Thursday, April 9, 1998 | 10:37 a.m.
In Easter Week the wisp was lit Waked Dublin from her drowsy years: I moan the battle anger, yet What did we ever win by tears? The ballad singers long have cried The shining names of far-away; Now let them rhyme out those that died With the three colours, yesterday.
-- Lady Gregory
IT'S IRONIC THAT THE DEADLINE for a peace agreement in Northern Ireland is during the week of Easter. Tonight, Thursday, is the time U.S. negotiator George Mitchell has set for the conclusion of talks. The former senator from Maine, has been working for two years on a settlement of the conflict that has cost more than 3,200 lives during the past three decades. Bringing the Protestants and Catholics to a solid agreement is no easy task. Some diplomats believe it is near impossible.
The Easter Rising of 1916 must be on the minds of the people now meeting near Belfast. That uprising against the British in Dublin might well have been the precursor of the eventual collapse of the British Empire upon which the sun never set. More than 1,300 Irish men, women and children were killed or maimed when seeking home rule during that bloody week. And for days after it had been put down, the British firing squads were busy executing participants.
From the Rising came heroes named James Connolly, P.H. Pearse, Joseph Plunkett, Michael O'Hanrahan and dozens of others. From all Irish wars come stories and poems and the Rising was no different.
W.B. Yeats wrote:
'O words are lightly spoken,' Said Pearse to Connolly, 'Maybe a breath of politic words Has withered our Rose Tree; Or maybe but a wind that blows Across the bitter sea.' 'It needs to be but watered,' James Connolly replied, 'To make the green come out again And spread on every side, And shake the blossom from the bud To be the garden's pride.' 'But where can we draw water,' Said Pearse to Connolly, 'When all the wells are parched away? O plain as plain can be There's nothing but our own red blood Can make a right Rose Tree.'
Songs, poems and stories linger on for generations with the Irish people and because of the day it happened the Easter Rising will never be forgotten. My father, who served in both the Canadian and U.S. military forces during World War I, could cite times and places the blood was spilled during Easter in Dublin by the British. At the same time, a large contingent of Irishmen were wearing the British uniform and fighting in France.
Recent television documentaries and other recollections of the potato famine of 1845-48 must also be on the minds of some people now attempting to make peace. Possibly a million people in that small land died and twice that number were driven to other countries rather than starve after being evicted from their homes and the land they had worked for the owners. Forty years later, British Prime Minister W.E. Gladstone called this a black spot on his country's history.
Eventually peace came to this land and the Irish Republic was created in 1922. However, the six northern counties remained under British rule. Today those counties known as Northern Ireland have a population of 1,663,300 with 57 percent being Protestant and 43 percent Catholic. And this is the problem as 800 years of religious violence continues since it again bubbled up 29 years ago. The Catholic Irish Republican Army and the Protestant paramilitary units have both participated in terrorism and the killing of innocent people.
The people of Northern Ireland, both Catholics and Protestants, are tired of the bloodshed and terror and want a settlement. The hardheads and extremists are making George Mitchell's job almost impossible. It would be a long prayed-for miracle if a settlement could be made during the Easter week. The people of that little country have had too much suffering and deserve a time of peace and tranquility
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