Redmond View of 1916 Rising

The following is taken from The Evening Herald Newspaper of Tuesday, April 12, 1966 in recasting the events surrounding Easter Week, 1916, in particular the views of John Redmond M.P., leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party and champion of Home Rule:

WICKED AND INSANE

Mr. Redmond on Revolt 

John Redmond (1856 — 1918)

In a statement with regard to the Dublin events, Mr. J. Redmond M.P. says his first feeling on hearing of the insane movement was one of horror, discouragement, and almost despair. He asked himself was the insanity of a small section once again to turn all of Ireland's recent marvellous victories into irreparable defeat, sending her back into another long night of slavery, suffering, and struggle.

After a reference to Ireland's choice when the war came, and the sufferings of small nationalities at the hands of Germany, he asked: "is there a sane man in Ireland who does not see this (hostility to the cause of the Allies) meant the drowning of the newly-won liberties of Ireland in Irish blood? Be these views right or wrong, this was the view of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people; it was the opinion which thousands of Irish soldiers have sealed with their blood by dying in the cause of the liberty of Ireland and of the world.

"Surely I need not argue the principle, especially with anybody who professes himself to be a Home Ruler, that the policy of Ireland must be decided by Ireland herself. That doctrine has been contested only by the very same men who today have tried to make Ireland the cat's paw of Germany. In all our long and successful struggle to obtain Home Rule we have been thwarted and opposed by the same section. We have won Home Rule not through them, but in spite of them. This wicked move of theirs was their last blow at Home Rule".

He says that this blow was plotted, organised, and paid for by Germany, and was a German invasion of Ireland as brutal and cynical as that of Belgium. Misguided and insane young Irishmen rushed and lost their lives, while those who sent them into that insane anti-patriotic movement remained safely in America.