A Man Called Pearse Desmond Ryan

THE MAN GALLED
S E BY DESMOND RYAN
A R
THE MAN CALLED PEARSE
BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE STORY OF A SUCCESS

BEING
RECORD
OF
ST.
ENDA's
COLLEGE SEPTEMBER 1908

TO EASTER 1916.
Printed by George Roberti, 50
Lower Baggot
Street,
Dublin
HE MAN CALLED
BY
DESMOND RYAN
MAUNSEL AND COMPANY, DUBLIN AND LONDON.
LTD.
1919
DR
TO
MRS.
PEARSE
CONTENTS
Chap.
I.
Page
THE MAN CALLED PEARSE THE THREE WISHES OF

AS
P.
II.
H.
PEARSE
26
III.
WE KNEW HIM
42
IV.
THE BROTHERS PEARSE

SGOIL
60
JJ
V.
VI.
VII.
EANNA AND
ITS INSIDE LIFE

P. H.
THE WRITINGS OF
PEARSE
P. H.
90
1
THE SOCIAL IDEALS OF
PEARSE
06

CHAPTER
I
And
Pearse never was a legend, he was a man. one of his students, with due acknowto Dr.
ledgment and gratitude
Mahaffy
for
the happy phrase which has been borrowed for the title of this book, intends to deal in
what follows with some

ideals of the
Man
aspects of the life and called Pearse. Circum-
stances and a too literal interpretation of his writings have already lent considerable colour
to the legend
which depicts Pearse
as the
sombre Napoleon of some lost cause, as a relentless idealist haunted by the necessity
for a blood sacrifice to save the Irish nation, " break his as one who would strength and
bloody protest for a glorious thing," as something or anything more legendary than the actual Pearse many of us knew. " Kings with plumes may adorn
die,
he and a few
in
their hearse," ran a popular tribute as early

as
September 1916, "but angels meet the

soul of Patrick Pearse."
Innumerable ballads have followed, and Pearse belongs to history
already.
in
We
would
prefer to describe
him
Provost of Trinity's words. It is doubtful whether anyone living to-day can call up again the complete Pearse, even the Pearse we knew in Sgoil Eanna. Unless, however, as intimate an account as possible is left of those important years from Sgoil Eanna's foundation in 1908 until the end, at the best, essential details will be absent, at the worst, a personality will have vanished
the
in a legend.
Since Pearse died his pupils have felt a veritable blank in their lives, for Pearse was a rare and noble counsellor if ever there was
one.
To know him was

details
inspired and see a
him, to be glamour in the most humto love

life,
drum
of ordinary
a sanity in the
most hazardous enterprise. Some critics have found him outwardly cold, parsonical, a poseur, a spinner of fine phrases without a
have a different practical spark in him. to tell. On the contrary, Pearse meant story the most subtle and beautiful thing he ever
We
was the most human of human beings, critical, humorous, proud, tender, purposeful,
said,

scrupulous, honourable, charitable, recking every sacrifice slight for his dear ideals of God and Ireland. His biography may be summed up as the accomplishment of the three wishes he often expressed before even
Sir
Edward Carson dreamed of arms
To
edit a bilingual paper, to found a bilingual I school, to start a revolution. secondary
have written elsewhere that the only tragedy in P. H. Pearse's case was the resolute and enthusiastic pursuit of a conviction. He believed that no nation could win freedom
He also believed that cirexcept in arms. cumstances, as those for instance which faced
Ireland in 1848, made insurrection inevitable and indeed a matter of honour for those who
had preached and prepared for insurrection. He hoped for the best and dared the worst. There is the whole and simple truth on that
aspect of the matter.
Remarkably few
acter.
faults
marred
his char-
one
may
Indeed, to write the literal truth as write who saw him in his own
home,
in every
mood and
vicissitude, as a
teacher, a writer, a propagandist, a captain, he was a perfect man, whose faults were the
mere
defects of his straight and rigid virtues.

In his writings, whether political or otherwise, he lives still, for all his writings, whether propagandist or not, are unconscious autobiography.
Few men
so
have ever
thrown
completely into words. In his descriptions of Tone, Emmet, Mitchel, or Davis, one finds not only the Evangelists he deemed to have enunciated one finds the men thema national gospel above all, one finds the man those selves men and teachings made. Pearse has left
a
personality
in
his political pamphlets the convictions which so greatly swayed him. Irish nation-
alism was a body of teaching derived from apostles who knew both the end and the
of to-day might expound, improve in application, but never deviate from the primal truth by a hair's breadth. "Tone, Davis, Mitchel," he told his brother, "knew better than the present
;
means
the
men and women
do
generation what should be done and how to it." Perhaps in the G.P.O., when he
exultantly that Emmet's two-hour insurrection was nothing to this, doubts may have crossed his mind as to the strict truth
cried
and
of his dogma, but assuredly this was the first final instance. Tone's AUTOBIOGRAPHY,

Mitchel's JAIL JOURNAL, the essays of Davis and Lalor, and the vast historical library which has grown up around '98, '48,
'67,
he studied and assimilated just in the same manner as he had formerly made the Cuchulainn and Fionn cycles, ancient and modern Irish literature, his own. He carried Tone's AUTOBIOGRAPHY around with the unfailing
care
" Has Ireland learned a truer philosophy," he asks

their Bibles,
in
some ministers would appear

and knew
it
to carry
as literally.
address, "than the of '98, a nobler way of salvation philosophy than the way of 1803 ? Is Wolfe Tone's
aTone commemoration
definition superseded, and do our duty to Emmet's memory
we
discharge
by according It is the faith annually our pity?" which flames up in the ardent and coherent rhetoric of the oration by O'Donovan Rossa's
him
grave-side.
"
Deliberately
here
we avow
.
ourselves
.
.
And Irishmen of one allegiance only. we know only one definition of freedom it is Tone's definition, it is Mitchel's definiLet no man tion, it is Rossa's definition. the cause that the dead generablaspheme tions of Ireland served by giving it any other
:

name and
definition.
definition than their

. . .
name and
their
are
served
by men who
Splendid and holy causes are themselves
O'Donovan Rossa was splendid and holy. in the proud manhood of him, splendid
splendid in the heroic grace of him, splendid in the Gaelic strength and clarity and truth
And all that splendour and pride and strength was compatible with a humility and simplicity of devotion to Ireland, to all that was older and beautiful and Gaelic in the holiness and simplicity of Ireland, patriotism of a Michael O'Clery, or of
of him.
an
Eoghan O'Growney.
The
clear
true
eyes of this man, almost alone in his day, visioned Ireland as we to-day would surely have her not free merely but Gaelic as
:
well
not Gaelic merely but free as well." Again, in his last four pamphlets he
;
with the same fulness and clearness, writing as he did in complete consciousness that his pen must soon be laid aside, and now, if ever, should he write his If similarity of word, phrase and apologia. thought be any guide, he wrote it again in
defines the
same
faith
the Republican Proclamation. Besides an apologia he has written
an

autobiography.
No
careful reader of
How
upon
DOES SHE STAND, those
three addresses
Tone and Emmet,
delivered in places so far
apart as Bodenstown and New York, can ever mistake Pearse's personality, or character,
The singleness of his purpose. purpose, the strength of his character, the beauty of his personality shine through his
or
words. His portrait of Emmet is a portrait of his own youth, his sadder, his more gentle side. From this came losagdn^ his Gaelic League activities, Sgoil Eanna. He used to remember those days with enthusiasm. " Bhiomar og an uair sin" he would cry with eagerness and proceed to relate with intense pride and satisfaction all the dash and energy of his co-workers in the Gaelic League, what an ideal and vision the Language Movement
him, recalling that at the age of eighteen he had issued his THREE ESSAYS ON GAELIC TOPICS as a book, that at the age of twenty-three he had edited An Claidheamh
to
Soluis,
had brought
won
become
Scholarship, a schoolmaster and Secretary of the

!
Modern Language
Gaelic League's Publication Committee in " Ah " he would the one and same year.
conclude, half in Irish and half in English,

You have no go His portrait of Tone is a portrait of Pearsc from the time he scoffed at his " harmless " and passed into the literary Nationalism " the Irish Volunteers, thing I have waited for all my life." In "The Rebel" and "The Fool," Pearse reveals himself as he was
"Nach
leisgeamhail an
"
dream
sibh!
awaiting that fateful Eastertide. We find in An Mhdthair that other Pearse who could have found his way blindfolded among the can read in An Uaimh, Connacht roads.
We
or the
"Wandering Hawk
meant
for boys that has
that great love so much for Irish
"
Finally, in "The Singer" find the life-story and philosophy of
education.
we
one
who knew its ending, and what it profits man to struggle for upon this earth, a vision of truth and duty perhaps no child of Adam
dare hope to see and follow
hundred years. inspiration from the

in a
He
Irish
more than once drew his flaming

hero-tales and a
He simple, spiritual, living Christianity. that he has sounded the depths of hints, too,
disillusion. That is the message of the stern and subtle "Master," or the more direct and joyous An Ri; that message reaches a mature

expression in "The Singer" to convince us that Pearse, in very fact, incarnated the soul of Irish Ireland which laboured steadfastly
rose before men's eyes in the lurid Easter flames and a city's devastation.
until
it
Because Pearse knew so well what he wanted, and repeated in a hundred ways his beliefs and teachings, he has been dismissed
His message was simple. indeed simple and direct to his generation.
by
as
some
Repeatedly he has compressed his gospel in an article, a poem, a phrase. In justice one must protest, his was one of the most comTwo very plex personalities of his day. statements of his are singularly opposed illuminating in this connection, allowance being made for the self-deprecation men of In his temperament indulge in sometimes. when his advocacy of the Irish Councils 1912 Bill had exposed him to Republican and Sinn Fein criticism, he said in private he was the most sincere and dangerous man of them all, engaging in public to free Ireland if he had a hundred men to follow him. The offer expressed the conviction which never
deserted him, that to desire was to hope, to
hope was
to believe,
and belief spelled accom-

He devoted his life to the plishment. attainment of his three objects, or in the just expression of his brother, what he said beside Rossa's grave had been his inmost faith since childhood. Again, when the Volunteer movement had absorbed him he used to declare that before he had taken to the noble trade of arms he was a mere harmless literary Nationalist as his enemies well knew. He more truly when he told a literary spoke society at eighteen that he was an enthusiast
and gloried
in being one. Development may be traced in his writings, but no essential change. Essentially it was the same Pearse who stood in Kilmainham jail yard as he
who had
upon the study of Canon Seadna twenty years before in a O'Leary's

started
back room
in
Dame
Street.
No more
characteristic and frequent note
was struck by Pearse than the uncomproThe growth of his mising Separatist note.
political ideals is a useful study when we wish to avoid confusion of aims and methods.
Pearse was always a Separatist, a Republican, and an advocate of physical force. A lover of paradox might say with some show of reason that Pearse was consistently a
10

moderate and a revolutionist.
believed
in
He
always
appeal to arms, claiming that no subject nation had won freedom otherwise, with the solitary exception of Norway, where the threat of force
an
ultimate
had been implied.

held
the
Irish
long while he people should accept any measure of Home Rule which guaranteed the national integrity, and use it as a step towards complete independence. Therefore as editor of An Claidheamh Soluis he had urged the acceptance of the Irish Councils Bill. In 1912, not a hundred yards away from the General Post Office in O'Connell Street, he spoke from the same platform as Mr. Joseph Devlin, and contended that Nationalists of all shades of opinion should follow Mr. Redmond in his agitation In as far as he went, but not stop there. An Barr Buadh^ a political and literary weekly in Irish, which he edited about the
a
For
same time, he
sets
forth this
programme
for militant action plainly, saying he stood in the event of British politicians proving as procrastinating and as elusive as usual. He has been quoted as saying, " If they
trick us again I will
lead
an insurrection
1 1

In An myself," and that was his mood. Barr Buadh he preaches the doctrine that all government rests on force, actual or
a note which appears hencemore and more in his speeches and essays. Towards the end I once heard him declare with passion he would try the
potential,
forward
national issue out with those same politicians if he had to march and fight with only his
students
to
back
him.
In
passing,
one
may note he had few doubts as regards his To tell the trjuth, he was rather students.
concerned for a
moment by the martial of some dozen of them during activities He showed as much by his Easter 1916. to be promptly reassured, for manner,
P.
H. Pearse was no ghoulish monomaniac

it
who sacrificed his students without a thought,

nor would he have had
*'
said of
him
that he
"
dragged
his boys into an
insurrection.
He
of
would have wished them rebels, no more or no less than he wished the people
Ireland. Sanctity of conscience and individual freedom were as sacred watchto
words
as
him
the
as
love
of country.
He
detested
little
he
"
said,
Thou
shalt not
tyrannies which make, "
half the law
12

of Ireland, and the other half, "Thou must." Certain London newspapers have wept over the fate of forty little boys marching out to meet the British army at full strength. Mr. Shane Leslie in an article where poetry rather than truth predominates, informs us that Pearse told him he meant to lead the
day. Pearse, indeed, was always willing to discuss insurrections with anyone, the subject being very near to his heart, but to confuse the
St.
Enda boys
into rebellion
some
fine
schoolmaster with the politician

error.
is
a grievous
When
irate British critics
have asked
whether Pearse had the right "
to train the
sons of others to be mad martyrs," it has not been easy for us who knew Pearse to
For we knew conscientiousness and remembered him

refrain
from smiling.
his
sor-
rowfully admitting Thomas MacDonagh's " Begad, that's consistent," was right when
a past pupil of both had
departed for the
Pearse did not indoctrinate his boys Freedom in with revolutionary doctrines. education was his steadfast dogma, and he
wars.
trained
up neither
little
tin
soldiers
nor
As for the cowards. little jingos nor have not been born yet forty little boys, they
little
!
'3

When
I first
came
in contact
with Pearse,
he was of the opinion that the younger generation should concentrate on industrial, language and Irish Ireland movements imbued with a fighting spirit and waiting He saw no other teaching their chance. in history than the way of the sword, or ability and readiness, at least, to use the sword when necessary or where opportunity Ten years of this programme and offered. he prophesied revolution. Despite all this he was alive and very candid as regards difficulties and possibilities. I have known him to admit in argument that a Home Rule Bill might conceivably make Ireland (to quote his own adjectives) smug, contented and loyal, that his opponents could advance powerful arguments for the nation's remaining within the British Empire, that an insurrectionary programme presented formidable and depressing difficulties. For he was prepared and strove to face himself, He could understand the case for these.
compromise, but personally rejected

an instance,
it.
As
discussing the now much mooted question of Colonial Home Rule, he averred that had he ever a voice in rejecting
when

or accepting such proposals, he would cast his vote with the noes, not considering, however, the action of those who championed
such a scheme as in any wise dishonourable. Afterwards he summed up his mental attitude as that peaceful frame of mind common to men who never compromise, and the phrase
is
singularly felicitous.
"We have no misgivings, no

ill
self-question-
ings.
While others have been doubting,

at ease,
timorous,
at peace
we have
been serenely
with our consciences. The recent time of soul-searching had no terrors for us. We saw our path with absolute clearness ; we took it with absolute deliberateness. <We could no other.' We called upon the names of the great confessors of our national Whatever faith, and all was well with us. soul-searchings there may be among Irish
political parties on in the calm
now
or hereafter, we go certitude of having done
have the clear, clean, sheer thing. the strength and peace of mind of those who never compromise." IRISH VOLUNTEER,
We
22nd May, 1915.

