Making Ireland’s Poetry
~W.B.Yeats
The walls were cold and gray, enclosing, surrounding, confining. The doors were steel bars, colder still in the damp, dank underbelly of the prison. Every so often, he could hear muffled sounds or cries… more from the occasional visitor than the men of course. One does not become a martyr to cry, does one? The hours were terribly long, longer than they should have been for a man with only a few of them left to live. They gave William time to reflect, and William was certain that’s exactly why they gave them. Time to regret, time to deny, time to feel ashamed, time to denounce the cause at the tear-stained face of his mother. This was all lost of William. He was still glad, still proud, and still hated. They killed the traditional way of life. They killed the Irishman’s freedom. They killed his brother.
William was never as passionate as his brother, and they both had known it. Sure he had ambitions and desires. But most were interests, nothing more. There was the teaching, molding younger, impressionable minds. There was the sculpting, to work hands over a lump of gray and turn it into a gorgeous form. There was the theater, and the creativity, and the stage-managing. There was his late father’s studio business. There was the old Celtic influence driving him to dress up and do a jig after a few good drinks at the festivals. Maybe it was that very thing that drove his brother’s passions. The charming, magical notes of old Ireland’s Uilleann pipe melodies. The hard work and generosity of generations before them, the real Irish, plowing the fields for potatoes each year without fail, digging hands into the wool of sheep to keep them warm, lying on the bright green grass with a lass, thatching roves and filling the black peat pile for a full dinner of broth and mutton. The life of true sacrifice, of starving and death and working for life, not popping a pastry and paying for a lass to ride the wheel. The old ways were the best, and everyone knew it. The writer James Joyce knew it. The poet W.B. Yeats knew it. “Old William Bloody Butler Yeats” Padraig was fond of calling him, even as standing at the encore at a theater production. Yeats was a man who could enchant a reader and capture the ways of old Ireland like no other. With love and truth and reality of emotions. But Padraig always said Yeats cared nothing for a new Ireland, the way Ireland was meant to be. The Society of United Irishman had known it back in 1798… but it had not been right then—not the right time. And this time was. Padraig and Connolly and Clarke and the others were making it right. And the rest of Ireland… they would have to listen and feel it this time.
But it was all about passions. Padraig’s passions: to edit a bilingual paper, to found a bilingual secondary school, and to start a revolution. About ten years ago he’d met the first, a handful of years ago had seen the second, with academies for boys and also one for girls. And soon, very soon, the third would be met. These were Padraig’s passions. And William would have followed his big brother’s passions anywhere without question.
* * *
“Oi Little Man!” Padraig slapped his shoulder blade roughly as he stole the neighboring barstool. Taking a swig of Guinness from William’s pint without needing to ask. He wiped his grin clean with a sleeve caked in dirt. “How are you?”
“Fine,
fine. Enjoying a little break,” he caught the familiar gleam in his brother’s
eye. “But tell me your news?”
Padraig’s grin widened
considerably, taking over the whole of his freckled face, and his voice dropped
quieter than a whisper. “Aye… talked to J.C. and S.MD… soon, Little Man…” he
dipped a finger in his drink and made the motion of a cross over his heart,
then licked his finger as if to remove evidence. “We will rise, Willie. In
glorious revolution. We will rise as He did.”
William picked up his mug, mouthing the words, “To freedom,” in the Gaelic. Padraig lifted his drink immediately clanking them together in celebration. Then the two men took hearty gulps.
As they drank, two women walked by, one clicking her tongue and shaking her head in disapproval. “Fenians,” she remarked with a snobbish air.
“Only Fenians would drink on a holy day during Lent,” the other agreed in thick accent, looking back at them as they passed.
Padraig shot to his feet, slamming his drink down onto the counter top, making both women jump and hurry quickly towards the door. “A strong, prosperous Ireland is a free Ireland! Freedom for all her children!”
The door slammed behind the women on their way out.
Padraig took another gulp of drink as the barkeep hurried over, giving them stern looks. “More o’ that talk and I’d ask you to leave, understand?”
