to lie with a foul witch

V o l u m e 1 , I s s u e 3 P a g e 6 1

THE WITCH Toil and grow rich, What's that but to lie With a foul witch And after, drained dry, To be brought To the chamber where Lies one long sought With despair.

W.B. Yeats The entwining of Yeats’ "romantic interests" in his "revolutionary ladies" (Constance Markiewicz, Maud Gonne ...) to his ideal egregore of Erin (Caitlin ni Houlihan, the “one long sought with despair”), and his stance on the Irish Revolution and the subsequent civil war, would lead to suspecting some magical background to those episodes. Especially as Éamon de Valera, Yeats' sworn enemy, was working his own particular brand of Iberian shamanism on the "other side". Might there be sorcery here? The Aisling Yeats is often appreciated from a point of view that ac-cords to one’s own interests. The aesthete will read his poetry and plays, or admire his Irish currency bill designs. An adherent of the Old IRA will think of his dedication to the Cause, smile at his infatuation with Maud Gonne and remember his stint as a Senator of the Oireachtas; a mod-ern-day Real, or Continuity, an IRA member will probably dismiss him as a “Free Stater” and exalt the “bould Fenian men” such as those who gunned down O’Higgins. And, of course, the student or practi-tioner of the Golden Dawn will rehearse Yeats’s brushes with Mathers and Crowley and be aware that he made some attempt to work up a “Celtic” Golden Dawn.

I would like to try and encompass the whole of Yeats’ activities in one picture, as he himself evidently did. One symbol sums it up, that of Caitlin ni Houlihan (Irish : Caitlín Ní hUallacháin, "Kathleen, daughter of Houlihan"), who is a represenation of Ireland as a sorrowing woman. She was perhaps most famously invoked by Yeats in his play of the same name. In the play, she speaks of the heroes who gave their lives for her in failed rebellions – which rejuvenates her. This sacrificial mythology can be tied to pagan concepts of "seasonal renewal" and is manifest throughout the Irish Revolution’s long history, from Pádraig Pearse’s conscious invocation of her, through the claim to represent her by the anti-Treaty forces in 1921, to the various hunger strikes by Irish Republican Army prisoners.

I would like to try

and encompass

the whole of

Yeats’ activities in

one picture, as he

himself evidently

did. One symbol

sums it up, that of

Caitlin ni Houli-

han (Irish : Caitlín

Ní hUallacháin,

"Kathleen, daugh-

ter of Houlihan").

"To Lie With A Foul Witch" ---- William Butler Yeats and the Irish Revolution by Ian Cowburn

William Butler Yeats:

the Aisling withdrew from him

Caitlín ní Houlihan: the harp of becoming, the shawl of forever

P a g e 6 2

H e r m e t i c V i r t u e sH e r m e t i c V i r t u e sH e r m e t i c V i r t u e sH e r m e t i c V i r t u e s

This vision is in the long tradition of the “Aisling”, where Ireland appears to the poet in the form of a woman, sometimes young and beautiful (An Spéirbhean, the sky-woman), sometimes old and haggard (Sean mBan Bhocht, the ugly old woman). She laments the state of Ireland and predicts an imminent revival of its fortunes, usually linked to the re-turn of a Pretender to the throne. Both Pearse and the anti-Treaty leaders were claiming this “Pretender” status. Probably the most well-known example of an Aisling is the song “Roisin Dubh” (Dark-Haired Rosaleen):

Thou hast slain me, O my bride, and may it serve thee no whit, For the soul within me loveth thee, not since yesterday nor today, Thou has left me weak and broken in mien and in shape, Betray me not who love thee, my Little Dark Rose!

Yeats was obviously aware of this tradition, reaching back to the 16th century, in the works of, inter alia, Eoghan O Reilly, Brian Merriman, and “Blind” Raftery and associated this poetry with his esoteric ideas. He described his "one unshakable belief" that "whatever of philosophy has been made poetry is alone... I thought... that if a powerful and benevolent spirit has shaped the destiny of this world, we can better discover that destiny from the words that have gathered up the heart's desire of the world." In a letter to Sturge Moore he wrote “I always feel that my work is not drama but the ritual of a lost faith. It returns to the past for support but alters the past even as it recreates it”. The significance of the Aisling, as is evident from the excerpt above, is that the desire is somehow trampled underfoot by its object, it is unrequited, rejected, the cause is lost ; but thereby, mystically rejuvenated. This theme runs powerfully through Yeats’ writing, where he indicates that the anguish of the rejection is the fuel for the vehicle of change : “Only an aching heart conceived a changeless work of art” (from ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War’). Maud Gonne MacBride We might now look at his involvement with Maud Gonne, who he met in 1889, an Anglo-Irish heiress, feminist and actress who was to devote herself to the Irish nationalist movement. Yeats developed an obsession with Gonne and she was to have a significant effect on his poetry and his life ever after. In 1891, she briefly joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Between 1893 and 1895, she and a Frenchman who she had met in Paris, Lucien Millevoye, had two children together. Only the second, a girl named Iseult Lucille Germaine Millevoye, survived. In 1897, along with Yeats and Arthur Griffith, leader of (Old) Sinn Fein, she organized protests against the Queen's Jubilee. At Easter 1900, she founded Inghinidhe na hÉireann ("Daughters of Ireland"), a revolutionary women's society, to provide a home for Irish nationalist women who, like Maud herself, were considered unwelcome in male-dominated nation-alist societies. In May 1914, Inghinidhe na hÉireann merged with the newly-formed Cumann na mBan ("Women's League") a paramilitary organisation formed in April 1914 as an auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers.

