The Sacred Egoism of Sinn Féin

Unfortunately, the future does not present itself to the Irish mind in any such simplified terms, and some Irishmen, too, offer the will for the deed of participation, but their reception is the most unfavourable. They are accused of supporting a war in which they refuse to fight. There is to be no reciprocity in this exchange. The pro-Ally Irishman is to give his life at once, but no instalment is forthcoming of the common ideal he has been invited to achieve. The democratic millenium to which the Milners, Curzons, and Carsons are leading, under the special patronage of Lord Northcliffe, is apparently so certain, that only the rudeness of parochial and provincial minds could prompt a demand for the commonplace realizations of here and now. So it comes, as the war progresses, that the number of Ireland’s grievances is increased simultaneously with the demands upon her honour, her credulity and her patience. Consequently, as is the way of human nature, her egoism is exasperated, and becomes more firmly concentrated upon her own welfare. Precisely at that moment of exasperation an appeal is made for the voluntary surrender of that which was witheld even under threat of force. Since it is only the tactless Hun who is lacking in psychological subtlety, this strange phenomenon must be otherwise explicable.

The truth is that our sacred egoism, strong and exacerbated as it is, has not yet touched the sublime heights of British selfishness and self-complacency. England refuses absolutely to be convinced, by the painful and reiterated facts of our history, that this country is not merely a turbulent province! Therefore, it ought to be possible to break our resistance, or to cajole us, as was done in England when the various Military Service Acts were passed. The men of the country were split up into antagonistic groups; the married against the single, the middle-aged against the young, trade against trade. Each wanted to escape at the cost of the other. In Ireland, of course, no such division can be created, for the simple reason that we have never refused to fight for our own country. Our detestation of pacifists equals even that of the English gutter-press, and our incredible indifference to personal, as distinct from national, convictions makes Ireland a paradise for militarists. But they must be militarists of our own creation. Sinn Féin fosters the development of native industries, and supports home products, often with an embarrassing disregard for the consequences. The Irish anti-militarist is, therefore, rarely a pacifist, and his objections are of a very different order from those which are surmounted or crushed by the advocates of military service in Great Britain. But it does not seem as if this elementary fact will be recognized, for to recognize it would be for England to admit that Ireland is a nation. To the denial and obscuration of that enduring truth centuries of English policy have gone, and in Ireland everything has been sacrificed to its assertion and reiteration. It lies at the back of the whole Anglo-Irish controversy, and sums up the essence of innumerable volumes which have attempted to state the case for Irish freedom. Until the fact of Irish Nationality is accepted by England, and acted upon, it will be the task of Sinn Féin to proclaim the sacred egoism of a nation that will not die.