Padraig nodded. He and Connolly had been unruly there more than once to know the mentality of Dubliners. He threw a few coins on the counter and finished his drink with a last gulp. “We were just leavin’ anyhow.” He grabbed Willie by the arm to nudge him off his seat and they slipped out of the pub and into the chilled April night air.
William walked a step behind out of habit. His brother and Connolly usually walked together in front, inseparable. But even with only his brother, he always walked behind. Padraig was the elder… he was the figurehead… William preferred to walk back not by necessity but in respect.
Padraig was still emotional over the altercation in the pub. “We fight for their suffrage, too. Equal rights for all religions and classes and happiness for Ireland…” he mused as his words mixed with the spirits.
William nodded. “They’ll understand soon enough.” He was grinning, though. His brother… such a hero, such a champion. Padraig H. Pearse was a rebel, a fighter, and the most noble and valiant of all social revolutionaries and never made an apology to anyone for being so.
“Aye, they will, Little Man. When all our ideals are forced into the public light and they see what the revolution is all about… what life in Ireland new and old is all about.” Slapping his brother on the back. “Let’s get home fer Holy Saturday dinner before Mother worries too much over us.”
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale
unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the sky
With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten
stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side by side,
And all their eyes still foxed, hoping to find once
more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery of the bestial floor.
~W.B. Yeats
“Dinner was spectacular as usual!” Padraig said, sitting back and patting his stomach with satisfaction. “You make it better every year, Mother.”
The woman at the head of the table sighed and removed her sadness from her reply. “Your father used to say that. Thank you. I wish you boys had been here to see the bird before it was cooked. Instead of out drinking on a holy day.”
“It truly was,” their sister put in, collecting the empty platter and dishes and walking them to the other room.
Padraig sighed. “I hold the Lord in my heart as every many should. But He has no say in when I can or cannot relax with my brother.”
Around a forkful of rhubarb tart, “Some say both He and the government do have that say.”
With a snort, “And some say if we had our own government rather than some stale, bias monarchy across the channel it would not.”
William grinned and finished off his desert. This was why he loved his brother. As strong and loyal to the cause as the bodyguard of Owen Roe and Phelim O'Neil.
The door suddenly burst open, and Sean MacDiarmada hobbled in quickly, cane in hand as always. He was a strikingly handsome man, though short in stature, quiet, and unassuming. He was also one of the most trusted leaders of the IRB. “Couldn’t… find… Tommy…” he panted, leaning in the door jam for support.
Padraig gently eased the man to a chair, rubbing his back softly in comfort. His eyes looked up at William, dark and concerned, “Willie, fetch some o’ the dark stuff for him. ‘Twill calm his nerves.”
Sean, regaining his breath, shook his head. “Don’t bother with me… My greatest pardons My Lady Pearse…” he said, looking up at they lads’ mother as he wheezed and panted.
Mrs.Pearse, naturally full of the spirit of Irish hospitality, smiled kindly. “My home is yours, good lad. I’ll go put a spot of tea on the stove.” She wasn’t sure they had tea, but she knew the boys did not want her to have to hear this.
As soon as she was gone, Sean related, “I have news about MacNeil.”
Padraig’s eyes widened in hope. “He was convinced then?”
Shaking his head some more, “Nay, he’s against us and printing something in the Sunday Independent. He has messengers running all over Ireland to spread the word. We’re… we’re doomed, Padraig.”
“No!” The elder brother took a step back, refusing to believe it. “Nay, we’re not! They have no way of knowing it all... we’ll not practice tomorrow… that will throw them off… you say you couldn’t find Clarke?” Sean MacDiarmada and Thomas Clarke were more inseparable than Padraig and Connolly… and more brotherly than Padraig and William.
“Not home or at the store or pub. We need—“
“—a meeting, aye,” Padraig finished for him. “You sit tight. We’ll assemble them. Willie?”
“Yes?” William was shrugging on his coat already. “I’ll get Lynch and Ceannt. And James and Plunkett. And…” And with that, William was already out the door.
Mrs.Pearse returned with a pot of tea. She sat back down at her table, looking Padraig straight in the eyes. “I want you to promise me two things, Son.”