The significance of

the Aisling, as is

evident from the

excerpt above, is

that the desire is

somehow tram-

pled underfoot by

its object, it is

unrequited, re-

jected, the cause is

lost ; but thereby,

mystically rejuve-

nated.

Maud Gonne: does the Aisling haunt her?

“To Lie with a Foul Witch” - William Butler Yeats and the Irish Revolution (continued)


In April 1902, she took a leading role in Cathleen ní Houlihan. She gave a powerful act-ing performance in that production, written specially by Yeats for her and about her. In the same year, Maud joined the Roman Catholic Church. Two years after their initial meeting, Yeats proposed to her, but was rejected. He was to propose to Gonne a total of three more times : in 1899, 1900 and 1901. With each proposal, she refused him because she viewed him as insufficiently nationalist and because of his unwillingness to convert to Roman Catholicism (due, at least in part, to his occult leanings, as member of the Her-metic Order of the Golden Dawn). She married Major John MacBride in Paris in 1903. The following year, their son, Sean MacBride, was born. However after the failed marriage ended in divorce her husband returned to Ireland. He was a veteran who had led the Irish Transvaal Brigade against the British in the second Boer War. MacBride was executed in 1916 along with James Connolly and other leaders of the Easter Rising. Maud remained in Paris until 1917. Yeats spent the summer of 1917 with her, and proposed, this time to Gonne's daughter, Iseult, but was rejected. In 1918 Maud was arrested in Dublin and imprisoned in England for six months. In 1921 she opposed the Treaty and advocated the Republican side. She published her autobiog-raphy in 1938, ironically titled "A Servant of the Queen", a reference to the vision she her-self had of Cathleen ní Houlihan. No poet has celebrated a woman's beauty to the extent Yeats did in his lyric verse about Maud. From his second book to Last Poems, she became the Rose, Helen of Troy, the Ledaean Body, Cathleen ní Houlihan, Pallas Athene and Deirdre. His poem "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" ends poignantly:

I have spread my dreams under your feet ; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Maud died in Clonskeagh, aged 86 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. The Abbey Theatre Much of the impetus for the Irish Literary Revival came from the work of scholars who were rediscovering the ancient sagas and Ossianic poetry and the more recent folk song tradition in Irish . One of the most significant of these was Douglas Hyde, later the first President of Ireland, whose Love Songs of Connacht was widely admired.

In 1899 Yeats, Lady Gregory, Hyde and George Moore founded the Irish Literary Theatre. Working with his unpaid-yet-independently wealthy secretary Annie Horniman (who had previously been involved in the presentation of George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man in London in 1894), and leading West End actress Florence Farr (who created the part of Aleel in Cathleen Ní Houlihan), the group established the Irish National Theatre Society. Both women were also promi-nent members of the Golden Dawn. This group of founders was able, along with J. M. Synge, to acquire property in Dublin and open the Abbey Theatre on 27th December 1904. Cathleen ní Houlihan was featured on the opening night. Yeats continued to be involved with the Abbey up to his death, both as a member of the board and a prolific playwright.

No poet has

celebrated a

woman's beauty

to the extent

Yeats did in his

lyric verse about

Maud.

Augusta Persse, Lady Gregory:

to ever hear the whisper of the past


P a g e 6 4


Constance Gore-Booth, Countess Markiewicz The light of evening, Lissadell, Great windows open to the south, Two girls in silk kimonos, both Beautiful, one a gazelle.

