Betrayal of the Proclamation

JuliusCaesar · 11-05-2015 11:28am #1

I think it was in last Thursday's (7th May) edition of the Irish Independent that I read an article on the betrayal of the ideals of the Proclamation. It was written in the style of an alternative history: two middle-aged women doing their make-up and speculating about how different Ireland would be if the ideals of the proclamation hadn't been carried out. So they were laughing and saying things like: there'd be no divorce until the 1980s! There'd be no contraception till the 1970s! The place would have been so backward! And then they go into the studio and the announcer says, "and here are the grand-daughters of our first two Taosaigh, Maud Gonne and Countess Markievitch".

But I can't find the article on line anywhere! I was waiting for the dentist when I read it so was a bit distracted and would love to read it again.

Can anyone help?

robp · 11-05-2015 2:06pm

I presume it is this one? ttp://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/rewriting-mn-na-hireann-back-into-the-centurys-history-31198287.html

Of course it is largely if not totally incorrect. The writer seems deeply removed from actual experiences of women in the period. Women did not have equality after independence, but overall they had a stronger position post-independence then prior to it. This is thanks as much to the rising tide of economic growth as republican ideals.

donaghs · 11-05-2015 3:39pm

robp wrote: »

I presume it is this one? ttp://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/rewriting-mn-na-hireann-back-into-the-centurys-history-31198287.html

Of course it is largely if not totally incorrect. The writer seems deeply removed from actual experiences of women in the period. Women did not have equality after independence, but overall they had a stronger position post-independence then prior to it. This is thanks as much to the rising tide of economic growth as republican ideals.

Unfortunately I think the writer is projecting a modern view back onto the past. For most of the 20th century Ireland was an overwhelmingly Catholic and conservative country. For example, the new Irish state actually inherited British Divorce laws, but under De Valera choose to outlaw it, until 1995. As recently as 1986 Irish people rejected divorce in a referendum. The writer also mentions abortion. Similarly not overwhelmingly a popular idea yet.

"The document opens by addressing Irishmen and Irishwomen: you can't get any clearer. There are references to "equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens", "the suffrages of all men and women"."
Unfortunately as with all things, even something as "clear" as the above is open to interpretation by the people of the era. The American Declaration of Independence stated clearly that "All men are created equal". But most at the time understood implicitly that this could not apply to slaves.

robp · 11-05-2015 4:33pm

The writer claims Catholic conservatives

hijacked

the nation with

a non-military coup d'état

This is frankly a bizarre claim in light of the fact the it was a democratic state and the conservative nature of the state was ultimately reflecting the population both male and female. Indeed the writers of the proclamation were themselves largely social conservatives. The whole piece is littered with loaded language, red herrings and other fallacies. How does this waffle get published in a national newspaper....

Mr.Nice Guy · 12-05-2015 2:49am

robp wrote: »

Indeed the writers of the proclamation were themselves largely social conservatives.

Wouldn't agree with that. Connolly was hardly a social conservative. And didn't Tom Clarke have a bad view of the church? While Pearse, from what I recall, was not as smitten with the church's views as later republicans were.

Peregrinus · 12-05-2015 3:13am

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Wouldn't agree with that. Connolly was hardly a social conservative. And didn't Tom Clarke have a bad view of the church? While Pearse, from what I recall, was not as smitten with the church's views as later republicans were.

"Social conservative" does not equal "biddable Catholic". It's quote possible to take a critical view of the Catholic church (or of any church), and yet still be socially conservative.

And, while I haven't read the article, the description of it does suggest that there is a good deal of wish fulfilment and projection going on. The proclamation did include aspirations which were, by the standards of the day, progressive - e.g. universal adult suffrage, at a time when women in the UK could not vote - but in many cases these were, in fact, delivered. (The Free State had universal adult suffrage from day 1; the UK didn't have it until 1928.) But the proclamation also contained a few less progressive elements; the opening sentence, invoking "the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood" suggests that this is not going to be an entirely forward-looking document. And the final invocation of the "valour and discipline" of the Irish nation, and "he readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good" could have prefigured a fascist state just as readily as a progressive liberal democracy.

(It's probably also worth adding that most historians would be of the view that both Maud Gonne McBride and Constance Markievicz, for all their virtues, would have been deeply unsuitable as prime ministers of a parliamentary democracy. If they had been "our first two Taoisigh", it's very unlikely that we would now remember them fondly.)

