Time to bring O'Connell and Redmond in from the cold

Inside Politics:The Taoiseach made an interesting and politically generous speech during the week.

Launching 1916 in 1966, a book about the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, he expressed the hope that the 100th anniversary would be commemorated in as inclusive a way as possible.

Ahern freely acknowledged the contribution of the founders of the Irish Labour movement to the struggle for independence, but he went a step further and gave due recognition to the leaders of Cumann na nGaedheal.

Ahern quoted Seán Lemass who, when recalling 1916, talked about how proud he was of the different traditions that he fought alongside. He mentioned in particular the leader of the Irish Labour movement, James Connolly, the future head of the Provisional Government, Michael Collins, and Desmond FitzGerald, later a Cumann na nGaedhael minister and the father of a future taoiseach.

"Lemass always took the generous view that, irrespective of later political affiliations, when we consider our successful struggle for independence, we should honour the achievement of all those who took part. This is a view that is strongly shared by my Government and as we move forward towards the Rising's centenary, all of our actions must be inclusive and should operate on the first principle that commemoration should unite people of different backgrounds".

The Taoiseach also stressed that his Government had sought to recognise the unionist tradition on this island. "In the coming years, we need to acknowledge openly that there are also positive aspects to our long interaction with Britain," he added.

Yet there was one glaring, and most likely unconscious, omission in his speech. There was no reference to the contribution of constitutional politicians from Daniel O'Connell to John Redmond in Ireland's struggle for freedom. Until we recognise the contribution made by ordinary democratic politicians, something essential will remain suppressed in our common historical memory.

In a short book attempting to provide an accessible history of Irish politics from Daniel O'Connell to Bertie Ahern**, I suggested that the widely accepted view of Irish history as a series of violent struggles against the British actually belied the true nature of modern Ireland.

After all, the modern Irish State is a smoothly running parliamentary democracy committed to the rule of law and an enterprise economy. Irish sovereignty has been pooled through the European Union, relations with Britain have never been better and both governments have a shared approach to Northern Ireland.

It is debatable which of the imposing figures of the past would find the prosperous, cosmopolitan State more congenial.

The great political figures from O'Connell to Redmond would surely feel at home in the Dáil chamber and be proud of the country's independence and economic success.

They would also rejoice in the good working relationship between Ireland and Britain, something they always claimed would happen if their country was given its freedom.

On the other hand, at least some of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, who seized control of nationalism from Redmond, would almost certainly be uneasy. Modern Ireland is hardly the Gaelic speaking, anti-materialist paradise dreamed of by Pádraig Pearse. Neither is it the dictatorship of the proletariat envisaged by Connolly.

For all that, the modern Irish democratic State was created by the heirs of Pearse and Connolly.

The Sinn Féin movement that swept the Irish Party away in 1918 followed the tried and trusted rules of political organisation pioneered by the politicians they despised. Despite violence and civil war, the Sinn Féin leaders established a liberal parliamentary democracy that followed the rules of constitutional politicians they replaced.

After his initial opposition to the Free State, Eamon de Valera, the most famous of the surviving 1916 leaders, founded Fianna Fáil, and created one of the most successful political parties in the history of western democracy.

He dominated Irish life in a manner reminiscent of O'Connell or Parnell, through political action and party organisation.

It is certainly arguable that politics and elections have had a more profound influence on the way we are today than violence and insurrections.

Yet the one group of people whose contribution to Irish history is consistently downgraded, and frequently ignored altogether, are the nationalist politicians who struggled for a century to create a free and democratic State. They also played an important role in shaping the nature of British parliamentary democracy, whose institutions we adopted.

The Taoiseach said on Wednesday that "any truly national commemoration of our independence should honour both the statesmen who founded the Free State, as well as those who stood by the Republic, recognising that they were all patriots, who shared the same ultimate objective of full national freedom by one route or the other".

It would be a welcome development if by 2016 we could include in that hall of fame the politicians who stood for election and their supporters who attended public meetings, knocked on doors and campaigned for liberty in the century or more before Independence dawned in 1922. The kind of freedom we have today owes as much to them as to anybody else.

*1916 in 1966, ed Mary Daly and Margaret O'Callaghan, Royal Irish Academy

**People, Politics and Power: From O'Connell to Ahern, Stephen Collins, O'Brien Press