From William Butler Yeats' “In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz” Constance, Countess Markiewicz (4 February 1868 – 15 July 1927), was an Irish politician, revolutionary nationalist and suffragette. She was also the first woman elected to the British House of Commons, though she did not take her seat. She was born Constance Geor-gina Gore-Booth, the elder daughter of the Arctic explorer Sir Henry Gore-Booth, 5th Baronet. Unlike many Anglo-Irish landowners in Ireland, he was an enlightened landlord who administered his forty square mile estate with compassion. During the famine of 1879–80, Gore-Booth provided free food for the tenants on his estate in the County Sligo. Their father's example inspired in Constance and her younger sister, Eva a deep concern for the poor. The sisters were childhood friends of Yeats, who frequently visited the family home Lissadell House in County Sligo and were influenced by his artistic and political ideas. Eva later became involved in the labour move-ment and women's suffrage in England, although initially the future countess did not share her sister's ideals. Constance decided to train as a painter and in 1892 she went to study at the Slade in London. It was at this time that she first became politically active and joined the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Later she moved to Paris and met her future husband, Count Casimir Dunin-Markiewicz, a wealthy Polish aristocrat, who wed Constance in 1901, making her Countess Markiewicz. She gave birth to their daughter, Maeve, at her family home, Lissadell, shortly after the marriage. The child was raised by her Gore-Booth grandparents and eventually became estranged from her mother. The couple settled in Dublin in 1903 and moved in artistic and literary circles, the Count-ess gaining a reputation for herself as a landscape painter. In 1905, along with the poet John Butler Yeats, the Countess was instrumental in founding the United Artists Club, which was an attempt to bring together all those in Dublin with an artistic and literary bent. At this time, there was nothing tangible to link her to revolutionary politics, but socialising in this milieu, she met the leading figures of the Gaelic League founded by the future first President of the Irish Free State, Douglas Hyde. Although primarily concerned with the preservation of the Irish language, the league brought together many patriots and future political leaders. Markiewicz met there with revolutionary patriots Michael Davitt, John O'Leary and Maud Gonne. In 1906, Constance rented a small cottage in the countryside around Dublin; the previous tenant was the poet Padraic Colum who had left behind old copies of The Peasant and Sinn Féin. These revolutionary tracts promoted independence from British rule. The Countess read these publications and was propelled into action. In 1908, she became actively involved in nationalist politics in Ireland. She joined Sinn Féin and Inghinidhe na hÉireann ('Daughters of Erin'), founded by Maud Gonne. Markiewicz came directly to her first meeting from a function at Dublin Castle, the seat of British rule in Ireland, wearing a satin ball-gown and a diamond tiara. Naturally, the

Constance,

Countess

Markiewicz , was

an Irish politician,

revolutionary

nationalist and

suffragette. She

was also the first

woman elected to

the British House

of Commons,

though she did

not take her seat.

Constance BoothConstance BoothConstance BoothConstance Booth----Gore, Gore, Gore, Gore, Countess Markiewicz Countess Markiewicz Countess Markiewicz Countess Markiewicz : from Dublin Castle to the Aisling's side



members looked upon her with some hostility. She acted with Maud Gonne in several plays at the Abbey Theatre. In the same year, she stood for Parliament, contesting the Manchester constituency in opposition to Winston Churchill. Her sister Eva had moved there to live with her lover and fellow suffragette Esther Roper and they both cam-paigned for her. The Countess lost the election, but in the space of two years she had gone from a life oriented around art, to a life centered on politics and Irish independence in particular. In 1909, Markiewicz founded Fianna na -hÉireann ("Soldiery of Ireland", named after the mythological Fianna), a para-military organisation that instructed youths in the use of firearms. Pádraig Pearse said that the creation of Fianna na-hÉireann was as important as the creation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913. The Fianna na hÉireann were along the lines of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts, but emphasising Irish nationalism rather than the Brit-ish nationalism of the Baden-Powell Scouts. Many Fianna had graduated to the Irish Re-publican Army by the time of the War of Independence (1919–1921). During the Irish Civil War (1922–1923), the organisation was affiliated to the anti-Treaty faction of the IRA. The organisation split into factions with differing political views and ideologies over the subsequent decades, in a manner comparable to that of the various organisations claiming the title 'Irish Republican Army'. The Countess was jailed for the first time in 1911 for speaking at an Irish Republican Brotherhood demonstration attended by 30,000 people, organized to protest against George V's visit to Ireland. Markiewicz also joined James Connolly's Irish Citizen Army, a small volunteer force formed in response to the lockout of 1913, to defend the demon-strating workers from the police. As a member of the ICA Constance took part in the 1916 Easter Rising. Lieutenant Markiewicz was second in command to Michael Mallin in St. Stephen's Green. She supervised the setting up of barricades as the rising began and was in the middle of the fighting all around Stephen's Green, wounding a British sniper. Mallin and Markiewicz would hold the Green for six days, finally giving up when the Brit-ish brought them a copy of Pearse's surrender order. They were taken to Dublin Castle and the Countess was then transported to Kilmainham Jail. There, she was the only one of 70 women prisoners who was put into solitary confinement. At her court-martial she told the court, "I did what was right and I stand by it." Her conviction was assured, only her sentence was in doubt. She was sentenced to death, but General Maxwell com-muted this to life in prison on "account of the prisoner's sex." She told the court, "I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me." The Countess was released from prison in 1917 as the government in London granted a General Amnesty for those involved in the Easter Rising. It was around this time that Markiewicz, born into the Church of Ireland, converted to Catholicism. In 1918, she was jailed again for her part in anti-conscription activities. In the December 1918 general election, Markiewicz was elected as one of 73 Sinn Féin MPs. This made her the first woman elected to the British House of Commons. However, in line with Sinn Féin policy, she refused to take her seat. Revitalized after the Rising and led by Countess Markiewicz, Cumann na mBan took a leading role in popularising the memory of the 1916 leaders, and canvassing for Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election, in which Countess Markiewicz was elected Teachta Dála. Jailed at the time, she became the Minister for Labour of the Irish Free State from 1919 to 1922. Holding cabinet rank from April 1919, she became the first Irish female

The Countess was

jailed for the first

time in 1911 for

speaking at an

Irish Republican

Brotherhood

demonstration

attended by

30,000 people,

organized to pro-

test against

George V's visit to

Ireland.