Sean busied himself pouring tea and glancing out the window in anticipation.
“First, I want you to write me a poem about all of this, as if I were the one talking.”
Padraig nodded. He skills could go to no more noble a deed.
She seemed softer at this, “And second, take care of your little brother. Family roots are deep and without your father here, I want him looked after. Through it all.”
Padraig nodded again. “They will be done, Mother.” He wanted to explain that no matter what happened, he might not be able to protect Willie from everything, nor himself. He was knowingly sending men and boys to their deaths, and they were following him willingly, Willie the most loyal of all. When this was all over, there might be nothing left of the Brothers Pearse, leaving his mother with no sons and no husband, only a memory of the cause they had died for… and a poem. He wanted to explain, to apologize… but he could not break her heart with his words, and he could not apologize for what he was most proud of in life. And, as he stared into her deep brown eyes, he realized that she already understood quite completely.
I do not grudge them; Lord,
I do not grudge
My two strong sons that I have seen go out
To break their strength and die, they and a few,
In bloody protest for a glorious thing,
They shall be spoken of amoung their people,
The generation shall remember them,
And call them Blessed:
But I will speak their names to my own heart
In the long nights;
The little names that were familiar once
Round my dead hearth.
Lord, thou art hard on mothers;
We suffer in their coming and their going;
And tho' I grudge them not, I weary, weary
Of the long sorrow - And yet I have my joy;
My sons were faithful, and they fought.
~Padraig
Pearse
“Connolly, Clarke and Ceannt couldn’t be reached,” Sean reported, counting heads. “Is it worth a meetin’ then?”
“We cannot do anythin’ wi’out James,” Padraig said, running fingers through his hair in thought.
“We cannot sit here while our men go down, either,” Plunkett put in reasonably.
Padraig pounded his fist on the table in anger. “We’re not going down. Damn MacNeil! We won’t hold the practices tomorrow, but we’re makin’ Ireland’s revolution all the same. We’ve drafted the poetry, and we cannot go about stopping the presses now!”
“Monday,” William piped up, in defense of the statement. “We’ll do it Monday then.”
The Pearse’s main room was quiet for a moment, before Sean nodded. “That’s reasonable. We meet tomorrow to draw up the terms?”
A fair number of the group members were excellent writers of columns, or editors. Though in William’s eyes, the best was certainly his brother. He’d heard Padraig and Connolly brainstorming for the IRB terms, and while they were nearly identical in view, it was Padraig who was able to speak them so passionately and eloquently.
“Tomorrow at 8 in the morn then,” it was decided. The group disbanded two at a time as was much more safe than all at once.
When they were all gone, with Sean brining up the rear slowly but steadily, William turned to his brother with a smile. “Eireann go bragh.”
A smile broke out on Padraig’s face and he took his brother in a rough headlock and hug. Willie wiggled out, laughing and punching him back in play. The two lads fell to the floor in playful wrestling.
Excerpt
from:
This
man had kept a school
Was
coming into his force;
He
might have won fame in the end,
So
sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
~W.B.
Yeats
William had always been fond of Clarke’s store, which served as the center of the IRB organization. It the strong smell of tobacco hung in the air and the ever-constant whir of presses publishing anti-English news was as comforting as his mother’s lullabies; they also served to drown out the group’s discussions. They met in the back room now with Thomas Clarke writing furiously as Padraig and Connolly shouted out ides, phrases, and corrections as if they were of the same mind. Others would pipe in a word or two, but most of the time chatted in Gaelic or jotted down notes. William was named a General and was assigned to the General Post Office as most of the others were, and William spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon working the plans over and over in his mind so he would be able to act from instinct the next day.
It was late in the evening when Padraig cried out, “We have it then!” He snatched the newest piece of paper from Clarke’s sore, tired hands. “The final proclamation!” A cheer erupted within the small room, and William felt a sense of pride rush over them all. “These words will restore true Ireland,” he said, kissing the paper dearly.
When the clapping died down, the tone again grew serious.
Connolly spoke softly, with pride in his voice. “We’re to be slaughtered for Ireland’s sake.”
