FROM the middle of the last century onwards, the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic movement for repeal of the union with Britain developed two wings - a parliamentary wingworking for some form of domestic self government within the United Kingdom and Empire, and a radical wing seeking, if necessary by violence, to achieve separation from Britain.
Later in the century there was the beginning of a split in Irish unionism, as the descendants of the 17th century Ulster settlers saw their interests potentially diverging from those of landlord dominated southern unionism. With nationalism split politically and unionism split geographically the Irish people faced into the Great War, the issue of Irish self rule being postponed until after the conflict ended.
Three of these four traditions, reflecting between them the vast majority of the Irish people, supported the British declaration of war on Germany. The proportion of the nationalist population that opposed involvement in the war can best be judged by the respective numbers of National (Redmondite) Volunteers and Irish (separatist) Volunteers after the Movement split - 162,000 to 13,000 in favour of the Redmondites. The separatist movement clearly had the support of little more than 5 per cent of the Irish people. My parents belonged to that small minority and my view of Ireland was formed by them.
Almost 30 years later my father wrote of John Redmond's support for the War against the Central Powers: "Immediately it became apparent that it really represented the views of the Irish people. .. The [Volunteer] movement on which all our dreams had centred seemed merely to have canalised the martial spirit of the Irish people for the defence of England. Our dream castles toppled about us with a crash ... For centuries, England had held Ireland materially. But now it seemed she held her in a new and utterly complete way. Our national identity was obliterated not only politically but also in our own minds. The Irish peoplehadrecognised themselves as part of England."
In that deep disillusionment lay the seeds of the Rising in which my parents participated - a Rising which to its leaders appeared to be the only way to revive what they saw as a threatened Irish identity.
Two years later, in the 1918 election, the tiny proportion who in 1914 had favoured separation of Ireland from Britain rather than Home Rule had jumped almost tenfold to half of the electorate - with a quarter of the people of the island still supporting the Home Rule Nationalist Party, and the remaining quarter, of course, unionists. However, because of the workings of the first past the post electoral system still in use, the half of the island's population who did not support Sinn Fein secured only 28 per cent of the constituency, viz. the non university seats.
Even more striking, however, is the fact that in the 26 counties only two of the 72 non university seats went to non Sinn Fein candidates in that 1918 election. This was despite the fact that at least a third of the voters in our part of the island were either unionist, (for 11 per cent of the 26 county population were Protestants), or supporters of the Irish Parliamentary Party, (which secured 27 per cent of the votes in its contests with Sinn Fein in the 26 counties).
THE foundation of the State four years later saw within its borders the almost total submergence of the traditions with which 95 per cent of the Irish people had identified in 1914 - traditions that had led something like 300,000 young men to join the British army and which, even after the 1916 executions and the attempt to introduce conscription, had still retained the support of well over one third of the people in our part of Ireland.
What became of this third of our people? A significant proportion of unionists left the country shortly after the State was founded and the remainder effectively opted out of the public life of our State. Up to the last war many of these Protestants remained unionists in the political sense, but after 1945 virtually all of them came gradually to identify with this State while remaining well disposed to and in some cases retaining a sense of a special relationship with neighbouring Britain.
But what of those Catholic nationalists who had fought in the Great War, and who came from families which even in 1918 voted for the Irish Parliamentary Party? Many of these must have felt uncomfortable in a new State where, if they identified themselves by wearing a poppy on the 11th of November, they were likely to be abused, and were sometimes even attacked by Republican elements. In this situation most of them were content simply to merge into the background, and to allow the valiant role they had played in defeating imperial Germany in the mud and misery of France or Flanders to be quietly forgotten.
It should, perhaps, be added that for a decade or so after independence the new State showed some generosity towards the veterans, for example helping with the upkeep of the beautiful Memorial Park at Islandbridge. And in 1926, Kevin O'Higgins attended the Cenotaph service in Whitehall - a tradition maintained until de Valera cancelled Irish representation in 1934.
We are inclined to be critical of inter community divisions in Northern Ireland, but we have been less critical of indeed I would say largely unconscious of - the divisions we have allowed to persist in our own society. These are symbolised by the fact that people like myself, who come from the separatist tradition, have never been prepared to share the mourning of those whose relatives or ancestors died in the last two World Wars by attending a memorial service or by wearing a poppy on November 11th.
Why so? Is it simply because one belongs to a different tradition, and that's the end of it? Does it reflect shyness about seeming to profess membership of a club to which one knows one does not belong? Or a fear of making oneself conspicuous by drawing attention to oneself? Or a concern not to alienate oneself from others of one's own tribe?
For my own part I was forced finally to face these questions by the invitation from Paddy Harte - who of all politicians in this State has been most single mindedly devoted to the cause of reconciliation - to participate in the wide ranging group of people whom he, together with Glen Barr of Workers' Strike fame, organised to go last Monday to the places where the men of the Ulster and Irish Divisions were killed on such an appalling scale 80 years ago.
I have always experienced the emotional impact of what happened in France and Flanders. But to go there together with people who come from other Irish traditions many from the North and some from this part of Ireland who still treasure the memory of relatives who died on these battlefields - added a special poignancy to the experience.
THE headline on Mary Holland's Thursday article on this page told us, however, that "honouring the past can imperil a better future".
She wrote that in Northern Ireland poppies are "too often worn in order to demonstrate the superiority, or at least the superior numbers of one community over the other". And she recounted how BBC Northern Ireland this year succumbed to pressure from unionists by instructing its newsreaders to wear a poppy - something that is not enforced by the BBC in Britain.
Those unionists who pushed the BBC to turn this simple reminder of the deaths of tens of thousands of Irishmen, of both traditions, into an enforced symbol of one tradition dishonoured the dead and deepened the dangerous divisions in their community.
Like Mary Holland, one of the things I found particularly moving about the Islandbridge commemoration addressed by the Taoiseach some time ago was the presence of Tom Hartley representing Sinn Fein; for one brief, bright moment this seemed to presage a long overdue reconciliation of our diverse traditions. Renewed IRA violence subsequently put such a prospect on hold, but that event pointed poignantly towards what must in time be our destiny - a coming together of all the traditions inherited from our tragic past, in mutual respect and without diminution of anyone's sense of identity.