A personal reflection by Michael Longley

Horror of the carnage in Flanders and at Gallipoli, bitter resentment at the execution seriatim of the leaders of the 1916 Rising in Dublin, anger at proposals for conscription and loss of trust in Britain’s will to deliver Home Rule all contributed to the large numbers who voted in the 1918 General Election in favour of Irish independence and the setting up of an Irish republic rather than for Home Rule. It will be recalled that only four counties in Ireland returned unionist majorities!

The grief felt by the bereaved back home, the anguish and suffering of those maimed and disabled as well as that of their loved ones and carers were accentuated by the conflicting perceptions of expectation for which nationalists and unionists had made such sacrifice -Home Rule on the one hand, Exclusion from Home Rule on the other. If sons, fathers, brothers, sweethearts and husbands were not to have suffered or been killed in vain then it was inevitable that the two traditions in Ireland would become more bitterly alienated than ever from each other. Ironically, such feelings may have been more acutely felt by those who had not joined up in the British forces and whose viewpoint would not have been tempered by shared suffering in the trenches. Another dimension was added to bitter division in Ireland by those who saw in England’s misfortune Ireland’s opportunity to strike, at Easter 1916, a body blow -which indeed it turned out to be- at the heart of empire.
The violence was bitter first between I.R.A. and Black and Tans then between I.R.A. ‘irregulars’ and Free State forces in the South , I.R.A. and unionist ‘special’ forces in the North . Action and reaction left a bitter legacy from which the South has only recently recovered while we still have a long way to go in the North if we are to heal the wounds of the thirty years of non-stop violence from which we now seem to be emerging.
Whereever there is conflict falsehoods are flung about to justify the most inhuman of acts; falsehood being used to justify the violence which each has done to the other.. The violator, tortured by guilt and remorse or clinging to falsehood and the need to spread it as justification vies with the resentment, anger and grief of the violated in a danse macabre of action, reaction and revenge which has warped the spirit of Ireland for almost a century.
Violators may yearn for the release of atonement for what they have done; the violated may find it in their hearts to wish no ill-will, the fore-runner of that forgiveness which lifts the burden of their resentment or desire for revenge.
It seemed much more than co-incidence that the Agreement was reached on Good Friday, a day full of symbolic resonance for most people in Ireland. This is the day on which we are reminded of the significance of the symbolism of the Cross, the symbol of love across the division which separates us, of love that closes the gulf of unreality that keeps us apart.
With regard to the creation of individual and collective well-being perhaps our greatest challenge lies in a need to be much more adventurous, courageous and imaginative in dealing with guilt and resentment through encouragement to admit wrong and to ask forgiveness of those whom we have hurt and to be willing to render forgiveness to those who have hurt us.