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The year 1916 was a defining one in the troubled history
of Ireland, and two events had a profound influence on the
subsequent history of the two States which were created through
Partition in 1921.
For most Ulster families, 1916 is a constant reminder of
the blood sacrifice of thousands of their menfolk at the Somme
on July 1 of that year.
It was a day which produced the heaviest casualties in the
history of the British Army, with more than 20,000 men being
killed. Nearly 4,000 of these were from the old nine-county
province of Ulster, most of them serving in the 36th (Ulster)
Division.
Ever since, the memory of these men who made the supreme
sacrifice for King and Country has been honoured each year
on July 1, at war memorials and cenotaphs through Northern
Ireland.
More and more 'pilgrims' from Northern Ireland are making
the trip each year to Thiepval and the surrounding cemeteries
to see the place where so many sons of Ulster died 90 years
ago.
The year 1916 is also remembered by republicans throughout
Ireland, but for entirely different reasons. At Easter of
that momentous year, republicans rose in revolt in Dublin
and a few other areas, seizing and attempting to seize key
installations in the Irish capital.
The Easter Rising resulted in the deaths of 240 British soldiers,
several dozen republican gunmen, and several hundred civilians.
It was suppressed within a week by the British, who rushed
reinforcements into Dublin via Kingstown, and from the Curragh
and other military bases.
Significantly, the British troops based in Dublin when the
rebellion broke out where mostly Irish. Men of the Royal Irish
Rifles, a Northern-based regiment were in Dublin at the time,
preparing to leave for France where the Great War was raging.
They held Dublin Castle, and a number of other key positions
before the reinforcements arrived, and undoubtedly prevented
a far more serious situation.
After the republican gunmen were captured and were being
escorted into captivity, they were jeered and heckled by mobs
of the Dublin poor, some of them waving Union Jacks. That
was because a huge number of Dubliners were fighting in France
in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
It was the decision of the British to execute 17 of the leaders
of the rebellion which turned them into martyrs, and led to
a swing in sympathy away from the British and to the rebels.
All that is history, of course, and this year the 90th anniversary
of 1916 will be remembered throughout the island, but for
two different reasons.
The Irish Government has attempted to link the two events,
and invited Unionists and loyalists to attend ceremonies in
Dublin marking the anniversary of the Easter Rising, to be
marked by parades and ceremonies outside the GPO in Dublin.
The Irish also invited Ulster Unionists to attend a solemn
ceremony at the National War Memorial at Islandbridge, which
was erected to honour the memory of the 50,000 Irishmen who
died in the 1914-18 War, all of them serving in the British
Forces.
Ulster Unionists have no problem about the Islandbridge ceremony,
and there is also a wholehearted welcome to the offer by the
Southern Government to issue special stamps commemorating
the Ulster Division's sacrifice at the Somme on July 1, 1916.
That is a worthy and generous decision, much appreciated
in Northern Ireland, especially when one takes into account
the fact that the British are not marking the sacrifice by
producing special commemorative stamps.
Ulster Unionists have indicated they will not participate
in the official ceremonies in Dublin to mark the 90th anniversary
of the Easter Rising.
It's a sensitive issue, and whatever views one has of Southern
attitudes to the Great War, it has to be conceded that the
Republic is perfectly entitled to mark the event in whatever
ways it sees fit.
However, it can not be denied, or downplayed, the fact that
the action of the relatively small number of republicans who
took over the GPO in Dublin and attacked British troops and
Dublin policemen, were regarded by the vast majority at the
time as being in the wrong - a classic case of "England's
difficulty is Ireland's opportunity".
At the very most, about 3,000 people were involved in the
republican side during the Rebellion. At that time 300,000
Irishmen were serving in the British Army, some two-thirds
of them from the South.
The passing of time has allowed republicans and nationalists
to practically airbrush the Southern Irishmen from history,
who served in the British Army in the Great War.
Not so in Northern Ireland where pride is still uppermost
on the part of most people for their ancestors who served
so loyally, and bravely, in the Army and other British Forces
in the Great War.
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