THE INDESTRUCTIBLE IRISH
by Shaun Ivory
'I am not writing Irish history at the behest of anyone or in any hope of profiting by it, but because I thought a country as worthy of honour as Ireland and people as noble as those who have inhabited it, should go down into oblivion till their story was told.'
Thus wrote Geoffrey Keating in his 'Groundwork of the Knowledge of Ireland 1632'. Keating had no political or ethnic axe to grind, being himself Anglo-Irish and some years before Oliver Cromwell's fateful descent on our island.
Indeed, the inherent characteristics of the Irish, before that scythe of devastation as compared to those forced upon them in the decades after the British Army departed, is highlighted most graphically in this account from Dionysius Massari, Dean of Fermoy, secretary to Archbishop Rinuccini and Papal Nuncio to all Ireland.
Writing in Italian to Rinuccini's brother from Limerick to Florence in 1645: 'The men are fine looking and of incredible strength, swift runners, and ready to bear every kind of hardship with cheerfulness. They are all trained in arms, especially now they are at war. Those who apply themselves to letters are well fitted to the professions and the sciences.
'The women are distinguished by their grace and beauty, and they are as modest as they are lovely. Their manners are marked by their extreme simplicity, and they mix freely in conversation on all occasions without suspicion or jealousy...' Massari goes on to extol their stylish modes of dress, their appreciation of Spanish and French wines, the abundance of food of all descriptions, which is cheap, indicating a healthy economy, citing as an example – 'the horses are numerous, strong, well built and swift. For five pounds you can buy a nag which in Italy could not be got for a hundred gold pieces.'
Contrast this with J P Prendergast's 'The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland', only ten years after that letter: 'Ireland, in the language of the Scripture, lay void as a wilderness. Five-sixths of the people had disappeared. Women and children were found daily perishing in ditches, starved. The bodies of many wandering orphans, whose fathers had been killed or exiled, and whose mothers had died in the famine, were preyed upon by wolves.'
The British authorities estimated that up to 1641 there had been 6 Irish people to every English person in Ireland; a mere 15 years later that statistic was virtually reversed. The recovery from such planned genocide was inevitably slow and unquantifiable; suffice to say that our loss was the world's gain. The infamous Treaty of Limerick, perhaps the single greatest swindle in Ireland's history, led to 'The Flight of the Wild Geese'. This romantic-sounding title for what was in effect a sad, sad exodus, obscures a weeping wound that worsened to a haemorrhaging of our remaining life's blood.
All that was good and honourable in Irish society at that time felt there was no place for them there, their talents and inherited gifts of oratory, courage and weaponry now disregarded – perhaps feared – by the new powers-that-be.
Not so in Europe and beyond... Thomas Carlyle – whilst researching his 'History of Frederick the Great – remarked on continually running across 'very many Irish' in Prussia. Their seed was plentiful and strong, the War Office of the Irish Republic reckoning that, from 1691 to the Battle of Fontenay in 1745, over 400,000 Irishmen died fighting in the service of France.
Throughout the next century Irish officers and their regiments dominated the European scene. Names that today can still be found in any Irish telephone directory reclaiming a glory many had thought gone forever. The O'Briens, the Lacys, the O'Rourkes, O'Connells, O'Neills, McCarthys...the list goes on and on. Not only that, they went on to attain the highest honours and positions in their adopted lands. Marshals (of France and Russia), Ambassadors (to France, Russia and Sweden), bishops, governors, dukes, presidents, prime ministers, viceroys; their tunics dripping with honours from every royal house in Europe. They not only placed a distinctive stamp on the future of the western world they cocked a snook at those who had contemptuously rejected them.
Jonathan Swift, perhaps the loftiest of all 18th century intellectuals, saluted them thus: '...those gentlemen of Ireland, who, with all the disadvantages of being exiles and strangers, have been able to distinguish themselves in so many parts of Europe, by their valour and conduct above all other nations.'
Small wonder; after the British disaster of Fontenay, when the Irish regiments swept the opposing English forces away with the cry, ‘Remember Limerick!' King George II exclaimed: ‘Curse the laws that deprive me of such subjects!', referring to the denial of Irish citizens the privilege of serving the Crown.
One could go on and on – of the nine Irish Field Marshals who served in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, of Field Marshal Alexander Count O'Reilly, who started out by saving Charles III life during a revolt in Madrid and went on to reform the Spanish Army, ending up Lieutenant- General of of Louisiana. Or Patrice Maurice de McMahon, created Duc de Magenta and later first President of France. It is interesting to note that during this period of European history, the fates of a dozen countries was held in Irish hands. Not bad for a bunch of no hopers!
But before we leave the Continent it is perhaps timely to reflect on the present economic and political climate in our day-to-day lives, and how different it all would be if its 'Father', General Charles de Gaulle, hadn't had his Grand Design... not to mention where he would be if his great-grandfather hadn't met and married a certain Josephine McCartan from County Down!
Something for future would-be dictators to reflect upon, perhaps, before they go messing about with other people's destinies.
Shaun Ivory
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