"
Charity in
all
on
his lips.
He
" was no platitude things has spoken with severe and 15

passionate
of his political opponents, but invariably excludes personal
condemnation
invective, preferring to deal with principles Even here he rather than with men.
believed in "courtesy
upon
all
occasions."
He
would speak with
restraint of the Irish
Parliamentary Party, admitting the indictment of some of the members current in Sinn Fein circles, but adding unfailingly, Nil cuid aca ro-dhona mar dhaoinibh. Implacable as regards principles he scorned to In impute motives to persons as such. America when asked an opinion of Mr. Redmond's reasons for his attitude towards the war, he replied that he did not know, and In GHOSTS refused to judge the man. Pearse wrote his real indictment of the Parliamentarians with an eloquent and bitter
dignity, proclaims that the men who have led Ireland for twenty-five years are bankrupt
in policy, in credit, even in words, and wonders whether the ghost of Parnell is haunting them to damnation. But the main count in the indictment is that which accuses
nationality as a negotiable The rather than a spiritual thing. thing sentence in one of his speeches beginning :
them of regarding
16

"I
believe
at
them
honest, but they have sat so
long English feasts," is a fair example of his views and methods. The Volunteer movement arrived to find
life.
Pearse awaiting it the greater part of his If to the rank and file of that movement
teers
he was its spirit incarnate, to him the Volunwere his ideas which had taken arms. His fierce advocacy of armed force came
from
its
his philosophy of life, but an Ireland of talkers and its effect in disgusting him had
share in his manner, at
least,
of expressing
his admiration for the strong man armed. Some of his more caustic expressions were
evoked by Ireland's attitude during the South African war, and bore indeed a startling similarity to the views of the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain on the same subject. The great Imperialist had said that the Irish were very good as far as sympathy for the Boers and hurling insults at England went, but there the noise ended, nor was there
courage enough
a
riot.
among them
all
to raise even
Which would
Pearse as
have appealed to a very sapient and true remark.
To
quote his
nice figure
"A
c
own summary of the case we cut during the Boer war

17

Assuming our warlike declarations were seriously intended, what prevented
talked.
We
us chasing the British garrison, small boys " and militia men, out of the country ?
But Pearse was interested in other things beside the noble trade of arms, in the Irish
language, for instance, and first and always in the whole men and women of Ireland.
Turn
to his ideals for the Irish language,
his second great enthusiasm and inspiration. For his ideal was Ireland not free merely
but Gaelic as well.

several
critics in
His exploitation by
well-meaning but badly-informed Great Britain and America as an Anglo-Irish celebrity is an amusing but Indeed it should grave misrepresentation. make him turn in his grave. His life-work will never be understood so long as it is ignored that the sources of his inspiration lay in the traditions handed down from the Sagas, the despair and militancy of the dispossessed Gael as voiced in his poetry, the simple and religious outlook of those selfcontained communities remote from the manners and customs of the Pale upon the Connacht sea-board. In Sgoil Eanna, he
did
his
best
to
make
18
younger
Ireland

*'
Gaelic as well," and made Irish as much a living language as is possible when the home language of the majority happened to
an average he gave his students a good working knowledge of the Irish was the language within a year. official school language, and to such an extent did Pearse speak in Irish only to the staff as well as to the pupils that I can count upon my fingers the number of times I held long conversations with him in When he heard one of his masters English.
be English.
Upon
English upon a certain occasion he did not recognize the His method of making Irish the voice
speaking
!
to
visitor
in
language was the simple expedient of speaking it until sheer force of repetition made the new language familiar. " Cearde?"
official
he would ask with bewilderment the new-
comer who addressed him
in
English, to
a
enjoy with huge secret amusement,
few
months later,
that
dumb new-comer
flourish-
ing with great self-assurance the vocabulary and favourite phrases of his instructor. one gets another Rightly or wrongly view in Thomas MacDonagh's LITERATURE Pearse's whole mental attitude IN IRELAND
19

was antagonistic to Anglo-Irish literature. The very words Anglo-Irish he detested and
denied their validity, although, unlike certain perfervid propagandists, his knowledge of the work of Irish men and women was as appreciative and as exact as his knowledge of Next to the Tain English literature itself.
Bo Chuailgne^ which he read with the care and attention most of us read newspapers, his favourite author was Shakespeare, innumerable editions of whom had an honoured His admiration place on his book-shelves. In for Yeats was profound and cordial. J. M. Synge he recognized a genius who had made Ireland's name considerable in the Nor was he slow to eyes of the world. defend Synge in circles where the latter's works were disparaged for miserable propaBut speaking generally, gandist reasons.
Pearse practised bilingualism to the detriment of the English language in Ireland,
working and striving for the final battle Nor would between the two languages.
his side in such a
in conflict
have ever been
Your Anglo-Irish doubt for a moment. he contended, brought only fame writers, to English literature and could never be
20

true representatives of Irish literature. special niche might be set apart for them
in
English literature,
it
is
true, but at the
best they only retarded the rise of a literature in Irish ; at the worst they forwarded
the most subtle of English conquests the mental conquest. Pearse no more questioned that the language of the Irish nation should
:
be Irish than he would have questioned the existence of God. As a Gaelic League propagandist, Pearse was a great and effective exemplar. Like
his fellow-worker,
Thomas MacDonagh,
to
whom
a light
the Gaelic League had also been as from heaven, Pearse envisaged all the
difficulties in
any enterprise he undertook. Neither of them ever indulged in flamboyant " in five prophecies that years we shall allPearse said with pride that speak Irish." the regeneration of the Ireland we know began when the Gaelic League began, added
that Ireland
died, but
would
die
when
the language
he realized superhuman efforts were needed to prevent a further decay. In his own caustic and characteristic phrase he was singularly moderate in his aspirations and methods. He would merely have the
21

Irish people, and not the human race, learn Irish and speak it. So fine an example did
he set them that Thomas MacDonagh exclaimed Pearse was killing himself by inches, but such men made movements. Those whose patriotic enthusiasm prompted them to master and apply Irish, Pearse believed, would count more in the language's
ultimate preservation than the native speaker. Eventually he grew convinced that only an
could save the Irish language. The salvation of the Irish language he would have regarded as the first duty of an Irish Government. Perhaps he would
Irish
Government
have said that any actual Irish Government might very well thank the Language movement that it ever came to be. For all subsequent movements of his day he claimed had received their baptism of grace in the
Gaelic League. The growth of English the children in the parts of the among he had cycled Gaeltacht he knew best
and tramped through every Irish-speaking district in his time he regarded as the beginning of the end unless a miracle intervened. In one particular sense, he came to believe the Gaelic League had failed
22

understood that the best non-native speaker rarely mastered Irish as he conceivably might have mastered French or German. Pearse might have been grimly sceptical as a schoolmaster of the latter
in its purpose.
He
His own Irish works stand the classics of modern Irish literature, among a non-native speaker whose pseudonym once
possibility.
led an ardent critic to declare that here

a veritable
was native speaker and Gaelic mind
expressing itself in literature beyond a shadow of doubt. Pearse meant, however, that the cause of this comparative failure was to be sought in the lines the
language movement had started, not in any deficiency of the learner or the The idea occurs once in an language. to Dr. Hyde in An Barr letter open Buadh. Pearse would argue that had the
the Irish-speaking districts the home of living ideas, democratic, religious or political, had there been more rebels in the best sense and less grammarians in the worst, to spread a propaganda from the
revivalists
made
Gaeltacht outwards, to make the Gaeltacht the home of living ideas instead of making the cities centres of linguistic enthusiasm,
23

progress would have been
results
more permanent.
more rapid and Not that Pearse
ever faltered in his allegiance to the Ireland Gaelic as well as free. Irish was our own
language, and there the matter ended, might well sum up his attitude. Certainly, he
wrote,
when
an inevitable development drove
him
to other activities, "I have come to the conclusion that the Gaelic League, as the
Gaelic League, is a spent force, and I am I do not mean that no work glad of it. remains for the Gaelic League, or that the
Gaelic League is no longer equal to work; I mean that the vital work to be done in the
new
Ireland will not be done so

itself as
much by
the
Gaelic League
by men
or
movements
that have sprung from the Gaelic League, or have received from the Gaelic League a new
The Gaelic baptism or a new lease of life. League was no mere weed shaken by the wind, no vox clamantis : it was a prophet But it was and more than a prophet. An Claidheamh Soluis^ not the Messiah." November 8, 1913. Yet he added that he had spent the best part of his life teaching
and working for the idea that the language is an essential part of the nation, nor had he
24
ever modified that attitude. In the

to
movement
which he had given the
life
best years of his he had found not philology, not folk-lore
nor literature alone, but the Irish nation. new vision came to him. Henceforward his mind and deeds were given to a militant
national
movement.
preceding sketch of Pearse's ideals but an outline, for who can call up again the complete Pearse, the Man called Pearse,
is
The
except, perhaps, his words alone

I
have squandered the splendid years Lord, if 1 had the years I would squander them over again, Aye, fling them from me For this 1 have heard in my heart, that a man
:
!
shall scatter, not hoard,
do the deed of to-day, nor take thought of to-morrow's teen, Shall not bargain or huxter with God ; or was it a jest of Christ's And is this my sin before men, to have taken
Shall
Him
I
at
His word
Lord,
lives
On
have staked my soul, I have staked the of my kin Do not the truth of Thy dreadful word.
remember my failures, But remember this my faith.
25
CHAPTER
II
THE THREE WISHES OF

P.
H.
PEARSE
is
biography of P. H. Pearse he accomplished what he wished to accomplish. An Claidheamh Soluis^ Sgoil Eanna, the Irish Volunteers, these were the three works, the three monuments he left behind him. In the preceding chapter we have written of Pearse's ideals we propose now to tell briefly the main facts of his career, and can find no more pithy summary than the declaration he often made to his relatives and friends. Repeatedly from the
In a sentence this
:
the
moment I heard him
first
came
to
know him
well
say that he had resolved three things should be placed to his credit before he died. He wished to edit a bilingual
newspaper, to found a bilingual secondary

school,
to
start
revolution.
noble
ambition moved him.
That great saying of Cuchulainn, emblazoned around a fresco in Cullenswood House, found an echo in the
26

three wishes of Pearse
Bee a brig Horn sin sa gen go rabar acht oenld ocus oenadaig ar bith acht go mardt niairscela ocus niimthechta dimm " I care not esi. I were to
:
though
if
live
but
one day and one night
only
my
fame and
loth
my
deeds live after me."
Patrick
Henry Pearse was born
November, 1879, at 27 Great Brunswick Street, Dublin, where his father, James Pearse,
an Englishman, for long had his place of business as a sculptor. James Pearse had a profound love of art, literature, and an even more profound love of freedom. As a sculptor he was judged to wield a distinctive chisel, and his work, instinct with high imagination and beauty is scattered in many pieces of
ecclesiastical architecture
Of
his father Pearse
throughout Ireland. was wont to speak with
humorous way: " Ni

Shasanach!"
great affection and reverence, adding in his raibh se ro-dhona mar
James Pearse was, indeed, one of those Englishmen whose love of liberty A Radical, he did not exclude Ireland.
freedom amongst his closest personal friends, English and Irish. He wrote a pamphlet, ENGLAND'S DUTY TO IRELAND, AS IT APPEARS TO AN ENGLISHMAN,
numbered many
fighters for
27

flaming with bitter scorn and contempt in reply to a certain pseudo-Irish, pseudoCatholic, Dr. Maguire of Trinity, who had chosen to revive some ancient catchcries and
political
legends to defame the
Parnellite
movement.
Pearse's
a reply was James was quoted triumpamphlet phantly from platform and pulpit throughout
So effective
that
it
the country. P. H. Pearse never allowed his hatred of British government in Ireland to extend to
personal animosity against individual Englishmen as such. His writings are the last word
common-sense upon that singularly barren controversy as to whether love or hate should
in
patriotism. for certain of Pearse's critics, Unfortunately those writings would seem to be so many
be
the
motive-force
of
Irish
blank pages to them. In general, he watched Englishmen closely and greeted them politely.
When he met those rare Englishmen who were such friends of freedom as his father had been, he appreciated them cordially.
From
their
father
the
Brothers
Pearse
undoubtedly inherited that deep sympathy for art, literature, and every struggling cause.
From
their mother,
whose people came from

28

and
County Meath with memories of struggle sacrifice from '98 onward, they received
of Ireland, her traditions, her her august and sorrowful past. Of history, Pearse's affection for his mother it is unnecessary to write, since he himself has left it in a
In his pathetic and imperishable record. Pearse is said to have been a dreamer, youth above all a student, rarely playing games, and lost in his books. He commenced his
their love
education in a private school at Wentworth Place, Dublin, kept by a Mrs. Murphy.. He afterwards became a brilliant Intermediate student in the Christian Brothers' Schools,
Westland Row, subsequently teaching
there.
From
the age of twelve the Irish language
appealed to him, and he assiduously commenced its study. The truest of his teachers,
perhaps the most telling influence in his life, he informs us in An Macaomh, was "a kindly grey-haired seanchaidhe, a woman of my mother's people," who told him tales by the fireside when he was a boy. From her he heard many an old Irish tale, ballad and legend, many a tale of Wexford, Limerick, of Tone, Rossa, Emmet, Napoleon, those heroes of his boyhood. From her he heard
29

spoken in the recitation of an Ossianic lay. Later he procured the grammar and texts issued by the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language; in due course he found his way into a backroom in Dame Street, and started to study Canon O'Leary's Seadna under the supervision of its reverend His close study of Irish gave him author.
Irish
first
that mastery over
it
which
later
was
to
make
him one of
He
the great Irish writers of to-day. steeped his mind in the heroic literature He of the Fionn and Cuchulainn cycles.
acquired a wide and first-hand knowledge of Irish folk-lore, prose and poetry, founding
Ireland Literary Society when he was just seventeen to spread the glad tidings His of his discoveries to the barbarians.
the
New
presidential
the society were book form in 1898 as THREE published ESSAYS ON GAELIC TOPICS. Before he was twenty-four he had graduated in the Royal University, been
addresses to
in
appointed Irish lecturer in the Catholic University College under the Reverend Dr. Delaney, S.J., gained his B.A. and B.L. degrees, and became editor of the Gaelic League official organ An Claidheamh Soluis.
3

For several years after his father's death he was the chief support of his family, and added the superintendence of the Brunswick
Street business
to to
these other tasks.
It is
remark that he never flourished proper his barrister's wig and gown, indeed he had
always a dislike for " the it as
the
legal
profession,
all
dubbing
most wicked of
pro-
fessions," and admiring Tone for his "glorious " the failure at the bar," his contempt for foolish wig and gown." Into the Gaelic League he threw himself with a whole-hearted enthusiasm, and drank
of his first great inspiration. As of An Claidheamh So/uis^ his first ambition was fulfilled. Valuable series of on education, especially in its articles
deeply
editor
bilingual aspects, appeared in the columns of the paper while he was editor. His Modh Direach lessons have been since republished as An Sgoi/^ and were the basis of the system
and amplified in St. Enda's. A tour in Belgium, where he studied that country's language problem and educational system closely, supplied him with abundant material and observation which has left ere now a
3
1
of language teaching he afterwards applied