P a g e 6 6


Cabinet Minister, the only one in Irish history until 1979. She was re-elected to the Sec-ond Dáil in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland elections of 1921, where she was joined by fellow Cumann na mBan members Mary MacSwiney, Dr. Ada English and Kathleen Clarke as Teachtaí Dála. At a convention called to discuss the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, 419 Cumann na mBan members voted against as opposed to 63 in favour. In the ensuing Civil War, its members supported the anti-Treaty Republican forces. Many of its members were imprisoned by the forces of the Free State. Cumann na mBan continued to exist after the Treaty, forming (alongside Sinn Féin, the Irish Re-publican Army, Fianna Éireann and other groups) part of the Irish republican milieu. The govern-ment of the Irish Free State banned the organisation in January 1923. Its membership strength was adversely affected by the many splits in Irish republicanism, with sections of the membership resigning to join Fianna Fáil, Clann na Poblachta and other parties. Markiewicz left government in January 1922 along with Éamon de Valera and others in opposition to the Treaty. She fought actively for the Republican cause in the Civil War. She was not elected in the general election for the Third Dail of 1922 but was returned in the 1923 Fourth Dail elections, for the Dublin South constituency. In common with other Republican candidates, she did not take her seat. However her staunch republican views led her to being sent to jail again. In prison, she and 92 other female prisoners went on hunger strike. Within a month, the Countess was released. She joined Fianna Fáil on its foundation in 1926, chairing the inaugural meeting of the new party in the La Scala Theatre. In the June 1927 election, she was re-elected to the Fifth Dáil as a candidate for the new party, which was pledged to return to Dáil Éireann, but died only five weeks later, before taking her seat. She died at the age of 59, on 15 July 1927. Her estranged husband, daughter and step-son were by her side. She was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, Ireland. Éamon de Valera, the Fianna Fáil leader, gave the funeral oration. Yeats and the Hermetic Orders Yeats had a life-long interest in mysticism, spiritualism, occultism and astrology. He read extensively on these subjects, being especially impressed and influenced by the writings of Swedenborg. In 1885, he and friends formed the Dublin Hermetic Order. This society held its first meeting on 16 June, with Yeats in the chair. The same year, the Dublin The-osophical lodge was opened with the involvement of Brahmin Mohini Chatterjee. Yeats attended his first séance the following year. Yeats' mystical inclinations, informed by the writings of Swedenborg and Hindu religion (Yeats translated The Ten Principal Upanishads, published in 1938, with Shri Purohit Swami), theosophical beliefs and the occult, formed much of the basis of his late poetry, which some critics attacked as lacking intellectual or philosophical insights, though he himself wrote in 1892, 'If I had not made magic my constant study I could not have writ-ten a single word of my Blake book, nor would The Countess Kathleen ever have come to exist. The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.'"

Yeats' mystical

inclinations,

informed by the

writings of Swe-

denborg and

Hindu religion,

theosophical

beliefs and the

occult, formed

much of the

basis of his late

poetry

Members of the Cumann na mBan: the Aisling's daughters



Yeats was admitted into the Golden Dawn in March 1890, taking the name Festina Lente, but after attaining Adeptus Minor, he changed it to Daemon Est Deus Inversus (D.E.D.I.) translated as Devil is God inverted, this name being taken from the writings of Madame Blavatsky, in which she discussed that "...even that divine Homogeneity must contain in itself the essence of both good and evil." He made notes for an Irish mystical order in 1898/9 - the “Castle of Heros”. His symbolic correspondences for the Four Talismans were linked to William Blake’s notions of the Zoas. Mastery of the four (fire/spear = passion, air/sword = intellect, water/cup = imagi-nation, earth/stone = vision) gave access to the fifth, harmony/Jerusalem. Yeats was an active recruiter for the Golden Dawn's Isis-Urania temple, bringing in George Pollexfen (his uncle) and Florence Farr. He remained in London for much of the period of the Irish Revolution (1919-21), working on his Adeptus Minor and Adeptus Ma-jor degrees. He eventually left the Golden Dawn when it became embroiled in in-fighting and power struggles. The final straw came in a stand-off with Aleister Crowley. In his hermetic thinking, Yeats continually made the link with politics: from Rosa Al-chemica, “the magician or artist could call when he would, as if they were demons out of the mind of the ignoble, a mood, a divinity, first descending like a faint sigh into men’s minds and then changing their thoughts and their actions until empires moved their bor-ders, as though they were but drifts of leaves”. He wrote to Florence Farr in 1899, “whatever we build in the imagination will accomplish itself in the circumstance of our lives” – a secret pamphlet he wrote for the Golden Dawn has the same tenor: ‘the central principle of all the Magic of power is that everything we formulate in the imagination realises itself in the circumstances of life, acting, either through our own souls, or through the spirits of nature” – ‘Is the Order of the RR&AC to Remain a Magical Order?’ London, privately printed, 1902. Yeats and the Irish revolution Yeats chose to “never go for the scenery of a poem to any country but (his) own” when at the age of twenty he met old John O’Leary, the Fenian veteran, who returned to Dub-lin from a 20 years enforced exile in Van Diemen’s Land. He encouraged his disciples (Yeats, Katherine Tynan, Douglas Hyde, etc) to borrow his many books on Irish subjects and he talked to them of the Young Ireland poet-revolutionaries of forty years before, because he had known them personally. Yeats' direct engagement with politics can be seen in the poem September 1913, with its well-known refrain "Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, it's with O'Leary in the grave." This poem is an attack on the Dublin employers who were involved in the famous 1913

