our mythicl inheritnce

Frank Armstrong

 Yes to history, no to

commemortion

Ivana Bacik

 Wht   Proclmtion

would look like Mary Kinane

OPINION

 Dependence of  Vssl Stte

Constantin Gurdgiev

 Hnds off civil society. Ides for

Irelnd’s overburdened NGOs

Niall Crowley

 Clss not gender is intrctble

Eoin O'Malley

 Big-prty conservtism led to

rise of others Conor Lenihan

MEDIA

 The Irish Times bttled for trust on

the Centenry Gerard Cunningham

 How the medium is everywhere

chnging the messge

Gerard Cunningham

 Let's use  Harry Browne

CULTURE

 Industril reltions: the

photogrphs of Hill nd Bernd

Becher NJ McGarrigle

 Locl uthorities nd the

Arts Council don’t engge

communities Ed Carroll

ENVIRONMENT

 Interview with climte guru,

Kevin Anderson John Gibbons

 Predictions from climtologist,

Jim Hnsen John Gibbons

 The impct of met-eting

George Monbiot

INTERNATIONAL

 Brced for Brexit

Anthony Coughlan

 Polr Czechs

Frank Armstrong

 The UN’s Globl Compct is mdly

compromised Michael Smith

 Villge Idiot: Frnk Flnnery

CONTENTS

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