Silence.
“You realize,” Padraig Pearse nodded in agreement, “That we’re all going to die. We’ll be butchered and torn and we’ll die before everything has barely begun.”
Silence.
It was William who offered something of hope. He spoke, not quite the speaker his brother was, with a sweaty palm at the back of his neck. “While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
Padraig grinned, answering the Yeats with a little paraphrased Joyce, “There are no friends like the old friends… and no ways like the old ways.”
William played off it with words of his brother. “While Ireland holds these graves Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”
When finished, there was immediate, overwhelming applause and cheers of, “Brothers Pearse! Brothers Pearse! Brothers Pearse!” which made William glow with pride and fed Padraig’s passions all the further.
“We will die like martyrs!” came one cry.
“Like soldiers!” came another.
“Like sons of green!” came yet another.
“Like Irishmen!” came the definitive, undisputed cry.
Pearse finished, smiling, licking his lips. Connolly reached over and shook his hand quite vigorously, looking happier than William ever remembered seeing the man. But from the crowd there was no great burst of applause, no cheers, no ‘Erin Go Bragh!’. There were however, snickers, laughs, groans, and disinterested faces. A handful of Padraig’s students were distributing copies to the crowd, which was already beginning to disperse. Sean MacDiermada snorted at the response and headed into the G.P.O. with a rifle in one hand and his cane in the other. One by one, they broke up with their men to respective stations. William waited to follow Padraig in, not wanting to lose sight of him for too long in the commotion. They were brothers after all.
The
poet, Stephen McKenna, who listened to Pearse read these words, recorded later
that he felt sad for him, for the response from the crowd was chilling.
The cold of the stone post office building roof froze against William’s chest where he lied for a good five hours straight. Every moment of the next several days seemed to take forever through their hunger, thirst and pain. But it also ran by faster than William could keep track of it. The first day was peaceful, as the English made no effort to challenge their position, and their tricolour freedom flags flew for all to see. But soon, the English began to fight back, with firepower. It was man against man, and no matter how strong they built their barricades, the English were more skilled, more trained, and fought their way through.
“Just as Cú Chulainn!”
“We’re low on supplies—we only had enough for a day.”
“They’re torching the south side now.”
“Equal rights for all children of Ireland!”
“Where’s the aid we sent for?”
“A death is a death for the cause.”
“They shot Connolly again—“
“—give me a second grunt and I’ll be up again.”
“Willie! Hold them off on 16!”
William saw Sean limping into the arms of Clarke. He pushed the bolt back into the rifle and took aim. He watched one of his brother’s former student’s heads be blown away. He shoved a pile of crumbling rubble off a body, to find the man just taking his last breath. He fought beside Padraig, just as he had always dreamed, shoulder to shoulder in the gunfire and smoke and blood.
“Send supplies to Heuston’s twenty immediately!”
“Tiocfáidh ár Lá!”
“Forget Heuston, we hear he’s captured.”
“We lost the factory.”
“Fight them off!”
“Evacuate! It’s on fire and coming down! Now! Give it up!”
Excerpts
from: a poem
Half
a century ago our resurrection came
Heralded by another name, the name of Pearse,
An Apollo with a quiver of words,
Music-tipped arrows to reach the very souls
Of those who longed and longed for freedom's balm;
Gentle leader of a quiet few
Who braved a tyrant's might
To make a bondman free.
…
There
were no deaths in Dublin on that
Easter day some fifty years ago-
Such music makers cannot die
As many mercenary soldiers do
With battles lost or won.
They have but set the music to a song
That ever holds us bound,
Yet leaves us ever free.
Like Pearse or Plunkett,
MacDonagh and Mac Diarmada
Ceantt and Clarke,
And Connolly
~
Dominic Crilly
The news traveled quickly through
what ranks were left. The flames were exploding buildings, tearing them apart.
Roars of looting crowds nearly drowned it out.
The screams and cries of innocents, sacrificed for the cause echoed in
the alleys and around the now crumbling barricades. But the news… was indeed
surrender. William could barely believe it, but could not blame them for it.
Too many dead. Too few supplies. Too many troops to defeat.