An Uaimh as he renamed it), an adventure story for boys, and the stories afterwards reprinted as losagdn, belong to
Nor must his carefully-edited these years. editions of the old Fenian tales Eodach An
Chota Lachtna and Eruidheann Chaorthainn be
forgotten. or work.
lasting mark Phiobaire (or
on
Irish
schools.
Poll an
He
loathed slovenliness in speech bad or careless edition of a
Gaelic text would
move him
to wrath.
He
set in this, as in all else, a
noble headline to
of Irish literature. He worked out his educational theories during his editorship, and never wavered in his
workers
in the field
conviction
that
bilingualism
in
language
teaching in Ireland was the real path to the salvation of the Irish language in the Irish-
The utter exclusion of speaking districts. English from the Gaeltacht he characterized The problem confronting the as fatuous. Gaelic League was, he saw, to restore Irish as a living medium of daily intercourse to the six-seventh English-speaking parts of
the
country.
He
did
not
believe
that
Belgian methods were

Irish conditions.
quite applicable to Irish, in an efficient and
unhampered
educational
system,
he
held
32

should be used as the language of instruction in districts where it was the home language, and English as a second language taught as a second language. Where English was by the first language, he advocated necessity
a
compulsory second language, which in the vast majority of cases would be inevitably Irish, used too, unlike English in the Gaeltacht, as a
medium
all
first.
In
of instruction from the details of programmes, he
desiderated the fullest
autonomy
for schools.
In the
MURDER MACHINE
he sketches an
organization scheme for any future Irish Ministry of Education, based more or less upon his observations in Belgium. In An
Claidheamh Soluis he conducted a persistent " agitation for Irish as a teaching language" in primary schools. He determined to put into practice the old Gaelic ideals in a school " should be an Irish school in a sense that not dreamed or known in Ireland since the Flight of the Earls." In Sgoil Eanna his dream became a reality. He has left on record its realization in THE STORY OF A SUCCESS. During the first six months of the school he continued to St. Enda's edit the Gaelic League organ.
33

College opened
first
in
Cullenswood House,
Its Dublin. the wonderful prospectus, distinguished by literary charm the author impressed upon the simplest thing he ever wrote, proclaimed a determination to create a revolution in Irish secondary education upon bilingual lines. The purpose and scope of the school was announced as " the providing of an elementary and secondary education of a
Oakley
Road,
Ranelagh,
high type for Irish-speaking boys, and for boys not Irish-speaking whom it is desired to educate on bilingual lines." Pearse's real purpose was to revive the education
He system not of a class but of a people. took off his hat to the ancient Gael as being a better democrat in his school system than any modern community. "Our
very divisions into primary, secondary and university crystallize a snobbishness partly
intellectual
in
and partly social," he said, and moral instructions to his students ranked snobbery as a vice slightly below the Seven Deadly Sins. Sgoil Eanna was a success. He revived an ancient system and permeated the school with a Gaelic atmosphere, giving his pupils that hardening and
his
34

inspiration
he desired, although
them did not perceive
this until their
master had died. Visitors to remarked an indefinable something in the air of the place, and said they would ever afterwards recognize a St. Enda pupil anywhere. The central purpose of the school,
to quote Pearse in his prospectus,
some of HeadSgoil Eanna
announc-
ing what he afterwards did with incredible success, was the formation of character, "the
eliciting
traits
and development of the individual and bents of each the kindling of the giving them an aim their imaginations and interest in life the placing before them in of a high standard of conduct and duty
;
; ;
word, the training up of those entrusted to its care to be in the first place, strong
and noble and useful men, and in the second, Wide devoted sons of their motherland." and generous culture, modern methods, a
particular reference to the needs of to-day, based upon a national and heroic tradition
such were Sgoil Eanna's aims its subsequent achievements.

later the school
such were
years
Two
was transferred to the HerAnd Pearse had mitage, Rathfarnham. two of the three things he accomplished
35

had planned and
resolved
to
He now worked
teers
accomplish.
on until the Irish Volun-
and a European war arrived to find that he had long awaited their coming. In November 1913 he made a powerful and remarkable speech at the inception of
the Irish Volunteers in the Rotunda Rink, Dublin. He had long regarded the prevalent
indifference to
sign
Sir
what passed for politics of decadence, however excusable.
as a
To
Edward Carson, Pearse paid the compliment of crediting the bellicose knight with
not believing everything he said.
"
A lawyer
with a price" he called him, and left the matter there. But he rejoiced that the North had began, and held that the rest of
Ireland had no right to sneer at the Orange-
men,
" whose
rifles
give
dignity even
to
their folly."
original
became a member of the Provisional Committee of the Irish

an
enthusiastic
He
Volunteers
organizer,
and
and
was
elected
He strongly Organization. entrance of Mr. Redmond's
untiring Director of opposed the
nominees to
the Provisional Committee, becoming more and more a leading spirit in the counsels and
activities
of the Irish Volunteers after the
36

spoke on innumerable platforms throughout the country and surpassed himself in his great O'Donovan Rossa oration at the historic and imposing funeral of the dead Fenian. Definitely he had turned now to the last work of his life, and his political
split.
He
interests
grew more absorbing than ever. More and more to the public he appeared
the
as
there
But even here Republican leader. was no real change. In FROM A

a reprint of a series of articles
HERMITAGE, which ran in
IRISH
FREEDOM from June 1913
to January 1914, Pearse tells us a
how
he had
initiate
determined upon again attempting to

militant
political
movement.
An Barr
Saoirse in 1912, had been an attempt before the time was ripe. In a later chapter I shall describe at more length the too little-known experiment of Pearse had long contemplated an 1913. " armed Republican movement," but did not
forsee the precise
Sir
Euadh and Cumann na
form
it
would
take.
to
Had
arms in Ulster, Pearse would have gone ahead with

its
Edward Carson never taken

movement.
every generation appointed deed he said in 1913, and prophesied that the multitudinous activity of
his militant
To
37

organizations, political, labour and language, would meet yet in an Irish revolution.
Pearse's visit to America in the early months of 1914 made a profound impression upon him. He went there on a lecturing
He funds for his college. encountered the flotsam and jetsam of two
tour
to
raise
For John generations' Irish movements. Devoy, Pearse had a deep admiration and
affection
have heard him speak of few terms of such unstinted praise. His admiration for the survivors of the Fenian movement he met in the States was as "There are no such men in Ireland lively. to-day," he told us. How DOES SHE STAND ? belongs to this American visit, and records Pearse's admiration for Devoy, and his own growing militant determination. In an addendum, August 1 9 1 4, to the pamphlet he writes: "A European war has brought about a crisis which may contain as yet hidden within it the moment for which the generations have been waiting. It remains to be seen whether, if that moment reveals itself, we shall have the sight to see and the courage to do, or whether it shall be written of this generation,
;
other
men
in
alone of
all
the generations of Ireland, that
38

it
had none among
it
who
ultimate sacrifice."
in his find the
dared to make the Pearse has told us how

hill
youth he had walked

Fenians drilling in
!
and glen to the moonlight,

Ireland dreaded
to
but alas
to find
them
never.
it
war and
and he
because she had not
Pearse, for years, earnestly believed the national spirit
insurrection,
seemed
known them
of Ireland was in danger of death. The in Ireland during the early developments first stages of the war profoundly depressed, horrified him, and intensified his conviction that the national consciousness of Ireland was on the point of extinction. The service of his country had become the one passion of
and he cared nothing for honours, fame, nor, even as he had sighed for at times,
his
life,
tranquillity
among
as
his books.
Many men
have been
superb rhetoricians as Pearse, human, as generous, as kindly; it perhaps is certain that few men have passed from thought to action with so deadly a thoroughFate brought him into ness and sincerity. the of comrades who also were of
as
company
the temper to back words with deeds. During the Rising, Pearse acted as Commander-in-Chief to the Republican forces.
39

He
was elected President of the Provisional He established his headGovernment. in the General Post Office, and was quarters
the last to leave
defenders.
It is
when
fire
drove out the
impossible to give an idea of Pearse's bearing in that last scene, his
calmness, his decision, his bravery, his care for the wounded, his humanity and regard
for
termed the courtesies of war. O'Rahilly was to him the most heroic of men. "Ah !" he said to me, "what a fine
are
what
is, coming in here to us From he is against this thing." although entered into nego1 6 Moore Street, Pearse tiations for surrender with General Lowe, political impelled by humanitarian and
man O'Rahilly
motives.
He
was
satisfied
that
Ireland's
honour had been vindicated by a protest in arms, and he desired to save the lives of Dublin citizens. Tried by courtmartial, he Neither was executed on May 3, 1916. his brother, mother or sister saw him before
his execution, but we in those last hours.
know
well
how
he
felt
soldier's
death for
Ireland and freedom; he would have chosen that death of all deaths had God offered him
the
choice.
Chivalrous, charitable, noble
40

was the spirit of this man when he realized the end had come. The most bitter personal
controversy aroused by Easter Week he dismissed in one phrase in his message to the outside world when the bombardment of the Post Office was in full progress, and the "Both Rising's duration a matter of hours Eoin MacNeill and we have acted in the best interests of Ireland." Shortly afterwards the Three Wishes of P. H. Pearse belonged
:
to history.
41
CHAPTER
III
AS .WE
The
ballads
KNEW HIM
left
have wisely
Pearse to the
angels and to the hearts of his countrymen. For the moment we prefer not to leave
Pearse entirely to angels, and certainly not picture postcard artists who, whatever else they may have done, have not captured a glimpse of the magnetic and human
to
He presence still vivid in our memories. has written of Tone, that " this man's soul
was
a
burning flame, a flame so ardent, so

it
generous, so pure, that to
munion with
is
to
come into comcome unto a new
baptism, unto a new regeneration, a new " Davis' character," he wrote cleansing." " was such as the Apollo Belvedere again, is said to be in the in his physical order men stood more erect." In our presence experience these words had a literal and personal application to him who wrote them. We might add the adjective of an English-
man who
spent an evening's argument in
42

Pearse's
company
"
:
Ah
that
is
the most
persuasive
man I have ever met." The of Pearse was to be found in his greatness sincerity, his absorbing enthusiasms, his humanity, and certainly in his power of He had convincing and moving others. learned early what he would persuade his fellow-mortals to do; primarily, he persuaded by example. In this chapter we propose to recall some pictures of the man as we knew him. In 1909, the headmaster of Sgoil Eanna was more in evidence than the writer and the revolutionary who appeared more and
more
in
the
public
view
in
the
years
Unforeseen circumstances and 1913-1916. an amazing personal development have left

then an enigmatical personality for The present-day Ireland to understand. "schoolmasters' schoolmaster (all talk about " insurrections notwithstanding) has been contrasted with the revolutionary. To have
since
known him
We never saw a really such a contrast. different man, but watched the development of the one and same individuality, coming, let us hope, unto a new baptism, standing
43
in Sgoil
Eanna
is
to question

erect in his presence. He himself with great glee and quiet satisfaction
certainly
more
would inform us
been
that in his youth he

to
had
that
"a
bit of a prig,"
and subsequently "a
But it seems dangerous man." there was no essential change.

said
me
He
always
same things, believed the same In the things, worked for the same things. last years of his life he perhaps spoke and acted with a deeper intensity and a more Nor splendid coherence, but that was all. when one remembers how a Gaelic League or political gathering would carry him out of himself, how eagerly his eyes would flash and his whole figure be lighted up with
the
animation,
is
that final splendour in
word
and deed surprising. He neither drank nor smoked, detesting both these vices, especially the latter, but the strong wine of his enthusiasms
kindled in him a very spiritual even a casual intoxication, evident to

Sgoil Eanna's golden days were the first saw Pearse then more as two years.
observer.
We
a schoolmaster than
we
ever saw
him
after-
wards.
energy,
Although, thanks to his abnormal he could carry through several
44

large undertakings simultaneously, he
was
accustomed
upon one thing He brought Sgoil Eanna through at a time. its most serious financial crisis and edited An Earr Euadh all at the height of one
school session.
Sgoil Eanna combined allowed him, he wrote some of his most profound and most delicate stories and poems. An Uaimh (as he renamed Poll
to concentrate
In the spare moments which and the Volunteer movement
an
Phiobaire),
carefully belong to
calls
losagdn^ all his plays, his edited versions of Irish texts,
periods
his time
of his
it
life,
when
the
upon most men.
But
would have staggered was characteristic of

;
concentrate upon one thing one thing to him included every conceivable In 1914-1916 he aspect of that thing.
to
him
concentrated upon the Irish Volunteers, and ended by proclaiming the Irish Republic. From 1908 to 1913 he concentrated upon Sgoil Eanna and saved Irish education. " name in the heart of a child " He has declared a memory, a resolve in the hearts of one of the least of his pupils were
My
a sufficient his
"
recompense and "

adventure
gallant
justification for in Cullenswood
45

House and
the Hermitage.
It
would be
possible to exhaust all the tricks of rhetoric or the flourishes of eloquence and not express
what
first
this
headmaster came almost from the
He won day to mean to his pupils. our sympathies and affections. He clothed earth and sea, above all Irish earth and sea, for a thousand years with a new light for us. He made Irish a living language, and Ireland He kindled new pura noble land for us. and gave new meanings to our lives. poses In the fire of his personality he could make platitudes live again. "Never be mediocre," " do " Do best." he would tell
us,
your
nothing you would not do before the whole " Faith without works is world." dead,"
and these things,

set us aflame.
he said and lived them, Pearse had a great love and

as
recognized in them a tremendous loyalty and affection for Four of his ex-students stopped himself. him upon the Rathfarnham road one evening to inform him that they had heard a rumour he was to be arrested that evening on his
pride for his students.
He
way home, produced lethal weapons, and insisted on guarding him to the Hermitage.
In times of peace, the story was the same.

"You were
the best band of comrades
I
ever
had," he told
his earlier pupils during the
when it was doubtful whether the school would re-open. "I was told my school would not last four months;
severe financial crisis
it
has lasted four years, but
if
it
closed
to-morrow I believe my pupils have learned what I wished to teach them." Pearsc invariably accepted a boy's word as true. If he accused a boy wrongly he apologized to him. In several cases, when he had accepted
pupils' statements, in spite of strong circumstantial evidence to the contrary, he was
gratified to find subsequently that his trust
had not been misplaced. His very presence was the discipline of the school, while I am sure few schoolmasters have ever received so many confidences from their students. His exposition Pearse was a born teacher. of any subject was always vivid, clear, concentrated and energetic, arousing new
interests,
listeners.
and opening up new
vistas to the
There was naturally

his
personal note in
moral and intellectual
pronounced It was a teaching. to come under stimulus
the influence of such a master.
He
did not
wish
to turn out so
many
47
replicas of himself,

his opinions and prejudices. It is significant that none of his pupils came to have an
outlook upon life to his own, although they have had, one and all, something of a philosophy in common, together with a great reverence for their master. As
identical
a
dwell upon the importance of the personal element in I would have education. every child not merely a unit in a school attendance, but in
I
headmaster, then, let him method and achievement. "
describe
his
some intimate personal way the pupil of a teacher, or, to use more expressive words,
the disciple of a master. And I here nowise contradict another position of mine, that the main object of education is to help the child
to
be
his
true
and best
self.
What
the
teacher should bring to his pupil is not a set of ready-made opinions, or a stock of
cut-and-dried information, but an inspiration and an example and his main qualification
;
should be, not such an overmastering will as shall impose itself at all hazards upon all
weaker
wills that
come under
its
influence,
but rather so infectious an enthusiasm as " THE MURDER shall kindle new enthusiasm.
MACHINE,
p.
12.

certainly a very powerand that will was invariably made up, but he remained very open to argument and persuasion. Deputations of his pupils to demand a holiday for some special occasion well remember his affable and laughing surrenders to them. Upon certain subjects, political and religious, he adopted
ful will,
P.
H. Pearse had
very
decided
attitude,
held
them
as
dogmas, and made those who were rash enough to argue the matter out, feel rather " foolish with his emphatic No, it's not so; it's not so." Within the charmed circle of his pupils' confidence and friendship, he entered from the first day he knew them. A hundred pictures of him persist as the Now as he headmaster of Sgoil Eanna. spoke, a slow and deliberate figure from the rostrum to tell us the story of Fionn or
Cuchulainn, or past efforts to gain independence with hope and prophecy of similar efforts to come. Again, as he strode down
the hurling field, his black gown flying in the wind, to encourage the Sgoil Eanna
team and end players to beat some hostile with the traditional Sgoil Eanna three
shouts of welcome.

