A terrible beauty is born

August 7, 2019

Dublin, Ireland

When is it worth dying for Ireland, or the United States, or any country?

I’ve been pondering that question here in Bailé Atha Cliath (Irish: The City on the River), also known as Dublin. Everywhere in the Irish capital there are reminders of the sacrifices made by patriots as they resisted invasions by Vikings, Anglo Normans, and ultimately, British colonialists. Street names, statues, songs, exhibits, and museums celebrate the heroes of the Easter 1916 Rising that eventually led to a modicum of independence in 1922, and greater autonomy in 1949 with the establishment of the Irish Republic.

While a quarter of a million Irish soldiers were fighting for the British army against Germany in World War I, a small group of Irish poets and philosophers led a band of 1600 rebels in Dublin in attempting to overthrow 700 years of British colonial rule. Hundreds of people were killed, half of them civilians, as British cannons and machine guns slaughtered Dubliners and crushed the rebellion. At first, many locals blamed the rebels for the death and destruction, and even nationalist poet W.B. Yeats questioned the futility of the attempted revolution, asking in his poem Easter 1916: “Was it needless death after all?” Speaking of the movement’s leaders, he went on to say in the same poem, “We know their dream; enough to know they dreamed and are dead.”

But when the British government made the mistake of executing 14 rebel leaders by firing squad, Irish public opinion changed, and Yeats honored four of the leaders by naming them in his poem: “MacDonough and MacBride and Connolly and Pearse, now and in time to be, wherever green is worn, are changed, changed utterly: a terrible beauty is born.”

The death and destruction were the “terrible” price that the rebels and civilians had to pay, but the “beauty” was in the ultimate result of political freedom from oppression of the Irish nation. In the words of songwriter Tommy Makem in his song Freedom’s Sons, “A poet’s dream had sparked a flame. A raging fire it soon became. And from that fire of destiny, there rose a nation proud and free.”

Ireland consistently ranks among the most patriotic of nations, according to the International Social Survey Program, probably because they had to earn their freedom through centuries of battles and uprisings against overwhelming odds. The United States also ranks highly for patriotism in that same survey, probably for the same reason: a bloody revolution by underdog colonies against a mighty empire.

But was it necessary for the Irish and the Americans to use violence to achieve their ends? George Washington certainly felt so, as did the colonists who stood up to the British at Lexington, Concord, Boston, and elsewhere. And the martyrs who died violently in Dublin hoped, correctly as it turned out, that their deaths would inspire their people to rise up and “trade their chains for guns,” as Tommy Makem sang in Freedom’s Sons.

Yet nonviolence might have accomplished the same goals. Britain eventually allowed Canada, India, and other colonies to achieve their independence peacefully. In Ireland’s case, Winston Churchill was an early supporter of Irish independence, and the British government was planning to allow some form of Home Rule for Ireland until they were distracted y the outbreak of World War I. But American and Irish independence were achieved sooner by bloodshed than they would have been if those colonies had waited for England to see the light. And sometimes you just have to stand up to bullies, as we and the rest of the world found out in World War II when appeasement failed to deter Hitler and violent self defense became necessary.

As a hot-headed young man in 1776 or 1916, I might have picked up a gun and joined the revolts. Would I be willing to die for my country now? I doubt it. I’d have to be convinced that there was no alternative, and that the cause was just and righteous. Even then, as I near the end of my life, I don’t feel that I’d be willing to kill anybody for the cause of nationalism or for any other cause. I do appreciate the sacrifices made by those who died for Irish and American freedom. But as Yeats said in Easter 1916, “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.” I’m not willing to turn my heart into stone.

I’m pleased to report that Ireland is prospering both culturally and economically. Clearly they are benefiting from the fruits of their long struggle for freedom. But I hope they never again have to give birth to a terrible beauty.

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