lockout of workers who supported James Larkin's at-tempts to organise the Irish labour movement. How-ever the full quote reveals the link with the Aisling: “was it for this that the wild geese spread, the grey wing upon every tide; for this that all that blood was shed, for this Edward Fitzgerald died, and Robert Emmett and Wolfe Tone, all that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, it’s with O’Leary in the grave.” Here perhaps we can sense how Yeats would equate the “political” outcome of an invokation of the Aisling as “lying with the Foul Witch”, something that would re-surface with the split over the Treaty. In Easter 1916, with its equally famous refrain "All changed, changed

We Irish, born

into that an-

cient sect, but

thrown upon

this filthy mod-

ern tide, and by

its formless

spawning fury

wrecked, climb

to our proper

dark...

Banner of the 1916 Insurrection: heroic iconography of the fallen

heroes


P a g e 6 8


utterly:/A terrible beauty is born", the same echo of the Aisling surfaces: “And what if ex-cess of love bewildered them till they died?” However, this same poem echoes Yeats’ Nietzschean desire for action, as expressed through mythological, esoteric symbolism: “When Pearse summoned Cuchulainn to his side, what stalked through the Post Office? What intellect, what calculation, number, measurement, replied? We Irish, born into that ancient sect, but thrown upon this filthy modern tide, and by its formless spawning fury wrecked, climb to our proper dark, that we may trace the lineaments of a plummet-measured face”. This again takes us back to our Foul Witch, this “filthy modern tide”. From another letter to Florence Farr, in 1907: “I at last find that I can move people by power, not merely by “charm” or “speaking beauti-fully”. He began reading Nietzsche in the summer of 1902. “Nietzsche the strong en-chanter, he completes Blake and has the same roots, the destructiveness of sexual pas-sion, its power to upheave the world”. Yeats defines the Hero thus: “I find my peace by pitting my sole nature against something and the greater the fighting, the greater my self-knowledge”. He was appointed to the first Irish Senate, Seanad Éireann in 1922 and re-appointed in 1925. One of his main achievements as a Senator was to chair the coinage committee that was charged with selecting a set of designs for the first currency of the Irish Free State. During his time as a senator Yeats warned his colleagues "If you show that this country, southern Ireland, is going to be governed by Roman Catholic ideas and by Catholic ideas alone, you will never get the North … You will put a wedge in the midst of this nation". After suffering from ill health for a number of years, Yeats died in Menton, France on 28 January 1939, aged 73. The last poem he wrote was the Arthurian-themed The Black Tower. He was finally buried at Drumcliffe, County Sligo in September, 1948. His epitaph is the final line from one of his last poems, Under Ben Bulben : "Cast a cold eye on life, on death; horseman, pass by!" Yeats said, "the place that has really influenced my life most is Sligo." Some exegesis of the Revolutionary Aisling of Ireland Irish Republicanism is an ideology based on the Irish nationalist belief that all of Ireland should be a single independent republic, whether as a unitary state, a federal state or as a confederal arrangement. In Irish history and politics, it is com-mon to draw a distinction between nationalism and republicanism. The term nationalism is used for any mani-festation of national sentiment, includ-ing cultural manifestations, for move-ments demanding autonomy from Britain but not complete independ-ence; and sometimes for secessionist movements committed to constitu-tional methods. The term republican-ism denotes movements demanding complete independence under a re-publican government. It is frequently associated with a willingness to use force to achieve political goals (‘Physical Force’ repub-licanism), and often, but not always, with a secular or non-sectarian outlook, whereas

"If you show that

this country,

southern Ireland,

is going to be gov-

erned by Roman

Catholic ideas and

by Catholic ideas

alone, you will

never get the

North … You will

put a wedge in the

midst of this na-

tion".