In July 1915 I spent a month's holiday with P. H. Pearse and his brother in Ros-
muck, County Galway, the
part of the Gaeltacht that he knew best. It lies ten miles westward of the nearest railway station, connected with the outer world by a telephone only, in the midst of the hills of lar-Connacht, dominated by the Twelve
Pins
in
the distance.
The
first
hush of
creation
travellers
has
fallen
come
over the place. along the winding

it.
Few
roads
which
lead towards
schoolhouse and
a police barracks represent its largest collection of dwellings, the rest are scattered
and wide over the bog-land and heather " Conslopes beneath the changeful skies. nacht of the bogs and lakes," the words fit the scene, and here, near a wayside lake, Pearse had his cottage. Across the fiftyacre expanse of water which is his lake, the white thatched oblong building with its green door in a porchway and two windows in front looms from its elevation at
far
the two outposts of civilization beyond. Behind the Atlantic roars. Before evening shades into nightfall, the orange and reds
of marvellous
sunsets
5
glimmer upon the

lime-white walls of the small dwelling, the
sombre purple. daytime shape themselves across the skies, clouds hover above the hilltops, descend and roll up again. These empyrean phantasies are reflected with
bluish hills afar sink
to
Curious patterns
in
startling
clearness
in
the
waters
below.
Behind stretch bog and hillside, across which sweeps the vigorous breeze from sea and mountain. Half a mile away the main
road has sent out an intricate sinuous bypath, springy with its peat-sod surface and
forever windswept ; it clambers up to gate below the cottage.
the
typical of Connacht's multiTwo large islands, rich in tudinous lakes.
The
lake
is
plants and vegetation, a peninsula, numerous small rocks break the pellucid smoothness of its surface. As twilight falls on the
small rocks one understands the Waterhorse

tradition
claims
to
inhabit
these
wafers.
Yonder rock peeps suggestively above the level, a frown upon its forehead, a gleam in those crevices, its eyes, as if in very truth it were swimming and about to spring. A frog or stray lizard leaps from beneath one's A heron feet out of the ferns or bilberries.
5
1

hovers over the water.
rabbit scuttles
away behind one.

natural beauty,
is
The
district,
rich
in
not rich in natural wealth.
Fishing, farming upon a rocky soil and not too much of that, kelp-making are the main
industries.
Poverty
is
;
here, underfeeding,
low personal income a desperate battle with the soil is here, but squalidness and
are
sordidness
obstacles
is
absent.
at,
Despite
all
the
hinted
here.
self-contained
com-
munity grows its own food, cuts

its
It builds its
its
own houses, own fuel, speaks
own
its
of
language, and leads an isolated life own. A miniature civilization is
evident.
Superficial externals, the peculiar local dress, the slow melodious Irish greet-
ing to the veriest stranger at once confirms the impression of a new and unaccustomed The topography of the district, society. the lives and souls of the people, the dis-
an open book to Pearse, and his reading of them gave us losagdn and An Mhdthair. Later he regretted that he had not dealt more with the social " None of life of the people. my stories deal with turf," he once remarked whimsia serious cally, as if he had discovered
tinctive
dialect,
were
as

But there was not a hill or lake grievance. or maam whose name and history he did not know. lar-Connacht's roads and soaring peaks, the hard fight of her people against big material odds, the glamour and terror of the sea that eats her shores, the rich,
inner
very of her people, were all one to him. lar-Connacht's mind and soul he wrote for
life
wide humanity. In his last hours his mind called up the barefooted children, the little western towns, the quiet green hills, where he had often wandered, lost in some imaginative reverie.
went on many journeys with him through Connacht, and soon learned his love for the district, and how profound a spiritual appeal
I
the Gaeltacht held for him.
visited, in a village some miles up Lough particular, Corrib, in a castled demense. Heavy mists,
We
small stone walls and houses, card players clad in frieze, gave us a characteristic glimpse,
said, of Connemara. Here, he continued, the days of hovels at the doors of Seigneurs lingered on, a rich spiritual life with poverty,
he
a poor spiritual life with riches, side
walked through the demesne, Pearse smiling at warning notices and using Irish
53
We
by
side.

to melt the hearts of gate
and gamekeepers;
flew open and guns fell before the ringing Gaelic salutations. Obviously only very churlish folk could object to an explorer
locks
blessed them in God's name with an air of decided authority. In the course of our rambles we once came across a venerable and amiable gentleman, with the air of a retired
who
remarked the scenery was After a moment's hesitation he delightful. pressed two copies of the Gospel according to St. John upon us, adding he always brought down a trunkfull for the "peasantry" there around. Pearse longed for a seditious leaflet to return as a gift in exchange, and gloated all the eight miles homeward over the simplicity of a man who used the word " "peasantry in 1915. He told us of soupers' colonies he had heard of in lar-Connacht, and once, indeed, had been compelled to
colonel,
who
argue for several hours in a remote cottage with an elderly gentleman who had belonged
to one. The latter insisted upon reading aloud the Bible in Irish, and raising controversial points innumerable until his daughter arrived to check Pearse's attempted conversion.
It
would be
difficult to
over-estimate

Pearse's love
after the
for Cormacht. Every year, war-clouds broke over Europe, he
re-visited
Rosmuck, and was accustomed
to
bid a
farewell to the bogs and lakes. For he knew he had reached the threshold
last last
of his
adventure, had heard a action he could not ignore.
call
to
We returned to the city from

atmosphere,
as
upon the eve of O'Donovan
this holiday Rossa's funeral.
The
years,
often in
the last five
was
electric.
Pearse was anxious to
do
dissatisfied
Fenian, being very with an article he had written He was about Rossa some time previously. His rhetoric was never a superb orator.
meaningless, but precise, cold, kindling, culminating in some terrific revelation of the
gospel of sacrifice for an ideal. poke fun at his earlier flights,
justice to the dead
He
used to
confessing
!
with a caustic smile, a flushed humorous look, " " Well, I thought then I was an orator It has been observed, truly enough, that his conversation gave one the impression of Some clear-cut sentences from an essay. Pearse for this, and people misunderstood felt amused or uncomfortable in his presence.
They
did not
know how
55
Pearse revelled in

the
Nor
study of Dublin or American slang. certainly did they understand that he
meant every word he said. Pearse, beside Rossa's grave, was a striking figure in his commandant's dress, his deliberate and
impassioned delivery, surrounded by men who agreed with this man who certainly He had never been so deadly in earnest. fully realized his power to sway crowds with his words. Once, after an exceptionally powerful and moving address, I heard him say that he felt every man present would have followed him into any enterprise
It was the same that very night. centenary address which made
Emmet
exclaim,
stuff in
"
Tom Clarke never thought there was such
Pearse!" "Pearse means business," was the comment passed on his speech to commemorate the Mitchel centenary in
1915.
Thomas MacDonagh
had
used
to
say
jestingly that Pearse be able to make as

liked.
started a school to
many
speeches as he
some important holiday or school excursion (generally to some Wicklow glen or among the Dublin hills), we would
After
upon, not a speech, but the recitation of " Seamus O'Brien," which after long and
insist
56
coercive applause we succeeded in getting. Pearse, to our delight, would lay immense " the emphasis upon judge was a crabbed
old chap," and startle us with the passion he threw into the lines
:
Your
sabres may clatter, your carbines go bang, But if you want hanging it's yourselves you must hang
!
have described before his farewell speech to the school. Towards the end he grew more reserved and gentle in his manner than usual, revising his writings, and going on with his ordinary routine, outwardly at peace with all men and things. Then came April
I
24th 1916.
Pearse was an active and dominant figure on the ground-floor of the G.P.O., Easter All was dark within on the Wed1916. nesday evening that I had my last conversation with him. The fires glared in, distant could be heard in the night, around volleys lay men sleeping on the floor, others stood
guard at the windows, peering through the sandbags at the strangest spectacle that men I stood beside have ever seen in Dublin. him as he sat upon a barrel, looking intently
57

at the flames,
very
silent, his slightly-flushed
face
Sudwith the very last question that I ever expected to hear from him " It was the right thing to do, was it not?" he asked "Yes," I curiously. He gazed back at replied in astonishment. the leaping and fantastic blaze and turned towards me more intently. " And if we fail, it means the end of everything, Volunteers, Ireland, all ?" "I suppose so," I replied. He spoke again. " When we are all wiped out, people will blame us for everything, condemn us. But for this protest, the war would have ended and nothing would have been done. After a few years
his turned-up hat.
crowned by
denly he turned to
:
me
they will see the meaning of what we tried to do." He rose, and we walked a few " Dublin's name will be paces ahead.
glorious for ever," he said with deep feeling
and passion. "Men will speak of her as one of the splendid cities, as they speak now of Down along the Paris. Dublin Paris there are hundreds of women helping quays
! !
carrying gelignite in spite of every danger." was, indeed, fire and death and the beginPearse did not falter in ning of the end.
us, It
58

that last adventure.
He
was one of the most
occupied men in that dangerous front room, superintending a hundred details, cheering wounded, and firing ever anew the devotion of his comrades within that furnace. His last letter to his mother expresses for all time his mood when he dared the worst. His manifesto from headquarters on the eve of surrender was a salute to the courage and He was satisfied gaiety of his followers.
honour was saved, nor, for his part, was he "afraid to face the judgment of God nor the judgment of posterity." And that is the answer to the mood wherein we are tempted to grudge Pearse's immolation to his political ideals. But two pictures rise
that
Ireland's
before us as
that gallant captain in green, facing serenely a hundred dangers, and walking as serenely to his death.
do.
first,
we
The
The
second, a remembrance of that head-
master, who would have answered with a quick smile and eager gesture, "Ah, impossible !"
The
answer,
dare
say,
to
all
such moods.
59
CHAPTER
IV
THE BROTHERS PEARSE

The
Brothers Pearse
guides us when we his brother in that affectionate phrase which is no mere sentimental mode of speech, but the expression of a great fact. Pearse, indeed, has said all there remains to be said
right instinct link William Pearse and
!
on the matter in a tribute to his brother to be published in years to come. He says there, "Willie and I have shared many sorrows together, and a few deep joys," adding, furthermore, that Willie is perhaps
his only really intimate friend.
The
lines in
"On
the Strand of
Howth," beginning:
am I, my brother, me in gallant Paris,
:
Here
And you
breathe the
artist
in Ireland, far from
men
same spirit homage to the and friend who helped that leader of more than will be ever adequately
recognized to accomplish his amazing thirtysix years work. Yet William Pearse has
60

been sometimes pronounced a victim of circumstances rather than a victim of destiny or a victim of conviction. It has been taken for granted too readily that he followed his brother, and 'twas sad and noble enough in all conscience, but there the matter ends. The matter neither ends nor begins there. Pearse has demanded in a eulogy of Tone's intimate friend, Thomas Russell, that whereever Tone's memory is commemorated Russell's memory should be honoured also, adding that he ever afterwards loved the very name of Russell for hearing of Tone's affection for the man. Future historians, possessed of the full facts of the case, will assuredly apply the spirit of this injunction The to the Brothers Pearse themselves. and most urgent refutation of the strongest view just observed is the record of William His own words about his Pcarse's life.
probable death in an insurrection, which I have quoted elsewhere, well represent the " I should not noble temper of the man
:
care.
should die for what
I I
believed.
Beyond
.interest
my work
in
.life."
in St.
.Yes,
nda's
have no
in the
the .Brothers Pearse
worshipped
at
and were -consumed

Lovers of freedom by instinct everywhere, poets and artists to whom beauty of word and form were a veritable passion, clear-visioned, and singularly disillusioned,
same flame.
for
them the
desire of Ireland's service

lives.
was
the passion of their

in
The vow made
childhood to live and die for Ireland can be traced to its fulfilment in the lives of both. William Pearse once told me the story of that vow in the presence of his brother to
the latter's great amusement. William James Pearse was born
ber
1 1
Novem-
5th, 27 Great Brunswick Street, He was educated at the Christian Dublin. Brothers' Schools, Westland Row, considered by his teachers to be a not very brilliant He early showed pupil, but never slapped.
88
1, at
a great natural ability to profession of sculptor his
make
own.
his father's
It is
note-
worthy
that
his
father's
work,
scattered
over churches and public buildings throughout the country, shows, in the opinion of competent judges, profound artistic imagiAbout the same time as nation and skill. he entered his father's studio he became a student at the Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin, and studied under Oliver Sheppard,
62

R.H.A. In Paris, at a later stage, he purIn that city of " limesued his art studies.
white palaces and surging hosts," he reserved
a
special
affection
for
the
quaintness
of
costume, the diversity, the eccentricity and vividness of the student quarters. His career as a sculptor may be described
as brief but successful.
At the Dublin and
Kensington Schools of Art he gained several distinctions, while at the Hibernian Academy and elsewhere he exhibited numerous works, His first exhimostly studies of children. bited piece of sculpture was shown at the Oireachtas Art Exhibition, a nude study " Eire" a entitled symbol of young Ireland
:
arising cleansed through the waters of the new Gaelic inspiration. From the first he
was an ardent Irish-Irelander, mastering the Irish language, wearing Gaelic costume to Gaelic League festivals, and at one time as his ordinary dress, and following the political movements of the day intently and
critically.
studentship at the Dublin School of Art he conducted an Irish class there, being a fluent speaker of Irish,
During
his
although his natural modesty somewhat obscured the fact. Throughout the country
63

he
also executed a considerable quantity of
ecclesiastical
sculpture.
Amongst
other
places,
Limerick Cathedral, St. Eunan's, Letterkenny, and several Dublin churches, including Terenure, may be named as places where specimens of his work remain. His well-known figure of "The Mater Dolorosa"
in
Mortuary Chapel, Westland Row, appears a
the
St.
Andrew's,
tragic
and pro-
In some phetic masterpiece to us to-day. remote country districts one may find figures
of the Dead Christ
and the Immaculate
Conception
shaped
by his
chisel.
The
O'Mulrennan Memorial in Glasnevin and a Father Murphy Memorial in County Wexford may be also mentioned as his. A design he submitted for the Wolfe Tone
Memorial, although not accepted, earned high approval from the judges. His childstudies "Youth," the "Skipping Rope," "Memories" reveal, however, when all is said, the work in which he was a pre-eminent master. A kinder fate might have spared us a sculptor of no small genius, one who, indeed, accomplished valuable and lasting work in his short day, one who, as his intimate fellow-students bear witness, would have

gained inevitably a considerable place
among
Irish sculptors. But the tragic and poignant that he carved upon Ireland's brain memory
and heart has now, perforce, to vie with all the figures his brain planned or his chisel
carved.
Sculpture, indeed, was not the only art to whicn William Pearse devoted serious
attention.
At the age of eleven he comto
menced
acting in
interest himself in the stage, a play dealing with the battle of Clontarf, a work of some merit, written in
verse, whose P. H. Pearse
author was aged twelve, and by name. Thenceforward, he was an actor and stage-manager in many dramatic undertakings at the Dublin School of Art, the Abbey Theatre, and once in Dr. Douglas Hyde's Casadh an tSugdin at an Oireachtas. Six or seven years ago, he, his sister, Miss M. B. Pearse, and others founded
the
Leinster
Stage
Society,
in
several performances visited Cork city.
gave Dublin, and once
which
Under Thomas Mac-
Donagh's management, the Irish Theatre, Hardwicke Street, was another histrionic haunt of his, where he acted mostly in plays
by the Russian, Tchekoff,
F
whom
he greatly
65

admired for their deep spirit of sincerity and compassion towards all the weak and brokenIn spirited men and women of the world. these tastes and occupations P. H. Pearse sympathized with his brother, holding sculpture to be the noblest of the arts, and employing the drama to an unprecedented
extent in his educational schemes.
At
St.
Enda's, no subject arose more frequently during those nightly conferences, where the
pair discussed men, books, nations and their college to a late hour, than the play or
pageant in hand or mooted. Whatever credit is due to Sgoil Eanna plays or pageants, as regards grouping and costumes, is due largely
to
William Pearse.
Upon
his father's death,
William Pearse
took over the general management of the business, and eventually conducted the commercial side as well. His life down to the last years in Rathfarnham was a busy and eventful one, the life of a man devoted mainly to the arts. The vicissitudes of his career, combined with his unselfishness of character, had led him into the exacting life of a business
now they were to lead him to forsake the congenial life of the studio, to enter upon
man
;
66

the devoted
schoolmaster, eventually into the ranks of the Irish Volunteers, the
life
of a
storm
and
fire
of
an
yard.
St.
insurrection,
and
Kilmainham barrack
in
With his brother and Thomas MacDonagh,