DarkyHughes · 12-05-2015 5:02pm

robp wrote: »

The writer claims Catholic conservatives the nation with This is frankly a bizarre claim in light of the fact the it was a democratic state and the conservative nature of the state was ultimately reflecting the population both male and female. Indeed the writers of the proclamation were themselves largely social conservatives. The whole piece is littered with loaded language, red herrings and other fallacies. How does this waffle get published in a national newspaper....

The conservative nature of the state was due to extreme the Catholic church wielded over the population.

robp · 12-05-2015 6:57pm

DarkyHughes wrote: »

The conservative nature of the state was due to extreme the Catholic church wielded over the population.

It was built by a democratically elected government. If a state develops in a way that displeases one can't simply claim it was undemocratic and not fairly formulated. In addition the early Irish state was influenced by Catholic ideas but it was not a theocracy as the government was willing when necessary to disagree with church leaders e.g. de Valera refusal to back the McQuaid backed teachers strike of 1946 or his disagreement of the place of the RCC in the constitution.

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Wouldn't agree with that. Connolly was hardly a social conservative. And didn't Tom Clarke have a bad view of the church? While Pearse, from what I recall, was not as smitten with the church's views as later republicans were.

Well I would emphasis social conservatism by modern standards. I would not necessarily apply it to all of them but most of them. As Peregrinus outlined being conservative is not synonymous with supporting views of the Catholic clergy. Some of the Anglo-Irish establishment would have been anti-Catholic yet conservative. Left wing states like China, Cuba and North Korea retain elements of what could be argued to be social conservative.

Peregrinus · 13-05-2015 3:04am

DarkyHughes wrote: »

The conservative nature of the state was due to extreme the Catholic church wielded over the population.

Or, it was due to the willingness of the population to accept and embrace the teachings of the Catholic church.

Or, it was due to that plus other factors - economic insecurity tends to make for social conservatism, and you don't need any Catholic church for that mechanism to work.

It makes no sense at all to espouse democratic ideals, while assuming that the people are sheep, with no control over and no responsibility for the decisions they make. If a democratic states is consistently socially conservative, it's not the church/the freemasons/the illuminati/the media who are the primary instruments of social conservatism; it's the citizens.

kildarejohn · 13-05-2015 9:26am

An alternative view of the Proclamation was given by Ruth Dudley Edwards under the heading "Why are we still listening to the 1916 Secret Seven" in the Sunday Indo of 26th April. Ms. Edwards, while no doubt she has good academic credentials, has quite biased view. She suggests the authors of the Proclamation had no democratic mandate.

Peregrinus · 13-05-2015 9:37am

Nor did they. On the other hand, perhaps at the time a democratic mandate wasn't perceived to be quite the necessity it is today. Indeed, the only mandate they could have sought would have been through elections in which only men could stand, in which women could not vote at all, in which men could only vote if they satisfied a property qualification (under the voting laws before 1918, only about half of all adult males could vote), and in which candidates if successful would be required to take a royalist oath of allegiance. You might reasonably ask just how "democratic" a mandate obtained through such a system could be.

Ipso · 13-05-2015 3:25pm

Peregrinus wrote: »

Or, it was due to the willingness of the population to accept and embrace the teachings of the Catholic church.

Or, it was due to that plus other factors - economic insecurity tends to make for social conservatism, and you don't need any Catholic church for that mechanism to work.

It makes no sense at all to espouse democratic ideals, while assuming that the people are sheep, with no control over and no responsibility for the decisions they make. If a democratic states is consistently socially conservative, it's not the church/the freemasons/the illuminati/the media who are the primary instruments of social conservatism; it's the citizens.

People talk about the churches effect on Irish society, sometimes I wonder about Irish societies effect on the church.

LiamNeeson · 17-05-2015 9:21pm

The very existence of your country betrays the proclamation, I am no extreme republican but it is a fact that cannot be ignored and I will make sure my children know all about it, my nephews, nieces, etc too. This betrayal is not taught in our Catholic nationalist schools as the history teachers are usually republicans.

Peregrinus · 18-05-2015 2:16am

LiamNeeson wrote: »

The very existence of your country betrays the proclamation . . .

Huh? How?

jonniebgood1 · 18-05-2015 11:06am

LiamNeeson wrote: »

The very existence of your country betrays the proclamation, I am no extreme republican but it is a fact that cannot be ignored and I will make sure my children know all about it, my nephews, nieces, etc too. This betrayal is not taught in our Catholic nationalist schools as the history teachers are usually republicans.