Easter 1916 postage stamp: popularised iconography of the failed insurrection



Irish nationalism is almost universally associated with Catholicism. The United Irishmen were the first group to advocate an independent Irish republic. With military aid from the republican government in France, they organized the failed

Irish Rebellion of 1798. Theobald Wolfe Tone famously summarised then the in-clusive agenda of republicanism as the uniting of Catholic, Protestant and Dis-senter, “the men of no property”. There-after, republicanism was to play a central part in the development of Irish national-ism. Nationalist rebellions against British rule in 1848 (by the Young Irelanders) and 1865 and 1867 (by the Irish Republi-can Brotherhood) were followed by harsh reprisals by British forces. In 1916 the Easter Rising was launched in Dublin against British rule. Even though the rebellion failed and most of its leaders were executed by the British, it was to be a turning point in history, lead-ing to the end of British rule in most of

Ireland. The conscious sacrifice of its leaders “rejuvenated” Caitlin ni Houlihan once more, as expressed by Pádraig Pearse its leader. From 1919-1921 the newly-organized guerrilla army, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) led by Michael Collins, fought against British forces. In 1921 the British government, led by David Lloyd George, negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty with Collins and the other republi-can leaders, ending the war. Though many across the country were unhappy with the Treaty (since, during the Anglo-Irish war, the IRA had fought for independence for all Ireland and for a republic, not for a partitioned dominion under the British crown), a majority of republicans were satisfied that the Treaty was the best that could be achieved at the time. However, a substantial minority opposed it. Dáil Éireann, the revolutionary Irish parliament, voted by 64 votes to 57 to ratify it, the majority believing that the treaty created a new base from which to move forward. Éamon de Valera, who had served as President of the Irish Republic dur-ing the war, refused to accept the decision of the Dáil and led the opponents of the treaty out of the House. The IRA itself split between pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty elements, with the former forming the nucleus of the new National Army. Michael Collins became Commander-in-Chief of the National Army. Shortly afterwards, some dissidents, apparently without the authorisation of the anti-Treaty IRA Army Execu-tive, occupied the Four Courts in Dublin and kidnapped a pro-Treaty general. The gov-ernment, responding to this provocation and to intensified British pressure following the assassination by an IRA unit in London of Sir Henry Wilson (CIC, Imperial General Staff), ordered the regular army to take the Four Courts, thereby beginning the Irish Civil War. By May 1923, the war (which had claimed more lives than the War of Independence) had ended in the defeat of the Irregulars. However, the harsh measures adopted by both sides, including assassinations of politicians by the Republicans and executions and atroci-ties by the Free State side, left a bitter legacy in Irish politics until today. The sacrifice of the anti-Treaty republicans “rejuvenated” the Aisling.

The harsh meas-

ures adopted by

both sides, includ-

ing assassinations

of politicians by

the Republicans

and executions

and atrocities by

the Free State

side, left a bitter

legacy in Irish

politics until to-

day.

The Provisional Government of 1916: only Éamon de Valera would escape the firing

squad


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Irish republican legitimism is thus a term that may be used to describe a current within Irish republicanism that denies the legitimacy of the political entities of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and argues that the Irish Republic continues to exist. The Aisling is here recognisable in this “vision” of the ideal Republic as proclaimed in 1916, and rejuvenated in 1921 and at every “split” in the Republican organisations thereafter, and this legitimism can be identified with the restoration of the Pretender linked to the Aisling in earlier times. These claims are rejected by the vast majority of the Irish people, expressed by virtue of their participation in elections to Dáil Éireann and rejection of abstentionist candidates. Senator Martin Mansergh, a prominent figure in Fianna Fail, summed up these opinions when he described as "preposterous nonsense" the "concoction of a sort of pseudo-apostolic succession from Pearse (who openly and successfully invoked the Aisling by the supreme sacrifice) to the Second Dáil (where the Aisling was invoked by the anti-Treaty party) to the IRA anti-Treaty Executive (who claimed absolute right to the invocation from the rump of the Second Dail) to the Sinn Fein party (as refounded in the 1960s) and the small irredentist movement since claiming that it, not the elected government of the Re-public, is the true government of Ireland". The IRA leadership was indeed deeply divided over the decision by the Second Dáil to ratify the Treaty. Despite the fact that Michael Collins — the de-facto leader of the IRA — had negotiated the Treaty, many IRA officers were against it. Of the General Headquar-ters (GHQ) staff, nine members were in favour of the Treaty while four opposed it. Many of the IRA rank-and-file were against the Treaty and in January-June 1922, their discon-tent developed into open defiance of the elected civilian Provisional government of Ireland. Anti-treaty historian Dorothy Macardle has claimed that 70 to 80 per cent of the IRA was against the Treaty. Although she cannot be regarded as a particularly neutral source, Free State General Richard Mulcahy estimated at the outbreak of the Civil War that the anti-treaty IRA members outnumbered the pro-treaty ones by over 2-1. The anti-Treaty side argued that the IRA's allegiance was to the Dáil of the Irish Republic as mandated in 1918, and the decision of the Dáil to accept the Treaty meant that the IRA no longer owed that body its allegiance. They called for the IRA to withdraw from the authority of the Dáil and to entrust the IRA Executive with control over the army. On 16 Janu-ary 1922, the first IRA division – the 2nd Southern Division led by Ernie O'Malley – repudiated the authority of the GHQ. A month later, on 18th February, Liam Forde, O/C of the IRA Mid-Limerick Bri-gade, issued a proclamation stating that: "We no longer recognise the authority of the present head of the army, and re-

Irish republican

legitimism is a term

that may be used to

describe a current

within Irish republi-

canism that denies

the legitimacy of

the political entities

of the Republic of

Ireland and North-

ern Ireland and

argues that the

Irish Republic con-

tinues to exist.

