"People without a nation are homeless in the world. They do not know where they stand...We wish to have a nation once again. We wish to build once again an Irish community of communities, a nation in the proper sense of the word"

Fennell, 'A New Nationalism For The New Ireland'

RIP Dr. Desmond Fennell. A talented and prophetic thinker.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam

Desmond Fennell writing in 1962 about the tendency to idolise the EEC among Irish leaders and opinion-formers (from the Irish Dominican monthly 'Doctrine and Life', May, 1962)

https://twitter.com/scary_biscuits/status/1072235446674051072

Desmond Fennell proposes Ireland sending heavy weapons to the jihad against Israel, 2009

Desmond Fennell: Irish Liberalism is just "second hand Englishness"

Ernie O'Malley, aged around 18-19, describes Easter Monday 1916

He was still mocking and hostile to the Irish Volunteers as were some of the locals who were witnessing the GPO being taken over with a man remarking ''they’ll soon run away when the soldiers come.''

Ernie noting the reactions to people around O'Connell Street to the beginning of the Rising, some with serious faces and others laughing and sniggering.

He laughed himself until he read what the Poblacht na hEireann outside the GPO

Interesting dialogue here

3 boys Ernie knew from Trinity College asked what he ''thought of those damn Sinn Féiners'' and he was then asked if he wanted to help them defend Trinity College against the Shinners - to which Ernie agreed but said he needed to go home first

On the way home then he bumped into another student he knew, this time the student asked

''Why? What is Trinity to you?’

‘I said I would go back there to defend it.’

‘But it’s not your university. Remember you’ll have to shoot down Irishmen, your own countrymen. You bear them no hatred. If you go in there you cannot leave; and, mark my words, you’ll be sorry ever afterward. Think it over.’'

Ernie taking note on the Loyalist seethe who referred to the Volunteers as ''pro-Germans''

Redmondite reaction interesting too and more extreme with a man calling for them to be hanged as shooting is too good for them.

Two woman stood in front of an Irish Volunteer Sentry one threatening to him that if ''Johnny was back from the front you’d be running with your bloody-well tail between your legs.’

Singing coming from the GPO with bullets echoing lol

Ernie noting the moment himself and others seem to shift to feeling that those in the GPO were right

''The men down there were right, that I felt sure of. They had a purpose which I did not share. But no one had a right to Ireland except the Irish. In the city Irishmen were fighting British troops against long odds. I was going to help them in some way.''

Next few pages then is Ernie and some young fella he knew stealing a gun from his father and trying to help but they didnt really do anything as it was their first time with a gun and just shoot randomly at things lol

Ernie now regretting him mocking the Volunteers beforehand and wishing he had joined them

Also noting a Dublin Fusilier who said ''every man you see in green uniform, regard him as a German soldier, as an invader, and shoot him down'' and ''I’d like to stick them up against a wall instead of taking them prisoners.’'

Ernie on the executions. MacBride was a friend of his family and was in his house the week before with some interesting dialogue

Ernie tells him he wants to join British Army to which MacBride responded ''No you won't''

Some media responses at the time from Irish Times / Independent and George Bernard Shaw's letter in defence of the Rising

Finally, few last passages on Ernie's own and the countries National Rebirth during and after the executions causing him to then join the Volunteers