William, holding one hand over the bleeding
wound on his arm, felt the urge to hold his brother close. He fought his way
around toppled carts and burning car frames. He fought his way to 16 Moore
Street. He fought his way through the mass of rebels who had turned from
soldiers to doomed, bloody bodies. There were so many in the way, and his free,
weak arm pushed them aside to push him through until he came upon his brother.
“Padraig!” he shouted, grasping his brother by the arm just as a first aid
nurse reached him with a white flag in her hands. “Padraig!”
Padraig latched onto him, tears
behind his eyes. “We can’t, Willie!” he shouted, burying his face in his
brother’s shoulder. “Too many young lads dying. I turned away some… so many
fighting for the cause who can fight again when we are gone…”
Willie grabbed his brother with both
hands, pushing him back. “It’s the right decision, Padraig.”
“They’ll live…”
“We’ll die anyway. Martyrs…”
Padraig nodded, wiping a bloody,
dirt-stained sleeve across his face. “I have to go, Little Man!” He went to
turn, then offered a few lines of his own poetry, “I have turned my
face, To this road before me, To the deed that I see And the death that I shall
die.” He shoved a paper into his brother’s hands. “Have Sean read it to
everyone at the G.P.O.”
Taking it with shaking hands, he
nodded. William found it harder now to be strong than at any other time of his
life. “I’ll see you later, then, Padraig.”
Padraig paused, then nodded. “Aye,
later.” Then he was whisked away by the nurse, sword and all and William felt
at that moment that he would never see his brother again.
* * *
“On your feet!” came a cold voice,
and William, weak and thirsty having not had a drink in days, pulled himself to
his feet, leaning on the wall of his cell.
“I want to see my brother,” he
pleaded faintly as he was pulled out by the arm and tossed to another guard
with a firm, harsh grip. He was tall, burly, with beard and a thick Irish
accent.
“Shut up and walk faster,” he growled back, pushing William down the stone halls of the jail.
William did his best, stumbling along and giving a thin smile as he wished he had Sean’s cane to help. He wondered if Sean had been killed yet. He wondered if Padraig… perhaps he was being sent to see Padraig? Or perhaps he was being taken to the fiering squad. As he was shoved and pulled up the stairs, he thought of a thousand questions he might have asked about the others, about his brother. But the only one he cared enough to ask was, “Do the people still hate us?”
The guard snorted, then coughed to cover it up and managed, “Aye, they do.”
But the guard’s initial answer had been enough for William. The people saw them as martyrs now, as heroes. It was the start of everything, of the beautiful poetry Padraig Pearse had worked at for so long. The people finally understood, they’d been made to understand. And William had helped in that. And that, was all the poetry he ever needed. If he was being taken to die, William was ready.
BANG!
William froze against the stone wall as the shots echoed round in his head. He could feel the vibrations under his feet. He could almost smell the fresh grass of the courtyard, and smell the gunpowder, and smell the death. His heart skipped a beat, then fell to his toes in ache.
A second passed before a new guard came storming out, rage in his eyes. “Turn him back!” he barked, shoving William’s weak form back at the other one as if it were a sack of potatoes. “It’s too late now, he’ll have his tomorrow.”
William couldn’t feel being pushed all the way back to his cell. He couldn’t feel the intense hunger and thirst. He couldn’t feel the joy of the poetry any longer. The man who was his model, his hero, his Cú Chulainn… the man who had been the foremost figure in his life every moment since his birth, the man who had shared the sadness and joy and every one of his passions… was gone. And thus, so was he.
Excerpt
from:
Easter
1916
Too
long a sacrifice
Can
make a stone of the heart.
O
when may it suffice?
That
is Heaven’s part, our part
To
murmur name upon name,
As
a mother names her child
When
sleep at last has come
On
limbs that had run wild.
What
is it but nightfall?
No,
no, not night but death;
Was
it needless death after all?
For
England may keep faith
For
all that is done and said.
We
know their dream; enough
To
know they dreamed and are dead;
And
what if excess of love
Bewildered
them till they died?
I
write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh
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.
~W.B.
Yeats