It has been two days of radiant sun, like a special Irish gift for me; I finally take time to discover more precisely the rebel Cork, little southern city built in the middle of Lee River marshes. After a stop at the English market, the Sassenach’s* market hall in the middle of the district named after the buried marsh, and a few steps in the Art Museum, I walk the city up and down. I head down South, in the English quarters watched by Victorian mansions, and I have a picnic in Fitzgerald Park, at the history museum edge, where I find out later about Ireland’s first people.
And I lose my timeline, my absent-minded mind built that insane idea the island was unmanned until 250 BC. I must have got it wrong, I got lost in Tuatha De Danann legends and their doors to Tir na n-Og. This gods’ world was only light and magic, perfection and glory, until the Modern Irish’s ancestors’ arrival, the Gael. Ireland Gods then take refuge in the undergrounds and bury their soul in stones‘ heart. They build another world, mirror of ours, hidden under dolmens and mounds, buried in glass palaces under lakes and oceans; fairies’ world shine. Human time doesn’t exist there, it’s a peaceful place, sometimes dangerous for mortals. However, the Otherworld doors open in certain occasions, during Samhain and Beltaine, when Ireland swings between dark and light seasons, when Brigid and the sun both switch from one world to another. Then Gods send their Bansidh to call the chosen mortals in the Sid for an endless time, for a fleeting moment. Mythological eras stand as prehistory for my dreaming soul and I need to go through every age – stone, iron, bronze and fire – to be back to Ireland scientific history leading me to another end, or beginning, of an era: the Irish War of Independence.
The Great War draws its last bloody furrows when, in 1918, British government extends conscription into Ireland as a condition to the establishment of Home Rule, a first step for a self-government in the Emerald Island. It’s a cruel humiliation for Irish people that took it for granted, only postponed because of war consequences. That ultimate British betrayal alienated Irish nationalists bringing all together Milds and Ultras that couldn’t get along about the means until then.
Elections are set in December 1918 leading to the nationalist party’s, the Sinn Fein, victory: the first Dail (Irish parliament) gathers in Dublin, January 21st 1919. They refuse to sit at Westminster, symbol of a Union they deny, and therefore claim their political independence. The Irish Republican State finally comes true, even though not reckoned by the Crown. Fortunate serendipity, the first War of Independence ambush happens that same 21st of January: at Soloheadbeg, in Tipperary, Irish Volunteers attack a Royal Irish Constabulary van full of explosives. Two RIC officers are killed, the war begins.
Despite a lot of IRA actions that gives an illusion of real Irish resistance, British Army is way too powerful for those unprepared and almost unarmed country boys. Thankfully, this nasty and dirty war tarnishes United Kingdom’s image and speeds up the peace process. Negotiations open in October 1921 and end with the bitter sweet Treaty. Saorstàt Eireann’s** mother and father, it also becomes the doomed executor of the first Civil War deaths.
One figure of that liberation time stands in Cork memory: Terence MacSwiney, the mayor of the city who was jailed in 1920 for IRA activities. Considered as a criminal instead of a political prisoner, he starts a hunger strike and dies seventy-three days later. Thus, he gives an ultimate way to resist to unfair internment throughout time, he’ll give strength to the Northern Hunger strikers decades later: “It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most who will conquer.”
I follow Cork old tramway rails then and head up to the north of the city, on the top of Shandon Hill, a worker, poor and Irish district, where rises the lying clock. I would like to stop on a bench or a street and watch people living, but cold has eaten me all day long and I need to go down the lower town so I can look at them, sparsely and hurry, through a warm window in my favorite coffee shop from where I also have a glimpse on 19 Cobourg Street windows, already oblivious of John Lynch’s catch. The Fenian leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood lived there and was arrested before the 1867 Fenian Rebellion.
Supported by US funds, the Rebellion, named after Fionn Mac Cumhal mythological and immortal warriors, the Fianna; fights for a democratic and egalitarian Republic. Some dissensions are quickly raised between the motherland and emigrant funding, the Irish American sometimes feels more Irish than the Irish and thinks his dollars gives him an almighty power. When homeland is only a name, nationalism turns even stronger. Small quarrels and Crown spying – John Lynch’s catch being one example among others – finally jeopardizes the uprising which happens to be more of a skirmish.