Explain using historical sources how you conclude the above

DarkyHughes · 23-05-2015 4:26pm

robp wrote: »

It was built by a democratically elected government. If a state develops in a way that displeases one can't simply claim it was undemocratic and not fairly formulated. In addition the early Irish state was influenced by Catholic ideas but it was not a theocracy as the government was willing when necessary to disagree with church leaders e.g. de Valera refusal to back the McQuaid backed teachers strike of 1946 or his disagreement of the place of the RCC in the constitution.

Well I would emphasis social conservatism by modern standards. I would not necessarily apply it to all of them but most of them. As Peregrinus outlined being conservative is not synonymous with supporting views of the Catholic clergy. Some of the Anglo-Irish establishment would have been anti-Catholic yet conservative. Left wing states like China, Cuba and North Korea retain elements of what could be argued to be social conservative.

Left-wing states? You mean states that are run by a party who have a Marxism-Leninism ideology. There's nothing left-wing or liberal about totalitarianism.

I kinda of agree with what your saying. Yes, the conservative nature of the state reflected the the conservative society it was democratic, people had free will to choose what form of government they wanted to represent them but the Catholic church played a huge role in influencing peoples opinions. If the church disagreed with something large chances are the people did to, not because they were forced to but because of the churches influence on society.

I mean how many thousands of women/girls were sent to the Laundries because they were influenced by the church?

I very much doubt we'd even be considering same sex marriage let alone have a landslide victory for it if the church still had the influence it did 25 - 30 years ago.

Peregrinus · 24-05-2015 5:55am

DarkyHughes wrote: »

I kinda of agree with what your saying. Yes, the conservative nature of the state reflected the the conservative society it was democratic, people had free will to choose what form of government they wanted to represent them but the Catholic church played a huge role in influencing peoples opinions. If the church disagreed with something large chances are the people did to, not because they were forced to but because of the churches influence on society.

I mean how many thousands of women/girls were sent to the Laundries because they were influenced by the church?

I very much doubt we'd even be considering same sex marriage let alone have a landslide victory for it if the church still had the influence it did 25 - 30 years ago.

Again, this is more complex than at first appears. Societies in which the Catholic church had no influence at all could also be punitive and puritan when it came to women pregnant out of wedlock - in the US, for example, women who in Ireland were consigned to Magdalene institutions were instead consigned to lunatic asylums, promiscuity being classed as a mental disorder. Conversely, societies in which the church was influential could in practice be more broad-minded.

So, again, we come back to the question, was Ireland sexually puritanical because the church influenced it in that direction, or was the Irish Catholic Church punitive and puritanical because Ireland was? Or a bit of both? Did each reinforce the other?

My own theory is that the famine was hugely influential here. Irish society was profoundly changed by the famine (as you'd expect, really). Among other changes, the marriage rate dropped dramatically, and the practice of subdividing holdings among siblings on inheritance ceased. The result was, apart from the middle and upper classes, unless you were the oldest or only child, and your father had died or had handed on the farm, there was no way you could keep a wife, and to conceive a child would be grossly irresponsible. The same went for any woman who was not married to such a man. Thus there was a need for powerful social mechanisms to, um, disincentize "irresponsible" procreation. A combiniation of piety and judgmental puritanism was the result and, since the Irish church was made up of Irish people, the Irish church acquired these characteristics.

S

donaghs · 24-05-2015 11:14am

Peregrinus wrote: »

Again, this is more complex than at first appears. Societies in which the Catholic church had no influence at all could also be punitive and puritan when it came to women pregnant out of wedlock - in the US, for example, women who in Ireland were consigned to Magdalene institutions were instead consigned to lunatic asylums, promiscuity being classed as a mental disorder. Conversely, societies in which the church was influential could in practice be more broad-minded.

So, again, we come back to the question, was Ireland sexually puritanical because the church influenced it in that direction, or was the Irish Catholic Church punitive and puritanical because Ireland was? Or a bit of both? Did each reinforce the other?

My own theory is that the famine was hugely influential here. Irish society was profoundly changed by the famine (as you'd expect, really). Among other changes, the marriage rate dropped dramatically, and the practice of subdividing holdings among siblings on inheritance ceased. The result was, apart from the middle and upper classes, unless you were the oldest or only child, and your father had died or had handed on the farm, there was no way you could keep a wife, and to conceive a child would be grossly irresponsible. The same went for any woman who was not married to such a man. Thus there was a need for powerful social mechanisms to, um, disincentize "irresponsible" procreation. A combiniation of piety and judgmental puritanism was the result and, since the Irish church was made up of Irish people, the Irish church acquired these characteristics.