Enda's College, he was early associated, and gradually assumed an importance and position there that few outsiders have understood. Until 1911 he for the most part, Art and Drawing was, Master, in 1913 he became a regular member of the school staff, from 1914 onwards one might have aptly named him the assistant headmaster. The actual headmaster's importance in Sgoil Eanna's scheme we need not
the direction of
But when an irresistible again emphasize. conviction compelled that headmaster to

devote his time and energy more and more to the Irish Volunteers, William Pearse stepped forward to uphold the college in his
brother's way, and with his brother's ideals
and methods.
He knew,
heart
none
better,
what
had
a sacrifice his brother's course of action
meant
deeply
to
him.
He knew
The
debt
full
well
how
upon
Pearse's
was centred
St.
Sgoil Eanna.
Enda's owes
William Pearse can scarcely be over-estimated.

how largely writ upon it. Not unnaturally his brother's fame has obscured his claim
It
cannot be too often repeated
his
hand
is
retiring disposition did not impress the casual observer to the extent that P. H. Pearse's more aggressive and
to recognition.
His
concentrated personality did. I remember well the first appearance he made in Sgoil Eanna as a drawing master. He gave us, with his quiet, nervous manner,
from
his flowing tie, his long hair brushed back his forehead in an abundant curve, the
impression of an
artist
first
and
last,
that
expression excellently conveyed of the full-length portraits of
in
several
him now
his
common.
taking. brother's
As
a teacher
he was most pains-
He
to
acted
maxim
consistently upon that the office of
any
teacher
is
foster
the
characters of his
pupils, to guide them rather than to repress them, to bring to fruition whatever glimmer-
ings of ideals and goodness they possessed rather than to indoctrinate them with their
master's prejudices or drive course of studies like so
soldiers.
them through
many
little
tin
Elsewhere
have
written
of
William Pearse's part in Sgoil Eanna, and 68

it is
not necessary to repeat the story of his
unwearied attention to the athletic, literary, social, and above all, the dramatic side of
the school, or his knowledge of his pupils,
them and their respect for him, what he came to mean more and more His place in the in the life of St. Enda's. hearts of St. Enda students was deep indeed, nor have they adequate words to express what his life and death meant to them. In
his trust in
or
his
lifetime
in
wag amongst
his
students
wrote
was from
a school journal (of which there always a flourishing crop in the school,
An
:
down
sheets)
quoted in An Macaomh^ to twenty less ambitious but vigorous

Sgoldire,
William Pearse's locks are long, His trousers short and lanky,
When in He does
the study hall he stands look very cranky.
But now his fondest hopes have His dearest wish's departed,
fled,
Pope Pius the Tenth,

Is
his greatest
!
work,
going to be bartered
This was in reference to a raffle in connection with a school fete of a piece of

sculpture gratuitously attributed to William With this reference to his work as Pearse.
a teacher the record
of the facts of his life may end. I fear I cannot convey a picture In his brother's writings of the man. passages frequently occur breathing a tenderness and compassion towards all the outcasts and oppressed of mankind, an austere joy in simple things, in the shapeliness or variety of animals, in the shade vivid or subdued of any plant or flower, a love of beauty and
the suggestion of a great sadness. The only will not find is melodrama or thing you
sensationalism.
discover and "
know William
In such passages you will " The Pearse.
might have been written by " the him, beauty of the world had made him sad," and he had gone too upon his way
Wayfarer
for
sorrowful.
But you must remember that the sadness of the world neither soured him nor robbed him of a keen sense of humour.
Nor did it indispose him for action as his enthusiastic participation in the Irish Volunhe saw a teers goes far to prove. villain in a blood and thunder play he both devout student of smiled and hissed.
When
Dickens,
he
told
me
7
once
that
nothing

delighted him so much in all the volumes of that writer than David Copperfield His slapping Uriah Heep in the face. of English literature, it is worthy knowledge
of note, was appreciative and wide
he was
student.
an
especially keen
Shakespearian
Amongst modern writers he devoted especial attention to the works of Ibsen and the
Russian
novelists.
The
community
of
thought and affection which existed between

the brothers Pearse was very apparent. It to is said that Pearse once lost his temper
was reprimanded by
violent
protests
great effect in his schooldays when Willie a teacher. Pearse's
soon changed matters for
the better, and Willie was never molested In St. Enda's, Pearse used to tell us again. with pride he had never lost his temper
since the school had
and this was he informed us that strictly true, although when he was younger his temper had been His feelings towards Willie a fiery one. were very evident even from his affectionate mode of addressing him, or even the tone of his voice when he spoke about him this
started,
;
was the more remarkable,

public a
was in But undemonstrative man. very

as Pearse
71

where
his brother or his pupils
were con-
cerned, no one could be kindly, more human.
more
genial,
more
;
The two
brothers at
times conversed
the effect on the
in a
first
baby dialect of their own hearing it was weird in

all
extreme.
In
important
matters
William Pearse was the confidant, counsellor, I have and often the critic of his brother.
to spend hours arguing over a pupil's behaviour or character, a new school
known them
programme
"
Pat,
or
scheme,
and
remember
:
Willie once saying bluntly about a speech
you were terrible, you repeated yourwere too slow and bored the self, you " In conversation William Pearse people had an interesting and confidential manner.
!
spoke generally of books, very often of politics, while his criticisms of bumptious and snobbish persons were a joy to hear. He had a great reverence for women, and His religious trusted them more than men. convictions were very deep and earnest. His
national faith
He
and
ardent. Like quite P. H. Pearse, he never blatantly expressed

as
;
was the same intense and
as his brother's,
his beliefs
indeed preferred to listen a good while before he argued.
72

Volunteer movement brought a new He purpose and enthusiasm into his life. felt his brother would a large part in its play and counsels. When it started development in 1913 he joined the ranks, where his sincerity and enthusiasm for the work won
The
him
rapid promotion.
A considerable portion
of his spare time was devoted to the study of military science. He attended manoeuvres, route marches and parades religiously, and
became, from frequent practice, an accurate marksman. His attitude towards the last adventure was substantially his brother's. He was no pacifist. He did not gloat over
forlorn hopes.
in
thought an insurrection the circumstances worth a trial. He
He
believed implicitly in a successful issue to the national struggle, but, in Easter 1916 or
similar contingencies, he doubtlessly believed circumstances had arisen to make a fight against overwhelming odds a point of honour.
What
have written on the same question
as regards P.
H. Pearse
is
true also of Willie:
the simple explanation is that they both hoped for the best, but dared the worst.
Rising broke out, William Pearse was attached as a captain to the

the
When
73

Easter Week found him headquarters staff. in the General Post Office, where he remained an active but stoical figure until fire forced the Volunteers to evacuate the doomed and
collapsing building. He was separated from his brother after the surrender from 1 6 Moore
Street.
He
bore himself with dignity before
his
court-martial.
On May
4th,
exactly
twenty-four hours after his brother, he was executed. From the surrender he never
He told his mother again saw his brother. and sister of a terrible incident which happened the morning the latter was executed. An officer and guard arrived to bring Willie to pay a farewell visit. When they had entered the prison, and were proceeding towards a yard entrance, the report of a volley was heard, and another officer rushed forward hastily to tell the party that they had arrived too late. Perhaps from a personal point of view it was not a hard fate that neither of the
.
Brothers Pearse survived the other. The works to which thev had devoted their lives j
seemed to
Possibly the breaking of that great personal tie would The have left the survivor a broken man.
lie in
ruins around them.
74

speculation is a rather useless one as to whether the shock would not have killed William Pearse in any case. In one sense,
at
least,
the firing squad conferred uncon:
sciously a service
been
upon him he would have unknown otherwise to the succeeding
generations.
beliefs,
He
will be
remembered
as
who went down

will
righting for his hopes
one and
while the story of the Brothers Pearse
move men and women wherever human
affection, love of motherland and unselfishness of character are held in reverence. In the
coming
his
years he will gain a deeper place in the heart of Ireland. His death will not be
only claim to remembrance.
He
will
stand out as one of the
men who
are essential
figures in the struggles of this country,
men
who
prepare the soil, sacrificing life, peace or fortune for whatever ideal has set them
afire,
ennobling the heritage of Ireland with Such are their genius and disinterestedness. the noble, silent heroes of the Irish revolu-
whether that revolution bursts into warfare in the streets of the capital, saves an ancient language from death, or brings tenement dwellers and underpaid workers from
tions
out the depths of misery with flaming hearts.
75

In future hours, should the causes of their hearts be tried in the ordeal of defeat and
disaster,
some glimmer of freedom may well
shine from their graves to nerve us and save us from despair. Such a man was William
was good to have known him. And no words more dear to his heart could
Pearse.
It
better preserve him in immortality than that The Brothers noble and affectionate phrase
:
Pearse.
CHAPTER V
SGOIL EANNA AND ITS INSIDE LIFE

In so far as Sgoil Eanna was a most vital expression of its headmaster, the actual translation of that "noble house of his thought"
bricks, mortar, class-rooms and the wonderful school life he created for his first band of pupils has been told already in
into
THE STORY
OF
SUCCESS.
Without
his
burning enthusiasm, his "two globes and a map," his great love for boys, Sgoil Eanna
might well have remained the delightful

fantasy of an idealist's brain, and Irish education would present a more mournful aspect that it does. St. Enda's College, however,
had three distinct features, Pearse, life, and its pupils.
its
inside
To
a certain extent Pearse has dwelt
upon
the lighter side and the internal organization of the school elsewhere than in THE STORY
OF
SUCCESS.
In
"The Wandering Hawk,"

77

a story professedly dealing with school life in a certain Western College fifty years ago several instalments of which appeared in
Pearse wrote with a 1915-16 detachment and humour truly remarkable He showed he knew his for a headmaster.
pupils better than they suspected, the nick-
FIANNA
names with which they honoured him as well as themselves, and the pride and reflected glory they were conscious of, at times, in
In being the fosterlings of so great a man Eanna and miscellaneous notes Anndla Sgoil
!
scattered through
An Macaomh, the same and observant note appears. But all kindly stories have two sides, in this particular case
it
would
be,
perhaps, true to say have, at
least, a
hundred. Pearse's pupils are already the possessors of an oral tradition to which the curious may still listen in fifty parts of
It is improbable that Ireland and beyond. a complete account, which would satisfy those past students, will ever see the light.
After
the
in
fashion
of veterans,
they will
remain
groups relating their doings and adventures in Sgoil Eanna. Sgoil Eanna's story has been told in So much was it an expression of essentials.
their fifty
78
THE iMAN CALLED PEARSE

its
founder's personality that
we
are
some-
times inclined to disregard its significance as the soundest and most determined attempt
to reform Irish education, to make its inspiration a national one, its methods modern
administration kindly and have shown already it was the most practicable attempt to spread Irish as a spoken language among the younger Pearse overcame the obvious generation. but was hampered by the inevidifficulties,
ones,
its
and
human.
table limitations
which the widespread use
of
English
imposes.
He
overcame
his
the
financial difficulties
by expending
own
considerable private fortune, and when that had gone he supported the enterprise with
indomitable tenacity and persuasiveness. Had the war not intervened, he would have cleared St. Enda's of every penny of debt.
Sgoil
tion
Eanna was the

it
first
and most striking
application of Sinn Fein principles to educa;
declared
its
allegiance to Ireland in
unmistakeable terms, claimed and exercised the widest possible liberty in shaping its own programmes, and shaping its own internal organization. It ignored West British ideals altogether, and took Ireland cheerfully for
79

school language was were exclusively Irish, its Irish, games In short, atmosphere was wholly Irish. Eanna was based upon the assumption Sgoil that its pupils would live in Ireland and for
granted.
Its
official
its
those pupils looked to the ends of the earth they should look through
Ireland, while
Irish glasses.
when
sometimes raised as to whether Sgoil Eanna departed from its There is original ideals and programme. also an impression abroad that in the school all instruction was through the medium of Irish. The question requires an answer and
question
is
The
Until the impression a correction. second year in Rathfarnham the school held vigorously to the big and bold pro-
the
gramme announced
issued.
in
the
first
Irish
was the
official
prospectus language of
the school, and as far as possible the medium of communication between staff and pupils. Until Easter 1916, apart from language
teaching,
every
subject
was
taught
bi-
lingually as far as practicable.
Subjects like Science and Higher MatheExperimental matics, where technical terms and com-
petent
instructors
were wanting, were of 80

Otherexceptions to this rule. wise, Pearse as a pioneer with all the difficulties of the pioneer, lack of adequate support and serious financial worry, was
true to his ideals and applied them with a success that will be better recognized in the
course
His own account of the enterprise reads like a romance, but it is a true and literal narrative. The accusation that Pearse
future.
was an unpractical man has been based

to Sgoil
to a
large extent on his difficulties with regard
Eanna
financially.
at
be necessary to point out,

the gross unfairness
should hardly this time of day,

It
and
smug ignorance
which
a charge. betrayed Pearse sacrificed his own advancement and
are
by such
resources to
reality.
make
the
his
educational ideals a
to
If
to
blame attaches
anyone,
it
attaches
Pearse,
many
eloquent critics of
who
never lent
assistance.
He
practical trusted himself, however, and
him any
have outgrown the pioneer stage altogether had not a stern call
undoubtedly
would
to action in a
distract him.
more
militant sphere come to Let there be no mistake about
the
matter.
When
Pearse laid aside

felt
his
gown and
G
grasped a sword, he
81
the

sacrifice
keenly.
For
his heart
was
Eanna, and he hoped to gratify staunch supporters in the venture with a
in Sgoil his few
monument
to
their
common
efforts
that
would survive them. Sgoil Eanna will stand for ever as a great inspiration and model in the history of education and not Irish
stands out
education alone.
its
It
among
schools by
three distinct
and original features. It was one of the dreams Pearse realized. A Child Republic well describes the freedom the boys were
allowed in shaping the internal government of the school. A captain, officers, and committee were annually elected amidst tremendous excitement. The event would have vied with any general election. Sgoil
Eanna, too, was a very representative school. As I first saw it, it appeared to me as an Ireland in miniature. Youth was predomias the headmaster declared with nant, even, pride, on the staff, thanking heaven for blessing him with an unbroken succession
of clean-shaven professors.
truth
size
when he
said that in
He spoke the no school of its
of which
was there present so much of the stuff men and nations were made, that
82

hardly
one of his seventy pupils did not
come from homes with
traditions of literary, or political service to Ireland. scholarly, The school was a very reflection of the
Ireland without.
The inside
life
was always
varied, vivid and stimulating. Over Cullenswood House loomed the heroic figure of
Cuchulainn, and its atmosphere was a Gaelic one. Cuchulainn moved with Sgoil Eanna to the Hermitage, but settled down and
became an
staff.
invisible
member
of the school
In the Hermitage, Pearse turned to Emmet for an inspiration. He believed
strongly in story-telling as an essential part of education. Sgealaidheacht had always a He recognized place on the programme.
told his pupils the entire
Cuchulainn and Fionn cycles and the main periods, movements, and men in Irish history during the hours devoted to Sgealaidheacht. Pageants and open-air plays accustomed the boys to the old world and very costumes of the Nature-study and antiquity of the sagas. a love for "birds, animals, plants, were
A pride in Sgoil Eanna's encouraged. invincible hurling team was fostered. By every possible means Irish was spread as a

spoken language among the students. Above all, Pearse and MacDonagh kindled a love and appreciation of literature in their classes. It was a dogma with Pearse that a language should be used nobly or not at all. He flung to the winds the idea that so many texts
should be digested in a school year by so many different classes with an eye upon examinations. Long before his students had reached the higher classes, Pearse had intro-
duced them
for
to
the classics of English and
Irish literature, while Thomas MacDonagh, his part, had unlocked the doors to
Anglo-Irish and French literatures as only Thomas MacDonagh could have done. The inspiration and humanitv of these teachers With men like could not be overstated. and the unique use of pageant, play, them, athletics and the more modern methods of
language teaching, success was assured. It is But the story only begins there. not necessary to speak of the part William Pearse, his mother and sister played in the inner arrangements of the school, or the wonderful environment in the Hermitage, or the subsequent development of St. Enda That has been told elsewhere, in pupils.

