Letter: Easter Rising should be remembered - not for its success, but for its failure

It was a futile and hopeless insurrection that resulted in disaster, destruction and death for so many involved.

Shamefully, Irish extremists have reinterpreted and exploited it to inspire a legacy of Republican blood sacrifice and armed struggle which has plagued this island for over 100 years.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), those responsible for the “Rising,”were far from heroes, saints or role models. They were a small group of socialist elitist fanatics who sought to physically impose their radical ideology for Ireland on a moderate constitutional majority.

Just one example of this is the fact that over 200,000 Irishmen voluntarily signed up to the British war effort, whereas less than 1,300 took part in the IRB’s terrorist insurgency. Which do you think was a greater reflection of Irish society as whole?

The IRB terrorists unwisely believed more Irish men and women would support them in their military campaign as it unfolded. However, the dismal numbers that turned out on Easter Monday, which had originally meant to be Easter Sunday but for the confiscation of imported illegal arms and arrest of Roger Casement on Good Friday, meant that the entire mission was doomed to fail - and fail it did. Within a week the radical Republicans had surrendered and were imprisoned awaiting trial.

The swift, abrupt and fierce response by the British Army generated support for the weaker and amateur insurrectionists. So too did the hasty trial and execution of the main plotters. Ultimately, the “Rising” would sew the seeds for future conflicts in Ireland, including the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War and even the modern Troubles.

The truth of the “Easter Rising” is now eclipsed by Republican legend and romanticism. The failed insurrectionists are now elevated into Irish folklore and memorialised in such a way that reinterprets their radical terrorism as something inspiring. Terrorists are now viewed as founding fathers of the state even though an independent Republic would not be realised for over 40 years after the “Rising,” and it would look nothing like the socialist state James Connolly and Patrick Pearse believed in.

Every year at Easter, aspects of Irish society revisit the outdated and irrelevant victim-story which wrongly asserts the British as evil oppressors while at the same time proclaiming extremists as saint-like revolutionaries.

In a baptism of anti-British hate, new generations are indoctrinated into a divisive, anti-British, victimhood mindset justifying the physical force tradition within Irish Republicanism and providing cover for the heinous, immoral and discriminatory killing sprees that Republican extremists have engaged in ever since.

The Easter Rising should be remembered. Not for its success however, but for its failure. Not for its romanticism, but for its horror. It marks the moment the gun is first fired in Irish politics at the start of the 20th Century. Its legacy and impact on this island is not one to be proud of for it has been used to justify every IRA terrorist campaign since that has claimed the lives of so many innocents.

Remember the Easter Rising but remember it for the right reasons.

Moore Holmes, Belfast BT6