S

Indeed, its often been pointed out that lay Catholic organisations in Ireland were more extreme than the clergy itself.

But there are also examples of the difference between the Irish clergy and the Catholic Church elsewhere. For example, when the UK brought in a comprehensive Welfare State after WW2, there was no real opposition from the Catholic Church there. But when lesser attempts at a welfare state in the 26 counties were attempted, there was fierce opposition from the likes of Archbishop McQuaid and a variety of "lay" Catholics.

The Irish Church seemed to be sure it was contrary to Catholic social teaching. Yet the the Church in the rest of developed democratic Western Europe didn't seem to have the same problems with new welfare states.

Peregrinus · 24-05-2015 12:45pm

donaghs wrote: »

Indeed, its often been pointed out that lay Catholic organisations in Ireland were more extreme than the clergy itself.

But there are also examples of the difference between the Irish clergy and the Catholic Church elsewhere. For example, when the UK brought in a comprehensive Welfare State after WW2, there was no real opposition from the Catholic Church there. But when lesser attempts at a welfare state in the 26 counties were attempted, there was fierce opposition from the likes of Archbishop McQuaid and a variety of "lay" Catholics.

The Irish Church seemed to be sure it was contrary to Catholic social teaching. Yet the the Church in the rest of developed democratic Western Europe didn't seem to have the same problems with new welfare states.

Well, my reading of that was that it was a power struggle. It wasn't so much the substance of the mother-and-child scheme that bothered the church here as the fact that it was Noel Browne who was carrying it through. Within a couple of years a Fianna Fail government had implemented the bulk of the scheme without a murmur from the bishops. It was Browne, and his style, and what he represented that freaked them, I think. They couldn't let him chalk up a victory; it would inevitably be seen as a victory over them.

KingBrian2 · 31-05-2015 2:16am

donaghs wrote: »

Indeed, its often been pointed out that lay Catholic organisations in Ireland were more extreme than the clergy itself.

But there are also examples of the difference between the Irish clergy and the Catholic Church elsewhere. For example, when the UK brought in a comprehensive Welfare State after WW2, there was no real opposition from the Catholic Church there. But when lesser attempts at a welfare state in the 26 counties were attempted, there was fierce opposition from the likes of Archbishop McQuaid and a variety of "lay" Catholics.

The Irish Church seemed to be sure it was contrary to Catholic social teaching. Yet the the Church in the rest of developed democratic Western Europe didn't seem to have the same problems with new welfare states.

That can be explained very simply. The Catholic Church was dead set against Communism and any social program smacked of Bolshevism. The world back then was experiencing hysteria over the red menace and our country was no different. Of course many Irish people came to resent the Republic for this believing we had dissed our ideals in the pursuit of international respectability.

donaghs · 02-06-2015 12:42pm

KingBrian2 wrote: »

That can be explained very simply. The Catholic Church was dead set against Communism and any social program smacked of Bolshevism. The world back then was experiencing hysteria over the red menace and our country was no different. Of course many Irish people came to resent the Republic for this believing we had dissed our ideals in the pursuit of international respectability.

Your missing the point, the Catholic Church in the UK and the rest of Europe was far more open to these changes - than the Catholic Church in Ireland,

KingBrian2 · 02-06-2015 10:12pm

donaghs wrote: »

Your missing the point, the Catholic Church in the UK and the rest of Europe was far more open to these changes - than the Catholic Church in Ireland,

Yeah like the very Catholic Spain was not resistant to change.

donaghs · 02-06-2015 10:48pm

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Yeah like the very Catholic Spain was not resistant to change.

"One swallow doesn't make a summer" - but is good at diverting a thread

I deliberately choose my words which can be read in the preceding posts: "Yet the the Church in the rest of developed democratic Western Europe didn't seem to have the same problems with new welfare states." I could go on, but like the ISIS thread in the politics forum, its pointless getting sidetracked - better to set up a new threads for new subjects.

robp · 03-06-2015 2:43am

donaghs wrote: »

But when lesser attempts at a welfare state in the 26 counties were attempted, there was fierce opposition from the likes of Archbishop McQuaid and a variety of "lay" Catholics.

It is worth remembering this occurred over a relatively brief period and health care reform was relatively peacefully implemented in the 1953 Health Act.

donaghs · 03-06-2015 6:46am

robp wrote: »

It is worth remembering this occurred over a relatively brief period and health care reform was relatively peacefully implemented in the 1953 Health Act.

Yes, on the point of Health Care, Peregrinus has already mentioned this, eg Fianna Fail, in more detail

Betrayal of the Proclamation

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