Nor is it quite time to outline, at least. " deal with the Secret History of St. Enda's," although some aspects of that have seen the
'
light already in the pages of .An Sgoldire,
and
humorous enough reading
in all
conscience
that history is. Pearse has told in THE STORY OF A SUCCESS, from the headmaster's point of view, the narrative in outline of St. Enda's,
how
of
was founded and the ideals and hopes founder. But Sgoil Eanna to its students was a home and a revelation.
it
its
have said before, He had rarely to resort to corporal punishment. The most noisy dormitory or study-hall became hushed and silent as he entered with his peremptory Ceard e seo ? Ceard e seo ? A silence due to His routine was a respect and not fear. very busy and exacting one. Every morning,
Pearse's very presence, was a discipline in itself.
I
rang at 7.30, his voice could be heard rousing the different dormitories as he rapidly descended the three floors. Morning prayers were recited, the Rosary followed by an old Irish Litany. In the refectory talking was allowed, and
after the
first
bell
grew
with
at
times to a
staff at
terrific
din.
table,
Pearse sat
smilingly
his
small
85

observing the boys, and discussing with his masters the most diverse subjects, for he was
interested in everything, the very picture of eagerness and animation, wrapped in his
black gown, at times a distant and austere look stealing across his face. Class followed with intervals until 3.30. Until study, which
lasted
from 5.30
himself with
10, Pearse occupied his many leisure projects, the

to
financial affairs of the school, a new play, perhaps a new journal, and sometimes with
remain up until a late hour, writing or arguing with his brother. There was hardly a day he did not teach throughout the entire school day, even when occupied with outside meetings. He supervized the minutest details of internal
insurrections.
He would
organization.
he insisted with accounts of the boys' progress and conduct being forwarded to him those thousands of miles away. He conducted the preparations
During his absence in America upon weekly and detailed bulletins
for
catechetical
examinations,
the
rehearsals for a play or pageant, the revision
before the yearly examinations, in the same careful and personal manner. The influence
of such a headmaster cannot be over-rated.
86

Aided by men like Thomas MacDonagh, and the brilliant procession of teachers who
passed through the school, only very unsusceptible and unpromising material indeed would not have yielded highly successful
results.
Besides
the
staff's
influence
upon
the
formation of character and awakening of latent imagination and purpose, besides the artistic and cultured environment, besides a contact with nature, the aid of the outside world was called in. A series of half-holiday lectures were arranged. Padraic Colum, Dr. Douglas Hyde, and Major MacBride were among the lecturers. Very candid and In animated discussions always followed. the school-committee meetings and fortnightly ceilidhe, practice was acquired in speaking, while debates were held from time
to time
upon questions of public interest, Sinn Fein, Women's Suffrage, Temperance, The Irish games versus foreign ones, etc.
question of the introduction of cricket as a summer game once split the school into two camps, the majority of the boys being strongly
opposed to it. The controversy was decided by a vote of the entire school who rejected
87

it.
A regular
of
Loyalty to
acteristic
campaign preceded the result. Irish games was always a charthe
boys,
as
their
athletic
For all the rare freedom triumphs proved. and unique internal arrangements, which were such salient features of the institution,
sphere, nine scholarships to its credit in the placing National University of Ireland.
it
held
its
own
in
the
scholastic
In conclusion, let Pearse's words, which can never be quoted too often on this subject, stand as a summary of the dream that came
true
in
the
Hermitage and Cullenswood

"
House
alike.
school, in fact, according
to the conception of our wise ancestors, was less a place than a little group of persons, a
teacher and his pupils. poor, nay,

at
it
it
Its place
might be
might have no local habitation all, might be peripatetic where the One master went the disciples followed. may think of Our Lord and His friends as a was He not the master, and sort of school were they not His disciples? That gracious conception was not only the conception of
:
the old Gael, pagan and Christian, but it was the conception of Europe all through the Middle Ages. Philosophy was not

crammed out of
text-books, but was learned the knee of some great philosopher, art at was learned in the studio of some master-
workshop of some master craftsman. Always it was the personality of the master that made the school, never
artist, a craft in
the
the State that built
it
of brick and mortar,
a code of rules to govern it and sent hirelings into it to carry out its decrees."
drew up
high ideal Pearse carried through the eight years of his great work and gallant
this
With
adventure.
CHAPTER
VI
THE WRITINGS OF
The purpose
P.
H.
PEARSE
of this chapter is rather descriptive and bibliographical than critical. Pearse, as a writer, has been so variously and admirably treated by such able and appreciative critics as the Rev. Dr. Browne, Professor Arthur Clery, An tAthair Cathal O Braonain, to mention but a few, that there is little necessity to travel over that
familiar ground.
One comes
first critic
to
Pearse's
writings, says the
mentioned above
very truly, to find literature certainly, but something more than literature, a veritable
" Itinerarium mentis ad Dettm^ a journey to the realization of Ireland, past, present, and to come, a learning of all the love and enthusiasm and resolve which that realization implies." As an appreciation of Pearse's literary merits and purpose nothing could be more final than that. But the extent of
his works, his rare gifts
which brought him
90

pre-eminence in two languages, the autobiography contained in every uttered and written word, raise fresh considerations and
begin a
new
story.
extent of his writings in Irish and At the age of twelve English is amazing.
The
he began with an English play in verse, At the dealing with the Battle ofClontarf. he ended with " The Wayage of thirty-six
farer," a valediction to the sorrowful beauty
Between that poem and play His first puba very library intervenes. was THREE ESSAYS ON GAELIC lished book TOPICS, a remarkable and interesting volume, which shows his thorough grasp of ancient and modern Irish literature before he was
of the world.
twenty, a profound knowledge of Irish epic, Irish poetry, Irish folklore, an early revelation of how the ideals of the Gaelic League had fired his imagination and hardened his Poll an Phiobaire came next, a purpose. boys' story unique of its kind in modern
Irish.
The
files
of
An
Claidheamh Soluis
during his editorship (1903-1909) contain many articles from his pen of historical and
educational interest.
eile^
losagan agus
a
Sgealta
published
in
1907, marked
91
new and

pleasing phase.
corner in well enshrines
living dialect of that lar-Connacht the writer loved so
The
the winning and pathetic Seanfigures that live and pass before us. Bairbre and her doll, wistful Mhaitias, Eoinin na nEan, these are friends we love
and remember.
recently In these stories the author desired to raise
Mr. Joseph Campbell has taught them all to speak English.
" the standard of definite art form as opposed to the folk form." He portrayed the eternal miracle and quaintness of childhood. In An Mhdthair had the same Connacht 1915, background but a deeper and more tragic theme, the mighty joys and sorrows which are the lot of women. Love, the target of Emerson's reproach, " Behold, she was very beautiful and he fell in love," is absent, but maternal love, the fidelity of children, the restraint and peace of men and women with whom life has dealt harshly, the terror and vicissitudes of life itself, its grandeur and its sweetness, these were the themes. Every one of the tales is charged with sadness, not the sadness of the morbid emotionalist, but the ancient sorrowfulness of tragedy, exhiIn the story which lirating and purifying.
92

gives the book its title the key-note of the " collection is heard. God loves women
better than
men,
for
He
sends
them the
greatest sorrows and bestows on them the A restraint, depth and style greatest joys."
marked the
then.
stories,
unknown
in Irish
until
Pearse rather admitted the charge of sentimentality urged against some of the tales in losagdn. An Mhdthair was his answer. It is an undoubted fact that Pearse is
one of the
rary Irish.
best storytellers in
contempo-
He
was
an unaccustomed,
all
a poet sounded clear and natural note in
who
Irish poetry, perhaps the truest poet among the Easter Week leaders. Suantraidhe
agus Goltraidhe^ his songs of sleep and sorrow, written and published in 1913, are a brief
and remarkable proof of his poetic power and vision. He has said somewhere that
personalities struggled in him as in us the man, the warrior, the seeker for all, conflict and adventure, the dreamer beside
two
the fireside, the

quility
woman
and rest. In he sings of those inner struggles, his poems intense spiritual outlook, of God's ancient herald death, his own coming fate and
longing for tranthese twelve short
93

renunciation.
Life to Pearse in
some moods
appeared
Sgoil
in Pearse.
a terrible thing.
Eanna brought out the playwright His plays, not excepting losagdn^
his
to
were written for

"
my
masterpieces
brother and pupils, order," to quote a
Willie's jocose description of his own. voice he heard in every line MacDara speaks
in
THE
Abbot
in
SINGER, Ciaran in THE MASTER, the An Rt, while the boys' parts were
viduals.
written with an eye upon particular indiTHE SINGER, beyond all doubt, is the finest and best of his plays, the nearest
shall ever get to his
last
approach we
the
adventure,
ordeal
philosophy, his attitude

destiny rings
and towards men,

line.
view upon test. His

letters,
through every Joseph Plunkett said after reading THE SINGER that were Pearse dead it would cause a sensation, so personal and tremendous a revelation was therein contained, an opinion the author
himself rather deprecated. His warning that there is more poetry than truth in some of his more intimate writings should not be For some have been lightly disregarded. to forget the man in the poet and tempted but the man was construct weird legends
;
94

poet, and the truth is In a stranger and nobler than the legends. Pearse's reverence for women great phrase,
greater
than
the
flashes out:
great vigils," a reverence
noble
women that keep all the we find also in the and moving "Song to Mary Mag"'Tis
delene."
For the simple reading of
this play
any reader will grasp Pearse's outlook. The conflict MacDara tells of between every good teacher and every good mother shows us how intensely Pearse had experienced the " priestjoys and disillusions of the teacher's " THE SINGER has a prophetic like office. Pre-Easter and Post-Easter atmosphere.
Ireland atmospheres are there, the language, manners, setting of Connacht are there, and
perhaps an answer to the

Easter
critics
of his part in
:
Week
?
in
"So
it is
to be wise
a foolish thing. "
MacDara's proud question Do you want us
Pearse's political writings, contrary to the prevalent impression, are more extensive
in in
English, FROM A HERMITAGE, How DOES SHE STAND, GHOSTS, THE SEPARATIST IDEA, THE SPIRITUAL NATION, THE SOVES" The three articles, EIGN PEOPLE Coming
;
Irish than in English.
The pamphlets
95

(Claidheamh So/uis, November " Peace and the Gael" (SPARK, 8th, 1913), Christmas 1915), "Why we want Recruits"
Revolution
"
(IRISH
VOLUNTEER, 22nd May, 1915), and

Rossa
oration,
the
O'Donovan
comprise
practically the entire bulk of his English The final four pamphlets political writings. " Tracts for the Times " were the execuin
tion of a long contemplated exposition of whatPearse deemed to be the national gospel. For him Tone, Davis, Mitchel, Lalor were
the Fathers of the

Irish Nation.
One True Church
of the
Pearse uses an array of theoterms in GHOSTS to prove this logical case, but he has stated it elsewhere in a more simple and, to some of us at all events, more convincing wise. " I agree with one who holds that John Mitchel is Ireland's that is, of those greatest literary figure who have written in English. But I place Tone above him both as a man and leader Tone's was a broader humanity of men. with as intense a nationality Tone's was a sunnier nature with as stubborn a soul. But Mitchel stands next to Tone and these two shall teach you and lead you, O Ireland, if you hearken unto them, and not otherwise
;
:

than as they teach and lead shall you come unto the path of national salvation. For this I will answer on the Judgment Day." Or again, when he reads Irish history to
vindicate
instinct,
the
unerring,
:
popular,
national
and finds a theory of nationality to " the instinct of the be no very great gain Fenian artisan was a finer thing than the soundest theory of the Gaelic League professor."
Pearse's
own
political
evolution
is more significant than even the Republican and Separatist body of doctrine he came to apply and hold as rigidly as so human a personality could ever hold a political creed
rigidly.
we
get a
In his political writings in Irish far better view of his political
evolution.
the too
little
And this brings me to consider known and much neglected An
Earr Euadh ("The Trumpet of Victory"). An Earr Euadh was a small political and in Roman type, and literary weekly, printed
written
wholly in Irish, which Pearse and edited March i6th, 1912. started Eamonn Ceannt, Peadar Macken and The O'Rahilly were among the journal's most
constant contributors.
political society,
Cumann
H
na Saoirse,
was associated with the
97

paper.
Besides the above-mentioned con-
tributors,
Con Colbert was one of its The Cumann dissolved when members.
An Barr Buadh
eleven
ceased
numbers. contributor, and in essay, poem and fable enunciated the political methods he then
publication after Pearse was the chief
advocated.
His criticisms of all political groups, Sinn Fein no less than Redmondite, Labour no less than either, read curiously
He thought that the Sinn Feiners to-day. talked too much, that the Redmondites
cared too
little
for Ireland, but
had redeem-
ing features not always acknowledged, that Labour was too Internationalist. " Less
was philosophizing and more righting advice to Irish Labour about Connolly's this very time. To Irish Nationalists An Barr Buadh preached a similar gospel of
action.
'
That
all
government
rests
^upon
force, actual or potential, that anglicization, love of quiet living, a too peaceful spirit,
a lack of union
and mutual charity amongst Nationalists, were the great dissolvents of were in Nationalism as an effective factor
the
brief,
journal's
main points emphasized in the An Barr Buadh was propaganda.