Proclamation of the Irish Republic: the dead generations ride in from the Foggy Dew



new our allegiance to the existing Irish Republic". That is, the “vision” (Aisling) of the Re-public invoked by Pearse. On 22nd March, Rory O'Connor held what was to become an infamous press conference and declared that the IRA would no longer obey the Dáil as it had violated its oath to up-hold the Irish Republic. He went on to say that "we repudiate the Dáil … We will set up an Executive which will issue orders to the IRA all over the country." In reply to the question on whether this meant they intended to create a military dictatorship, O’Connor said: "You can take it that way if you like." The pro-treaty IRA soon became the nucleus of the new (regular) Irish National Army cre-ated by Collins and Mulcahy. British pressure – Winston Churchill wrote to Michael Collins, warning him that: "An adverse decision by the convention of the Irish Republican Army (so called) would, however, be a very grave event at the present juncture. I pre-sume you are quite sure there is no danger of this" – and tensions between the pro- and anti-Treaty factions of the IRA, led to the civil war, ending in the defeat of the anti-Treaty faction. Roughly 7,000 to 8,000 of the Free State's National Army were former IRA Volun-teers. On the other side, perhaps 15,000 men fought on the anti-Treaty side. On May 24th, 1923 Frank Aiken, the (anti-treaty) IRA chief-of-staff, called a cease-fire. Many left political activity altogether, but a minority continued to insist that the new Irish Free State, created by the "illegitimate" Treaty, was thus an illegitimate state. They asserted that their "IRA Army Executive" was the real government of a still-existing Irish Republic (the “Aisling”). The IRA of the Civil War and subsequent organisations that have used the name claim lineage from that group. Thus, according to ‘Physical Force’ Irish republican theory, the two Irish governmental entities which have existed in Ireland since 1922, Northern Ireland and the state variously known at different times as the Irish Free State and the Republic of Ireland, were illegiti-mate, as they had been imposed by the British at the time of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, in defiance of the last all-Ireland election in 1918, when the majority had voted for full inde-pendence. The real Irish state was the revolutionary Irish Republic declared in 1919 and which, according to republican theory, was still in existence. Accordingly, the modern day Irish Republican Army is merely the continuation of the original Irish Republican Army which served as the army of the Irish Republic during the Irish War of Independ-ence. While at the time of the Treaty and the subsequent Civil War the majority of the IRA held this position, by the 1930s most republicans had accepted the Free State and were will-ing to work within it – recognising the National Army as the state's armed force. How-ever, a minority of republicans argued that the army of the Republic (of Caitlin ni Houli-han) was still the pre-1969 Irish Republican Army, the lineal descendant of the defeated faction in the Irish Civil War. Moreover, the IRA Army Council was the legitimate govern-ment of Ireland until the Irish Republic could be re-established, that is, until the Aisling could be invoked once more for the final overthrow of the Foul Witch. The Shadowy Waters ; Yeats, the Aisling and the Foul Witch We have seen how Yeats’ romantic involvement with two women, major figures of the Irish Revolution and both later opposed to the Treaty, seems to reflect the conscious invo-cation of the Aisling, or Vision, of Ireland, in its tragic sense of rejuvenation by sacrifice. His first major piece of theatre also consciously invokes this vision ; how striking then, that he seems to abandon the vision at its anti-Treaty rejuvenation, embracing the Foul Witch by “collaborating” with the Free State. His poem of that name, recited at the beginning

Yeats’ romantic

involvement with

two women, ma-

jor figures of the

Irish Revolution

and both later

opposed to the

Treaty, seems to

reflect the con-

scious invocation

of the Aisling, or

Vision, of Ireland.


P a g e 7 2


of this article, gives an explanation: this is inevitable, given both the human state in Malkuth, and the despairing nature of the Aisling – witness the four proposals of mar-riage to Maud Gonne, and the one to her daughter. And we must not ignore the fact that at the time of the Revolution, he was working through his Adeptus Minor and Adep-tus Major grades, where he would be faced with his own personal choices in the per-spective of the Second Order. The Countess Kathleen, or the Foul Witch? His poetry on these themes suffers a sharp break in 1917, and as his “ladies” pass into Catholicism and the service of the Vision, he himself draws away. Éamon de Valera, his arch-enemy, of Iberian stock, invoked other, earthier, more primeval egregores, in his vast cloak whipped by the wind at his peat-fired torchlit meetings. “Dev” often said that to know the deepest aspirations of the Irish people, he had but to look in his own heart. Yeats would say that this would be but the whispering of the Foul Witch, whereas the foreknowledge of failure would assure the eternity of their “true” aspirations, the Vision of the Woman of the Sky, and her Pretender. The Publication of Yeats’ Poetical and Mythological Work:

