Violet uprising – An Irishman’s Diary about Napoleon’s favourite flower and its cameo in ‘The Plough and the Stars’

I’m not sure if the violets are scenting the woods yet, anywhere (if Maggie is reading this, she might let me know). But according to my favourite calendar, at least, today’s date is officially set aside in their honour.

Yes, as well as being February 26th, this is also the eighth day of Ventose, the "windy month" of the French revolutionary year. And in that short-lived experiment, where every date celebrated a different plant, animal, mineral, or work implement, today's was devoted to "la violette".

Unlike most plants so commemorated, the little purple flower was unusually political in France for a time, thanks mainly to Napoleon.  He loved its smell, associating it in particular with his beloved Josephine, who wore the flowers on her wedding day.

He always sent her violets on their anniversary. And when she died in 1814, he planted some on her grave, thereafter keeping a few in a locket he wore the rest of his life. It was around then also that the flowers took on political significance.

Codeword

Upon exile to Elba, he promised supporters he would return “with the violets” (ie in spring). So at a time when it was dangerous to speak his name too loudly, “

Caporal la Violette

” (“Corporal Violet”) became a toast for partisans. It also inspired a codeword.

In the France of early 1815, you were liable to be asked by strangers whether you liked violets. If you said a simple yes or no, you revealed yourself to be outside the conspiracy. If you replied "Eh bien", you were in the know. Sure enough, when Caporal la Violette landed on French soil again, in March, local women sold bunches of his favourite flower to those greeting him.

Almost exactly a century later, in another part of the world, the violet took on another layer of symbolism.  In Australia and New Zealand, at least, it preceded the poppy as a flower of remembrance for the war dead.

As early as autumn 1914, it was used to raise money for bereaved families. And in Adelaide, July 2nd, 1915, was designated the first of several Violet Days, inspired by a poem written for a son lost at Gallipoli.

According to Brewer's Dictionary, the flower's colour represents both "the love of truth and the truth of love".  But as the same book notes, the plant itself is the subject of some confusion.

One the one hand, it traditionally signified “modesty”.  On the other, it was said by the Greeks to have sprung from the blood of Ajax, who was famously boastful.

But getting back to Maggie, of violets scenting the woods fame, this month also marks a milestone in the history of that song, which many people erroneously assume to be Irish.

It’s US-Canadian, in fact, written in the 1860s, with words inspired by a real-life Maggie, who was first the lyricist’s student, then briefly his wife, before she died within a year, inspiring his ballad to doomed love.

But 60 years later, the song was colonised by Sean O'Casey for his play The Plough and the Stars; wherein, because it's sung by Jack Clitheroe to his wife Nora, it also had to be renamed.

In the intervening years, Johnny McEvoy further Nora-fied it, before De Danaan reinstated Maggie in a 1981 version, and by including this on their Irish-American album, Star Spangled Molly, partly repatriated it.

Of course its adaptation by O’Casey was not one of the controversies of February 1926, when his play made its explosive debut.

Of more immediate interest to the Abbey audience was the inclusion among the female characters of a prostitute. In general, they were outraged by the unflattering depiction of Dubliners during Easter 1916.

The Plough thereby became an accidental companion piece with Synge's Playboy, which had provoked similar ructions a decade before the Rising.

After the police had been once more called in, and the protesters ejected, WB Yeats famously lectured the audience, “You have disgraced yourselves again.”

Despite that turbulent start, the play quickly established itself as a perennial of Irish theatre. Its frequent revivals included one in 1966, the Rising’s jubilee, while a more recent production ran for an epic 72 performances.

The 1916 centenary could not pass without it, clearly, nor will it. The Plough and the Stars will once again take to the Abbey stage next month, on March 9th. In April and May, it will tour the country. Thereafter, when the violets will certainly be scenting the woods, it heads for the Irish colonies, starting with Washington.