Although it was a crushing defeat, it turned into a political victory: Fenian leaders’ custodies, trials, tortures and prisoners tragic fates raise the opinion and gather new supporters. This once more failed rebellion feed a certain permanent idea of revolution, it maintains the movement like an iceberg: the visible and peaceful top hides a great immersed and subversive crowd until 1916, year that changed Ireland inevitable struggle for freedom forever.
I walked all day long and I don’t know what to do with my solitude. I’m the same blue as Yeats melancholic brothers. Only because I missed a part of history at the museum! Yet, I know I can’t see everything, everywhere. Fortunately, in a few days, in a few weeks, I’ll only remember my feeling of being absolutely complete during my sunny noon in a park, I’ll only remember the endless joy of walking, I’ll only remember the hunger of going elsewhere, everywhere, upper, further, to explore more streets, churches and shops. I’ll only remember grey shinning Cork that rises in sunset.
I’m on my way to the Irish Sea, on my way to Kinsale, little port in South Cork. I’m going to explore a symbol of lost freedom since the Irish Earls were defeated there during the Nine Years’ War, before their well-known flight. Between the 16th and 17th centuries, English have been in Ireland for four centuries and Hugh O’Neil, Ulster leader, the most Gaelic and rebel Irish province, become allied with other Irish chiefs to lead Tyrone’s rebellion and defend Catholicism. Ireland is bleeding and burning, the four provinces rise together. People are slaughtered from Dunboy Castle to Yellow Ford. English burn down castle and cottages, rebel or not, empty or inhabited. They organize famines and killings to break the country; destroyed crops, children impaled on spikes, mothers hung to trees, their newborn babies strangled with their long maternal hair, clinging to their dead breast… Rebels, in the other hand, tear soldiers to English pieces.
Clan leaders present their cause like the Ireland’s cause: the oppressed against the oppressors, Catholic Faith Champions against Protestant Heretics. Although, unfortunately, like often in history, Ulster leader fights less for Ireland Freedom and Independence than for his own power throughout his province and maybe even the whole island. Real or faked, it is enough to rise the rebellion and shed Irish blood. The Rebellion ends in Kinsale, gripped in between English garrisons and Irish Sea. The Earls tragically and desperately flee, abandoning the rebels to the deadly English revenge: hunted like wild beasts, they are put to death fighting or surrendering. The dramatic defeat soon followed by the Flight of the Earls utterly breaks Ulster’s power: the local and Gaelic culture slowly decline there and over the country. The first Plantations are settled: Catholic Irish are legally dispossessed of their land to Protestant settlers, chosen and stamped by the English Crown, especially and specifically in Ulster, tragic harbingers of what Northern Ireland will go through centuries later.
And Kinsale port becomes a strategic English navy base from where Irish are excluded until the end of the 18th century.
Ireland’s past has been stolen and she tries to take over her present. Thus, in Kinsale, signs are written in Gaelic first and then translated in English. At Kinsale, Eriu raises her voice, specifically where she definitely lost her freedom. And I step in historical steps, in oppressed steps. And I let my dreams invade my mind.
I walk along the windy sea, surrounded by wild elements. I sing Irish freedom in the English forts ruins; I sing my own freedom, my desire to simply be. I’m only led by my wellies, alone in the world, on the top of the hill, in historical remains, endless green fields in my sight, the quiet sea in front of my feet. I flee. I forget Irish past and mine. I get imprinted with blue, green and wind; Ireland is entering my heart with joy. I walk all day long and sometimes the landscapes are immortal. I walk and gaze at my green and longed Ireland. If only I could spend my whole life wandering; wandering like today, with only companions the Irish spring wind and cold sun.
My feet hurt, my feet freeze but my heart exhales. At my own surprise, like a miracle, I feel like where I belong in Ireland: I’m living now, her present and mine, without expectation. An endless field of opportunities in front of my heart, and in between, life. I feel in the Otherworld, and it’s wonderful.
* Stranger/Foreigner in Gaelic
** The Irish Free State
Fleeting Wor(l)ds 