a political paper, but a remarkable political For one thing it had the literary paper.
graces, style, fanaticism, and tolerance that only an editor like Pearse could give it. Above
all
it
had thought, avoided formulas and
barren controversy.
delightful
humour
animated its pages, a caustic wit which did not even spare the editor, as witness a famous open letter to himself. The politics of the paper were Separatist and physical force.
Its
aim was
that fulfilled later in the Irish
Volunteers, a union of all Irishmen in a proIt preached gressive national movement.

that a people's liberty could be guaranteed only by a readiness and ability to vindicate
that liberty in arms. It is impossible to understand how Pearse's views upon methods
developed until these Irish writings of 1912

are fully considered.
An
extract
from
his
speech of
3ist, 1912, delivered from Mr. Joseph Devlin's platform in O'Connell Street, well illustrates Pearse's attitude at
March
(An Barr Euadh^ April 5th, 1912; the original was, of course, in Irish.) only say, to-day, that the voice of the
the time.
"We
Gaedhil shall be heard henceforward, that our demands must be attended to, that our
99

So the Gaedhil proclaim, two hundred thousand of them crying here to-day, with one man's voice, that they demand freedom, and mean to achieve Let us unite freedom, with God's will. and win a good Act from the English. I believe we can obtain a good measure of Home Rule if only we gather sufficient But if we are deceived courage together. this time there is a band of men in again
patience
is
spent.
I Ireland to belong myself, who will advise Irishmen to have no council or friend-
whom
ship with England ever again. Let England if she again clearly understand betrays us,
:
red war throughout all have shown in Chapter I the Pearse had culmination of these ideals. lamented that he and many in Ireland had been for long like Fionn after his battles, " in agony of depression and horror of selfA light had broken upon questioning."
there
shall
be a
Ireland."
them
in
the
Gaelic
League.
illumination
broke
upon
them
in
greater the
Volunteer movement, and they had felt like men emerging from dark forests into sunNo one can do justice to Pearse's light. final, fiery, coherent splendour except the
100

glimpses he has
I
left
himself of
it
and there
leave this aspect of him. Pearse disdained to use a language unless

it
he used
splendidly.
That
is
why
his
English works rank so highly as literature. I have often wondered why he came to use English to so large an extent as he did in When I knew him first he his later years.
held, indeed, that any man or woman who had a message to deliver should be given an attentive hearing whatever language he or
But personally for long he she employed. suppressed his command of English and to speak to his pupils save in flatly refused With us he invariably used Irish. Irish. Until the day he died he never recanted his belief that Irish was an essential part of an
Irish
nation.
to
It
was characteristic of the
man
In his do everything thoroughly. public speaking he was constrained to use The calls on his English more and more. time increased as Easter 1916 drew nearer. It was his intention to give his plays and
THE WANDERING HAWK an
Irish dress.
THE
SINGER, of course, is a literal and beautiful, if the phrase be admissible, adaptation of Behind all the Rosmuck dialect of Irish.
101

his literary
as I
Gaelic inspiration.
works stands a full and flaming He would never admit,
have explained before, any justification He denied the of Anglo-Irish literature. of the continued existence very possibility of such a literature. Inevitably the Irishmen and women who wrote in English
would adopt English
ideas,
English models,
jesting Genie English inspirations. who loves the Anglo-Irish tribe of writers may have hurried Pearse into English as a
Some
playful revenge. tion I can ever
That
as
the only explanaimagine that solves the

is
mystery.
Ireland
Pearse
Censor
in
free
would have been implacable and righteous enough to have suppressed his own works in English were that necessary to save
the Irish language. Fate's hurry compelled him to build those noble niches in the temple
of English literature. And strangest irony of all critics have agreed after reading his poems and plays that an independent Irish
!
literature in English
is
possible
as
Pearse
was nearly
views on literature as in his
orthodox in his views on religion.
Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Francis Thompson, Yeats, he read and re-read.
102

living English writers he had a admiration for Gilbert Chesterton and high Henry W. Nevinson, whom he admired for their love of freedom, but the views of the former upon the European war were not his. This did not prevent Pearse from quoting Chesterton with effect at an anti-conscription meeting. Chesterton has said that he die for England but not for the British might Empire so few things being worth the trouble of dying for. Pearse changed the nation, but not the sentiment. Of his method of work, and the circumstances amongst which the bulk of that
Among
work was done, it is unnecessary to say much. Suffice to point out that it was as
concentrated as the man himself, and was written for the greater part amidst the arduous and exacting tasks of a schoolmaster
and political leader combined. As a writer, to-day is not the time to do justice to P. H. Pearse, any more than to discuss his final adventure. In both cases we are too near him in time and too much under the spell of his personality, his genius, his deeds.
a stylist, a poet, a preacher, we gather As one dimly that Pearse is great indeed.
As
103

made vocal a new political and movement he is greater yet. But popular
has
assuredly as one
who
who
minds, souls, has thrown so completely his

austere,
lives
has interpreted of the Gaeltacht,
the
who
own
noble,
and human personality into words he is grandest of all. He never fell between the twin stools of literature and politics as so many knights of the pen in Eirinn have He was never melodramatic, bitter, fallen.
mere rhetoric's sake. whether fairy hosts Pearse, wondering still dance around mushrooms on some moonbarren, rhetorical for
lit hill,
Pearse reading the souls of children, Pearse firing the soul of his generation to stake all their mortal and immortal hopes to
share with
a last great battle for the Gaelic tradition, or telling his followers in the Post Office that Dublin's name would
him
be splendid forever, or writing

Hill cell a farewell to
all
in his
Arbour
the simple and
what a series of what complexity of character, aye, and men, what stark and sheer sincerity were there For he was " a child with children, and he was a man with men." As the years pass, he must stand out more and more as an
beautiful things he loved
!
104
tradition inspired him. In English he soared to great heights, but his greatest eminences were based, not only for fact and manner, but even for his vivid
Irish writer.
Irish
and
speech, upon the impulse which came from sources and places where spoken Irish is a reality, a mirror of the life of a people unspoiled and unbroken. All
beautiful
and works might be forgotten, but did one Irish poem survive he would be still immortal as one of the authentic voices of
his life
the Irish tradition.

I I
am am
Ireland older than the

:
Old
Woman
of Beare.
Great
I
my
glory
that bore
Cuchulainn the
:
valiant.
Great
my shame
Ireland
:
My
I
I
own
children that sold their mother.
am am
lonelier than the
Old
Woman
of Beare.
105
CHAPTER
VII
THE SOCIAL IDEALS OF

PEARSE
And
I
P.
H.
because
am
of the people,
understand
the people.
am
sorrowful with their sorrow, with their desire.
am hungry
The Rebel.
Perhaps the quotation should be the last word on this question. To pass from Pearse's poems and stories to his social A wise reader ideals is an easy transition.
would
find
the latter implicit in losagan,
Mhdthair, in "The Rebel" and "The " in particular, with the noble ring Fool of Whitman in the verse. But some
An
misguided persons delight in drawing comparisons between the alleged materialism of James Connolly and the incontestable
spirituality
of Pearse.
his
social
Moreover, Pearse
gospel almost as specifically as he has defined his nationalist
has
defined
gospel,
it
is
a gospel startlingly similar to

1
06

James Connolly's own, a fact of which these very misguided persons are most likely to remain ignorant. Were the comparison
made by those anxious to strain any point against Labour in Ireland, it would be hardly worth notice. Men and women, however,
devoted to the memories of both men, have fallen into this error of confusing a difference between philosophies of history into a clash In reality, no poorer tribute could of ideals. be paid to Pearse in so far as this comparison betrays a remarkable misunderstanding of A student of his social ideals and outlook. Connolly's life or writings, one who knows the tendencies of the modern labour movement, one who grasps adequately the
Marxian philosophy upon which Connolly took his stand, will know of course exactly how much attention need be paid to the It would be easy charge of materialism. indeed to prove that however firmly Connolly
planted his feet upon the earth, his gaze was ever turned towards the stars. The two great causes of his heart were the ideals
he
In
worshipped
him
with a religious fervour. love of freedom burned with the
intensity of fanaticism, and
were lip-service
107

to the things of the spirit all that is needed to constitute a man an idealist many a page
from
his writings would demonstrate his claim beyond yea or nay. Only a mental snobbery goes in search of such a proof, so instead of submitting the shade of Connolly to the ordeal by quotation, or entering on a discussion of the valuable emphasis, his character as a Socialist propagandist, his Marxian philosophy, his realist outlook led him to place upon the hitherto neglected economic aspect of Irish history, I prefer to consider what Pearse's views were concerning the bread nations no less than men
To do so require if they are to live at all. will be to recognize that a great idealist and a true poet considered the physical welfare
of a people ranked equally with the firing of their minds or the care of their souls. Nor will it remain longer in doubt whether Pearse's views on social matters shall remain as obscure as were James Fintan Lalor's until Connolly rescued them from newspaper files, libraries, and deliberate neglect.
Connolly's
influence
upon
Pearse
was
profound and
marked.
He
one
summed
Pearse
up
1
as
could have of those real
08

prophets who carve out the future they announce, and he might have felt some
pardonable pride that upon national and social fundamentals the accents of the prophet were not at all dissimilar to his own. Pearse himself esteemed Connolly as one or the greatest and most forceful men that he had known, while those of us who knew both men are aware of the great affection which existed between them. Emphatically there was no essential clash between their respective ideals although each had travelled
different paths to discover that the sole authentic nationalism is one which seeks to enthrone the Sovereign People. sentence in the Republican Proclamation reveals a declare the of common faith "
by
right the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish
:
We
destinies
to be sovereign and indefeasible." Partisans may choose to stress either part
of that declaration but in a hundred other equally unmistakable and unequivocal utterances Pearse and Connolly will rise to confute them. James Connolly's views upon the social
question are too well
known
to
fall
into
109

obscurity.
clear
Pearse's social creed
is
equally
and unambigious, but circumstances
very well tend to obscure its similarity in essentials with Connolly's teachings. Should it so happen only a deliberate ignorance of Pearse's last published pamphlet, THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE, will be responsible. There he voices his belief with a fiery and noble eloquence that the true nationalist must be a deep humanist, that in a free nation the men and women of the nation must rule in fact as well as in name and, above all, that without vigilant care for the bodies of those men and women all rhetorical flourishes about the soul of Ireland are so much futile and beautiful cant. In poetic " The Rebel " accents that is the message of " The and Fool," in more delicate and subtle ways that spirit of deep humanity
may
moves through his stories, plays and poems to emerge in the clear and burning definition
of
PEOPLE. Like the Italian patriot, Pearse was one who loved the people, not for nothing did he salute James Fintan Lalor as one of the Nation's Four Evangelists.
THE SOVEREIGN
And
this is unquestionably true
despite
no

the difficulty of attaching a label to Pearse's It would be inaccurate to call social ideals.
him
a Socialist, Syndicalist or a
Bolshevik.
State
His views upon Co-operation or GuildSocialism or the Distributive never been placed upon record.
have
The word
Socialism had no terrors for him, but he was no Socialist in the sense of adhering to
It any system of Socialist philosophy. would be confusing and a crowning insult
to dismiss
him
as a social
reformer
Pearse
was no sentimentalist and believed the axe should be laid to the root of social iniquity. " If the workers must have strikes," he said
during 1913, "I agree that their strikes should be thorough and terrible." He would himself have promptly disclaimed any pretence to speak with a dogmatic authority upon these matters, for while his social sympathies were deep and instructive, his national work and sympathies had been more absorbing. Towards the end of his life, however, his ideas on the social question became more pronounced and assumed the coherence of a system. The works of Lalor together with close observation of conditions of life in Cormacht
to
me
1 1 1

and Dublin
development considerably. Undoubtedly the Dublin Strike of whatever glimpses he caught (by no 1913, means few) of the great Labour upheavals which shook these countries from 1911 onward, and Connolly's personal influence urged him more and more insistently to consider the issue. From the first Jim Larkin attracted him and in spite of much adverse criticism, he insisted on keeping the latter's son and name-sake at Sgoil Eanna. " Larkin is a man who does things," he used to say. " He has done more iin six months than the politicians and ourselves with all our talk.'* As he wrote during 1913 his heart was with the men during that long and bitter struggle whence sprang the modern Labour moveassisted this
ment
in Ireland.
Misgivings troubled him,
no doubt.
Internationalism was to
as
ill
him
word of omen
as
it
is
still
to
many
Sinn Feiners and Republicans, not to mention the A.O.H. Pacificism which seems to
many
inseparable
from
Labour movement
never appealed to him, and to the last he found no use for Tolstoy or other apostles of peace, not even appreciating their chief
as an artist.
Connolly's militancy was more I 12

to his liking.
writes
somewhere,
" Even the Socialists," Pearse " who want

universal
peace, propose to reach it by universal war ; " and so far they are sensible! The pre-war
solidarity of the workers seemed to him to threaten to obliterate the lines of national
demarcation, and in such an obliteration he feared another imperialist triumph. While
Connolly cried scornfully that his quarrel was with the British Government in Ireland and that nationalist critics had confounded politics with geography in their attacks upon the assistance British trade unions had
given the Irish Transport Workers, Pearse at peace with all the men of Ireland. He protested that he was concerned with the nation as a whole and with no one class in the nation. Unlike others who uttered similar sentiments he literally meant what he said. Indeed he condemned with bitterness the inconsistency of those
wished to be
upon national grounds to financial assistance from British trade unions and accepted the British armed forces to preserve law and order.
objected
who
In an outspoken article at the time, since " From a Hermitage," he republished in

i
113

stated the views he then held, traced even Labour troubles to foreign domination, yet
feels
here
is
a matter in
which he cannot
is
rest neutral,
since
his instinct
with the
against
landless
man and
the breadless
man
the lords of lands or the masters of millions. In the light of his experience as a schoolmaster, when he recollects the ill-nourished children in the primary schools, the underfed third of Dublin's population, the condition of city tenements, he does not wonder that a great popular movement is astir beneath
and crude and bloody as this protest may be in ways, Larkin, who has attempted to set a wrong thing right, is a good man and a brave man
it all,
!
Anti-pacifist, Nationalist of Nationalists, absorbed in Ireland as he was, Pearse's
not merely to the Dublin toilers or the landless of the West, but was
responsive to battles for freedom beyond the shores of Ireland. He admired the spirit of
heart went out
more forward sections of the Labour movement in Great Britain, the Women's Suffrage movement, which he pronounced
the
unconquerable,
inasmuch
as
the
women
feared neither hunger nor death, and while
MAIN
UA-bJLUJJ
never avowedly a Socialist, he saw through the canting hypocrisy which relies for its criticism of Socialism entirely upon the exploitation of religious and moral prejudices.
In private conversation he would pronounce his passionate and considered convictions on the struggles of the women and the workers for freedom. Particularly he rejoiced in the the democratic forces spirit and progress of
everywhere from 1911-1914, marvelled

the
victories
at
of the
democracies,
a rush, as so
saying
things always come with
it be in Ireland some fine day. characteristic of Pearse, and may enlighten some of his critics, that he could never
would It was
describe the
fall
of
the
Bastille
without
in other
hoping piously Dublin Castle.