* 1889 — The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems * 1891 — Representative Irish Tales * 1892 — Irish Faerie Tales * 1892 — The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics * 1892 — The Lake Isle of Innisfree * 1893 — The Celtic Twilight * 1894 — The Land of Heart's Desire * 1895 — Poems * 1897 — The Secret Rose * 1899 — The Wind Among the Reeds * 1899 — The Song of The Old Mother * 1900 — The Shadowy Waters * 1902 — Cathleen ni Houlihan * 1903 — Ideas of Good and Evil * 1903 — In the Seven Woods * 1904 — The King's Threshold * 1907 — Discoveries * 1910 — The Green Helmet and Other Poems * 1913 — Poems Written in Discouragement * 1916 — Reveries Over Childhood and Youth * 1916 — Easter 1916 * 1917 — The Wild Swans at Coole * 1926 — Autobiographies of William Butler Yeats * 1928 — The Tower * 1929 — The Winding Stair

Select Bibliography 1. Yeats Brown, Terence (2001). "The Life of W. B. Yeats". Ellmann, Richard (1978). Yeats: The Man and the Masks. Foster, R. F. (1996). W. B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. I: The Apprentice Mage. Foster, R. F. (2003). W. B. Yeats: A Life,Vol. II: The Arch-Poet 1915-1939. Igoe, Vivien (1994). A Literary Guide to Dublin. Jeffares, A Norman (1989). W B Yeats: A New Biography. King, Francis (1989). Modern Ritual Magic: The Rise of Western Occultism.

At the time of the

Revolution, Yeats

was working

through his Adep-

tus Minor and

Adeptus Major

grades, where he

would be faced

with his own per-

sonal choices in the

perspective of the

Second Order. The

Countess Kathleen,

or the Foul Witch?



2. The Irish Revolution Seamus Fox, Chronology of Irish History 1919-1923 Éamon de Valera, entry on www.archontology.org The World at War - Ireland Timeline 1918-1948 Alvin Jackson, Home Rule: An Irish History 1800—2000 (2004) Michael Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party 1916—1923 (1999) Tim Pat Coogan, The Troubles (1995, 1996) Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins (1990) Brian Feeney, Sinn Féin: A Hundred Turbulent Years (2003) Roy Foster, Ireland 1660-1972 F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine Brian Maye, Arthur Griffith Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic (1968) Sean O'Callaghan, The Informer (1999) Patrick Sarsfield, S. O'Hegarty & Tom Garvin, The Victory of Sinn Féin : How It Won It & How It Used It (1999) Peter Taylor, Behind the Mask: The IRA & Sinn Féin Robert Kee, The Green Flag: A History of Irish Nationalism (1972–2000) Henry Patterson, The Politics of Illusion: Republicanism and Socialism in Modern Ireland (1989) C. Younger, Ireland's Civil War (1968) Mike Milotte, Communism in Modern Ireland: The Pursuit of the Workers' Republic since 1916 (1984) Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins (1990) Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence Ernie O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound M. E. Collins, Ireland 1868-1966 Meda Ryan, The Real Chief : Liam Lynch (2005) Tom Barry, Guerrilla Days in Ireland T. Ryle Dwyer, The Squad and the intelligence operations of Michael Collins Paddy Bryne, Memoirs of the Republican Congress Fearghal McGarry, Irish Politics and the Spanish Civil War (1999) Séan Cronin, Frank Ryan : The Search for The Republic (1980) Bob Doyle, Brigadista: An Irishman's Fight Against Fascism (2006) Adrian Hoar, In Green and Red: The Lives of Frank Ryan (2004) Eoghan Ó Duinnín, La Niña Bonita agus an Róisín Dubh (1986) Michael O'Riordan, Connolly Column: The story of the Irishmen who fought for the Span-ish Republic 1936-1939 (2005) Maryann Gialanella V, Portrait of a Revolutionary. General Richard Mulcahy and the Founding of the Irish Free State (1992) Paul V. Walsh, The Irish Civil War, 1922-1923 Henry Boylan, A Dictionary of Irish Biography (1998) Brian Hanley, The IRA: 1926-36 (2002) Seán MacBride That Day's Struggle. A Memoir, ed. Caitríona Lawlor (2005) J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA (1997) Ed Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA (2003) T. Ryle Dwyer, The Squad and the Intelligence Operations of Michael Collins

Copyright © 2007 Ian Cowburn

The foreknow-

ledge of failure

would assure

the eternity of

their “true” aspi-

rations, the Vi-

sion of the

Woman of the

Sky, and her

Pretender.


to lie with a foul witch

Documents

e t i c v i r t u e

s s u e

aisling yeats

yeats activities

caitlin ni houlihan

caitln n houlihan

irish revolutions long

caitlin ni houlihan