Ireland is a country that has hardly ever had a moment of complete tranquility, yet also a country that has never failed to display immense courage and heroism in the defense of all that is precious in the world. The Irish are a perfect example of how suffering can be good for the soul. Many of the trials that Ireland has faced over the ages actually made them stronger in the end, yet, it must also be said, some of the supposed triumphs of Ireland have actually led to great misfortunes for the culture, the very soul of Ireland. Admittedly, I am som-what biased, proudly having a splash of Irish blood on both sides of my family, but any historian would have to admit that the contribution of Ireland, in fact the global contribution, of Ireland to the development of the Western world has been astonishing considering it all comes from such a small, remote island.
Ireland, in fact, has never been isolated from the rest of Western civilization. The Celtic people once covered much of Europe and some of the Irish kings can trace their ancestry all the way back to the greatest and holiest King David of Israel. Converted by St Patrick, Catholicism quickly became the cornerstone of Irish culture and made possible her future unity and greatness. Many people mistakenly believe that there has never been a free and united Ireland, but in fact that is not the case. Ireland, through both her ethnic Celtic history, as well as the infusion of the Catholic ideal of de-centralized power, tended to favor a confederation of free states under their local king or chieftan. However, the unifying power of Christianity and the shared threat of the Viking invasions allowed the great Irish hero and famed Catholic monarch, Brian Boru, to drive out all of the invaders and become "High King" of a free and united Ireland.
However, even after Ireland was invaded and conquered (though never totally pacified) by England, the Irish people continued to play a role in world affairs. Driven from their homeland, many Irishmen joined the armies of various European countries and became quite famous as some of the best units in the world. Even in the British army, many of the most hard-fighting units were predominately Irish. During the Mexican-American War, the best unit in the Mexican army was the 'Batallon San Patricio' (St Patrick Battalion) which consited of Irishmen, formerly of the U.S. army, who had been oppressed because of their religion, who deserted to defend Catholic Mexico against the American invasion. During the American Civil War Irish units rose to great fame on both sides, the most famous being General Patrick Cleburne. When the Union forces won the war, one disgruntled Confederate claimed it was because the North simply had more Irishmen than they did.
In Ireland itself, there was never a shortage of devotion to the cause of the Church and preservation of the national identity, which were bound together. During the Nine Years War with Queen Elizabeth I, men like Red Hugh and Hugh O'Neill fought off vastly superior English forces for a long time before being worn down, but even then, never totally rubbed out despite all of the persecution they suffered, even the near genocidal campaign of the republican dictator Oliver Cromwell. Even then, Ireland survived and rallied to the support of the Stuart King James II who proclaimed Irish independence. So devoted were the Irish to this cause, that even after King James II had been defeated, they continued the battle under their brilliant commander General Patrick Sarsfield. Likewise, even after eventual defeat at home, the Irish answered the call of honor when the Italian liberals threatened to conquer the Papal States. Major Miles O'Brien led the Irish Battalion in the Papal army that earned a glorious reputation fighting to defend Bl. Pope Pius IX to the bitter end.
To a large extent, it was the heroism of Irish soldiers in the British army that finally impressed the Duke of Wellington to repeal many of the oppressive laws against the Catholics of Ireland. However, it was during this general period that many Irishmen began to be led down the wrong path by liberal, revolutionary forces who, although they could talk a good show about freedom from oppressive Britain, they were in many cases hardly true Irishmen themselves, often coming from foreign ancestry, Protestant and republican rather than the traditional Irish way of being Catholic, family-focused and devoted to the ideal of a de-centralized confederacy of clan chieftans or kings. Because of this, much of the Irish independence movement became divorced from the very culture of Ireland itself and gave the world a very twisted image of the Irish patriots as radical, even cruel mostly due to the image of the Irish Republican Army as a terrorist organization.
Ultimately though, in spite of all the ugliness, Ireland did finally win her independence for the first time since the XIIth Century. However, the new Republic of Ireland, built to some extent on the foundation of inherently anti-Irish people and principles, have not managed to reclaim fully that mantle of greatness last held by men like High King Brian Boru. Not that the modern Irish have not done some very great things, far from it, but it is becoming more evident now that the independence of Ireland was built on principles that have held Ireland back from reaching her full potential of success. If there is one thing that is obvious from Irish history, it is that disaster has resulted from foreign elements, hostile to the culture of Ireland, being allowed to take root and choke out the native, traditional people and culture of the island. In the past, under British rule, the traditional Irish patriots at least had a cause to unite them, and the persecution they suffered for their Catholic faith made them all the more determined to defend it. Today, however, the situation is quite different. Instead, today we have an even greater influx of foreign elements, a weakening of the influence of the Church, in some cases even a betrayal of the faith that has maintained Ireland through centuries of oppression and a growing trend, along with the rest of Europe, toward centralization of power and the abdication of more and more rights to an essentially foreign government. In effect, Ireland as an independent country is losing all of the things that they had longed for during years of British rule. Rather than restoring the traditional, independent, clan-based, devoutly Catholic Ireland under the High Kings, Ireland has become, in many ways, the sort of country they always fought against. It makes one wonder what men like Brian Boru, Hugh O'Neill or Patrick Sarsfield would think of the Republic of Ireland today, these great Irish heroes who were, to a man, devout Catholics, devoted to their clan and to their king and to power being exercised on a local level. Hopefully, this trend can be reversed and God willing, Ireland will survive the trials of independence with the same determination with which she survived the trials of occupation. |
