So the clock on the computer just switched over to April 1st, and more than that, it's now Easter Monday. It was...seven Easter Mondays ago for me now since Padraig Pearse stood in front of the GPO in Dublin, proclaimed Ireland a Republic, and began our own cycle of blood sacrifice and redemption.
I think it's appropriate that Easter and the true beginning of our Independence struggle fell so close. So many similar themes. Persecution. Loss. Death. Rebirth against all odds and a resurrection in the face of evil.
And yet...what was it for? Ireland is (mostly) Irish now, and yet so little has changed. We traded the Imperialism of the British for the repressive Roman rule of Dev. Contraceptives weren't legal without a prescription until 1985! Women were expected to be in the home - and this was enshrined in our constitution. We fell again into poverty, and Dev turned on the very people who had supported him the moment he was in power.
Was this what we died for? Was this what we fought for? To have the country divided and backwards and to have the whole world come down on us for letting a young woman die because we had draconian restrictions on life-saving medical procedures?
It wasn't what I fought for.
Connolly was right all along. “If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle., unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.”