countries
so
to achieve a similar fate for
Lovers of freedom
may detect a provincialism in this, well to repeat that he cared for the Irish nation as a whole, spending his life in
we do
bold and manifold
the nation's service in
Let ways, educational, literary, political. there be no mistake about Pearse's sincerity when he declared that he stood for the He transformed that faith into his Nation. Well would it be for Ireland tasks. daily
"5

if his faith
were
less a platitude
!
with others
than it was with him Ultimately for Pearse the root of Irish evil lay in foreign domination, he killed himself by inches to reform Irish education and restore the Irish language to its place in the natural culture, he hailed his death as the death of all deaths he would have chosen had God offered him
his choice.
His philosophy was

with idealism.
contradiction
philosophy
In this was
offeree
there a
allied
fatal
to
Connolly's
teaching, that the root of all evil lay in the conquest by a class, even an alien class, of
the nation's lands and wealth and factors of wealth production ? Some, whether swearing by St. Mitchel or St. Marx, have certainly imagined there is obvious and
flagrant
contradiction.
The thought
and
lies
behind
the
foolish
unreflecting
comparison before noted. Pearse and Connolly, much as they may have differed upon questions of philosophy, were not given to cant about the one's spiriAs tuality and the other's materialism.
their writings bear witness, they knew how amusingly superficial such a comparison is.
Connolly worshipped at different shrines of 1*6

the goddess freedom in two continents, and
he would have wished in Ireland. Pearse served freedom in Ireland but had fate brought him elsewhere, alone, I dare believe his story would have been much the same. The ideal of both had different manifestations, but in the end it was one and the same. Connolly was, indeed, the most terrific
spent his
life at last as
expression in a personality of the these revolutionary spirit that
modern
islands
Pearse undoubtedly was the grandest incarnation in men of Irish blood of the ancient tradition of Irish nationhood, but these two men, unlike many of the
disciples of either, knew better stick fast in a morass of phrases.
have known.
than to
Connolly's influence on Pearse as before mentioned was considerable. The meeting

of characters so diverse in many ways during the early months of 1914 Until then neither was, indeed, historic.
of these two
men
had known the other intimately. Years before a speech delivered by Connolly before
debating society in defence of woman's suffrage had left an indelible impresSince then both sion on Pearse's memory.
a students'
117

had worked
to
spread
in fields far apart, one striving Socialist ideas in Ireland and
the general apathy as regards social issues, to build up an army of labour, to descend, as Mr. Robert Lynd has well said, into the hell of Irish poverty
America,
to
shake
burning heart, the other squandering without regret the glorious years of his youth to re-create an Irish literature, to quicken with his idealist faith the dying national consciousness and bring an ancient In chivalry and a new vision into the land. due course the war in Europe threw them It would have required no bold together. prophet to foresee events must move henceforward in unwonted ways. Modern civilization was no lovely growth in Pearse's opinion. His mind went back
a to
with
the past to forget " the Christless cities of to-day," and find again the precious
things modern communities have lost whereve"r
He insists factory chimneys rise. repeatedly that civilization has taken a

queer turn for the worse, and Wonders often whether it could not have been avoided. In one of the first lectures he ever delivered, he declared war upon it.
decidedly
118
MAJN (CALLED
" The Intellectual Future In of the Gael," read to the New Ireland Literary Society before he was twenty, he stated with
vehemence the
case
against
at
the moderns.
accused himself of being " until he became a man of wrath. It was like P. H. Pearse to laugh at himself from time to time. In An Barr Euadh he addressed an open letter of sarcastic advice to himself, inquiring why he inspires his friends with silent awe, and whether he would not do better to shun politics and stick to his schoolIn the following passage from mastering. the lecture just mentioned we find a very early expression of his consistent attitude towards the world of to-day " It is no doubt a glorious thing to rule over many subject peoples, to dictate laws
:
Revising his writings
later stage he a bit of a prig,"
to
far-off
cargoes clime beneath the sun

things
lectual,
countries, to receive every day of rich merchandise from every

;
but
if to
do these
we must become
Godless race the natural and necessary consequence of is the other then let us have none of them.
a soulless, uninteland it seems that one
Do
the millions that
make up
119
the population

of modern nations
the
millions
that toil
and sweat from year's end to year's end in the factories and mines of England, the Continent, the United States, live the life
intended for
man
What
are the hero-
memories of the past to them ? Are they one whit the better because great men have Were the lived and wrought and died ?
destiny of the Gael no higher than theirs, better for him would it have been, had he disappeared from the earth centuries ago
!
and soul, capacity for loving the beautiful things of nature, a capacity for
Intellect
worshipping what is grand and noble in man, let us not cast these things we have yet them from us in the mad rush of modern life. Let us cherish them, let us cling to them they have come down to us through
: :
the storms of the centuries
our hero-sires of old
the bequest of and when we are a
power on earth again, we shall owe our power not to fame in war, in statesmanship,
in
commerce, but
to those
two precious
and soul." The mission of the Gael he contends, will be an intellectual one. The whole essay is an indictment of modern literature
inheritances, intellect
1
20

and decadent. Some new source of inspiration must be opened up for the moderns, ancient Irish literature must bring new blood into the intellectual system of the world, the Gael in his turn must fire the minds of men with new beauty, new
as senile
chivalry, his day.
Pearse in
tea
ideals as did the Greek in But the world did not weary his library only, or when he took
it.
new
with
Readers of
An Macaomh
will
remember
Six
his scathing
description of the
ideals
Commandments of
dissatisfaction
Respectable Society.
This
with current
to seek a
and
institutions drove
him
new educa-
tional inspiration in a return to the Sagas. An heroic tale was more essentially a factor
education than all the propositions of the story of Joan of Arc more Euclid with meaning than a thousand charged He claimed, too, that had the algebras. old Irish. Sagas swayed Europe to the extent
in
;
the Renaissance has that inspiration would have saved many a righteous and noble cause.
By an easy transition Pearse passed from this mood to proclaim the thing that was coming,
to salute
He
with Connolly the risen people. announced his brotherly union with
121

Connolly was a union of thought as well deeds, and that the national freedom both strove for extended to a people's wealth and lands as well as to their liberties and Governmental systems. Once and for all, beyond a shadow of doubt, he recorded these convictions in written words before the storm broke and he knew now or never was the
as
opportune moment to proclaim his social Thereafter ne had " no more to say." faith. LABOUR IN IRISH HISTORY, and in a smaller degree THE RE-CONQUEST OF IRELAND, have
left their
mark upon The

is
Sovereign People.
This pamphlet
P.
H.
an explicit statement of Pearse's social ideals, the concluding
one of a series where he re-states the gospel of Nationalism as defined by Tone, Davis, Mitchel and Lalor. Therein he examines the lives and teachings of the two last. In the previous booklets he had insisted upon the spiritual fact of nationality, upon the
separatist
tradition
in
history,
upon the
necessity of physical
freedom to preserve the spiritual fact and vindicate the tradition.
His argument might have been expressed in " Connolly's words Slavery is a thing of
:
the
soul
before
it
embodies
122
itself
in
the

material things of the world. I assert that before a nation can be reduced to slavery its soul must have been cowed, intimidated or corrupted by the oppressor. Only when so
cowed, intimidated or corrupted, does the soul of a nation cease to urge forward its
to resist the shackles of slavery only when the soul so surrenders does any part of the body consent to make truce with the
body
foe of
is
its
national existence.
When the soul

com-
conquered the articulate expression of the voice of the nation loses its defiant accent
and, taking on the whining colour of promise, begins to plead for the body.
The
unconquered
its
soul asserts itself and declares
more important than the of the body the conquered soul ever pleads first that the body may be saved even if the soul be damned. For generations this conflict between the sanctity of the soul and the interests of the body has been waged in Ireland. ... In fitful moments of spirisanctity to be
interests
;
tual
exaltation Ireland accepted that
idea,
O'Donovan Rossa becoming possessed of it, became thenceforth the living embodiment of that gospel.'*
and
such
as
men
Rossa Souvenir, p. 19.
123

necessity of the complete control of the nation's material resources by the nation and for the nation, j no more or no less in the physical order
to insist
He proceeds
upon the
than the whole men and women of Ireland. Pearse boldly faces the terrible phrase, *' the material basis of freedom," as Lalor, Davitt, and Connolly had faced it before him. This basis, he argues, is as essential to a community's continued existence as food is essential to the continued existence
of the individual. The national material resources, he claims, are no more the nation than a man's food is the man, but are as necessary to secure a sane and vigorous life Furtherto a nation as food is to the man. more, the nation's sovereignty extends
to
those material resources to be used, as the nation deems fit, while the nation is under
as strong a
moral obligation to pursue and guarantee the personal welfare of each man and woman within the nation, as it is to
respect the sovereign rights of other nations. It must exercise its right of control over all
its soil, its wealth, and wealthinstruments to secure to all strictly producing qual rights and liberties.
its
resources,
124

What
is
Pearse's definition of a nation
Sovereign
People
also
His
ideal
mere political demanded this
sovereignty, in the fullest degree, but a sovereignty which extends to the soil
was no although he
and factories of Ireland that the stubborn and unterrified working class, the common people whom he hails with enthusiasm and pride, as the unpurchasable and unfaltering guardians of national liberties may say with
truth of their nation that
it is the family in knit together by ties human and kindly. large He salutes " the more virile labour organiza-
tions of to-day
"
as heirs to Lalor's teaching,
nor do vague accusations of anarchism or materialism prevent him from announcing himself as one who is heart to heart with them. In effect, he agrees with Lalor,
who
held separation valueless unless it placed, not certain rich men merely, but the actual people of Ireland in effectual possession of
the
soil
and resources of their country.

this short sketch of
Here may conclude

the social ideals of P.
H. Pearse, but this of little use to those who do not recognize the democratic instinct behind every line Pearse wrote. Connolly
mere formal outline
is
125

recognized it and confessed to his friends that he had always been attracted towards Pearse, in whom he felt some quality above the average of Nationalist politicians. Those of us who knew Pearse well know how
profound was
instinct
is
his
belief that
the popular
so
ever right.
His views were
he could not bear to see a He was known child or an animal suffer. to weep over a dead kitten, and once stopped gardening for a whole day because he had
that
killed a
humane
worm
it
by accident.
He
alive.
refused to
eat a certain kind of shell-fish
when he had
learned that
was boiled
He
was
a strong opponent of capital punishment. Nevertheless, he was always a warrior and never expressed his mind so well as in the
words he wrote of the present war, crying
moved the governments, but " War is a patriotism moved the peoples. terrible thin, but war is not an evil thing. It is the things that make war necessary that are evil. The tyrannies that wars break, the
that
policy
formulae that wars overthrow, the hypocrisies that wars strip naked are evil. Many people in Ireland dread war because Ireland has not known they do not know it.
lying
126

the exhilaration of war for over a hundred Yet who will say she has known years. the blessings of peace ? When war comes
to Ireland she must welcome it as she would welcome the Angel of God. And she will.
.
.
Christ's peace
its feet
is
beautiful are
it is
lovely in its coming, on the mountains. But

;
seramessengers and cherubim blow trumpets before phim
heralded by
terrific
Assuredly this is near to Connolly's view that just wars should be fought in and unjust wars fought against. It is not claimed here that Pearse saw
it."
eye to eye with James Connolly upon the question of Socialism, inasmuch as Pearse did not adhere to, nor had he indeed studied,
the Socialist spent a life-time in preaching
system that James Connolly and applying

in
with equal success
the Ireland disillusioned
by the Parnell split, the Ireland hostile to Larkin's methods and propaganda, the
Ireland swept off her feet by the European War, in the cities of Britain or from end to
It is not end of the American continent. even sought to establish whether Pearse was
If Socialism be, as we a Socialist or not. hear often, the common ownership of the
127

means of wealth-production, distribution and exchange by and in the interest of the whole community, then it should be difficult
to refuse the designation to
the
man who
wrote The Sovereign People.

refuses
Pearse himself
several places dreaded certain his writings. throughout aspects of modern Socialist teachings, and
the
designation
in
He
would no doubt have damned them with the rest of modern evil. Many Socialists will
be no doubt equally prompt to find evasions and unorthodoxies in his statement of his social creed. They will prefer to misunderstand the idealistic and nationalist inspiration which swayed him. They will, unlike
Connolly, continue to emphasise the phrases in the Republican Proclamation anent the right of the Irish people to the ownership of Ireland, and deem Irish destines unfettered and uncontrolled a mere rhetorical phrase until another Pearse rises to confuse them. Perhaps the war will avert the need for another Pearse to confute them. Certainly they would never convert the idiots who babble about Connolly's materialism and Pearse's idealism without tremendous In Pearse they will find emphasis indeed.
128

that breath of freedom's eternal spirit which has moulded all their systems and creeds.
In any case, let us have no more foolish comparisons or sickly idealisms which have been greater cloaks for evil than all the
materialisms in history.
remember what
or
we
shall
Let us, in short, Pearse's social ideals were, misunderstand his greatness.
For even when we have returned to the Sagas and burned our rent-books as Pearse
advised
problematical Karl Marx as quite so finished an instrument of the devil as Pearse dismissed Adam Smith. But, we shall have travelled far beyond assuredly enduring social unrighteousness because men and nations do not live by bread alone. Two men in Dublin knew that once before, when a manly figure in green grasped the other's hand beneath the Post Office porch, " Thank God, Pearse, we have lived crying,
is,
us,
it
at
least,
whether we
shall all dismiss
to see this day
"
129
CONCLUSION
book, but not the Man Called Pearse, for such men do not end. In the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to deal with some aspects of his life and
So ends
this
ideals as I
knew them from
daily intimacy,
from conversations, from a study of his What Dr. MahafFy condensed in writings.
have amplified into a book, in of shaking the gentle dreamer hope legend and the sombre, implacable fanatic If to one reader I have nonsense alike. brought a hint of the sincerity, the genius, the humanity, the real greatness of Pearse,
a phrase, I
the
I
I
am
satisfied.
And
a
it
:
will suffice to end as
began upon the note
Pearse never was a
legend, he was
man.
Rfquitscat.
130
DA 965
P4.R8
Ryan, Desmond The man called Pearse
PLEASE
DO NOT REMOVE
FROM
THIS
CARDS OR
SLIPS
POCKET
UNIVERSITY
OF TORONTO
LIBRARY

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THE MAN GALLED

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE STORY OF A SUCCESS

COLLEGE SEPTEMBER 1908

Printed by George Roberti, 50

MAUNSEL AND COMPANY, DUBLIN AND LONDON.

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE THE THREE WISHES OF

THE BROTHERS PEARSE

ITS INSIDE LIFE

THE SOCIAL IDEALS OF

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

ledgment and gratitude

what follows with some

aspects of the life and called Pearse. Circum-

which depicts Pearse

their hearse," ran a popular tribute as early

September 1916, "but angels meet the

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

Innumerable ballads have followed, and Pearse belongs to history

To know him was

inspired and see a

him, to be glamour in the most humto love

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

Edward Carson dreamed of arms

edit a bilingual paper, to found a bilingual I school, to start a revolution. secondary

defects of his straight and rigid virtues.

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

men and women

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

" Has Ireland learned a truer philosophy," he asks

some ministers would appear

definition superseded, and do our duty to Emmet's memory

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

definition than their

Splendid and holy causes are themselves

the Republican Proclamation. Besides an apologia he has written

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

DOES SHE STAND, those

Tone and Emmet,

delivered in places so far

Scholarship, a schoolmaster and Secretary of the

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

for boys that has

that great love so much for Irish

Finally, in "The Singer" find the life-story and philosophy of

hundred years. inspiration from the

more than once drew his flaming

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

and belief spelled accom-

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

upon the study of Canon Seadna twenty years before in a O'Leary's

characteristic and frequent note

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

had been implied.

THE MAN CALLED PEARSE

H. Pearse was no ghoulish monomaniac

who sacrificed his students without a thought,

his boys into an

tyrannies which make, "