Home Rule was law, so who needed the Rising?

IN a speech at the National Museum last Sunday, and later on radio, the Taoiseach said the core justification for the 1916 Rising was that it asserted the right of Ireland to self-government.

On September 18, 1914, the Home Rule bill received the royal assent. This was not some obscure administrative measure but the final concession by the British political and constitutional system, using due process, that Ireland did indeed have that right to self-government.

It was the culmination of four years of debate that convulsed that same system and more than 100 years of constitutional struggle in which that same system had used every possible means to kill the demand for that right.

In September 1914, even the unionists knew they could not stop Home Rule only modify it. The overwhelming majority of nationalists knew that Home Rule was now law and acted accordingly. Where then does that leave the moral justification for the Rising and all its consequences?

Maurice O'Connell

19 Forge Park

Oakpark

Tralee

Co Kerry