1. What did you think of the ballad Lonely BannaStrand? Please explain why you did or did not like the song. Did it remind you of any other songs we have studied in this course or a song from your...

The Political War Ballads of Sean O'Casey, 1916-18 The Political War Ballads of Sean O'Casey, 1916-18 Author(s): Patrick Callan Source: Irish University Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 168-179 Published by: Edinburgh University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25477498 Accessed: 17-12-2018 19:39 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Edinburgh University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Irish University Review This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Mon, 17 Dec 2018 19:39:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Patrick Callan The Political War Ballads of Sean O'Casey, 1916-18 Sean O'Casey's motifs of war, pacifism and violence have been the subject of much detailed analysis. The autobiographies, the Abbey trilogy, and The Silver Tassie have generally provided the evidence. This literary examination submits the historical and biographical contexts to a minority role. This article will indicate significant details from the relevant political ballads written by O'Casey during the latter stages of the war. It will then comment on the historical context to illuminate points which may at first glance appear to be simple, generalised reactions to the war. The deliberate selection of targets for criti cism distinguished them from the many turgid anti-British ballads produced in Ireland at that time. These ballads merit a detailed notice, as they characterised the bitter cynicism in Ireland towards the war effort after the 1916 rising, and provide evidence on the laboured literary apprentice ship of O'Casey. They were almost all published in the three 'Wren' books in 1918, and some of the ballads had been previously available in either broadsheet or leaflet form.1 The books are a quaint com mercial mix, appealing to the sentimental romanticism of the Irish, while also providing a set of political satires reflecting the increasingly vocal opinions of "advanced" Irish nationalism. They existed side by side with an equally vibrant pro-war group of ballads.2 1. O'Casey published three books of songs in 1918: Songs of the Wren No 1, Songs of the Wren No 2, and More Wren Songs. Two songs had been issued separately, "The Grand OuF Dame Brittania", and "The Constitutional Movement Goes On and On". 2. The dual allegiance of the Irish public, both to the soldier at the front and to the resurgent springs of nationalism, causing a confusing ambiguity which often tried to accommodate respect for both traditions. While direct contrasts could be drawn between the two contrasting ballad schools, the Daily Express in May 1916 unintentionally provided a classic example of the ambivalence. They published, in adjacent columns, "The Suicide", by Thomas Mac Donagh, and a loyal ballad, "Soldiers of Erin". Mac Donagh did not express any explicit political idea: the poem did however contain a prophetic comment on the burial of the executed Irish Volunteers in unconsecrated ground within the walls of Arbour Hill jail, Dublin: They will bury it (my body) by the roadside, And in no blessed ground . . . They will think they bury well The damned in their grave of shame. 168 This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Mon, 17 Dec 2018 19:39:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms POLITICAL WAR BALLADS OF SEAN O'CASEY * * * "The Grand Oui' Dame Brittania" The title page of the first Wren volume credited O'Casey with the authorship of this song, his earliest known political ballad of the war. It was not however included in any of the Wren books.3 It has been claimed that it was most probably written as a "reaction to the news from England when, in January 1916, conscription was introduced for Great Britain".4 O'Casey's recollection of the event made no specific reference to the conscription problem in Great Britain. His comment reflected on the recruiting campaigns then underway in Ireland only: Finally came the crash of guns in the Great War, and England's hurried and agitated recruiting campaign in Ireland calling on Irishmen of goodwill to go out and fight a fight for little Catholic Belgium.5 Irish recruiting was for the full duration of the war run indepen dently from the British campaigns. The song was written in response to the activities of the Department of Recruiting in Ireland, formed in October 1915, and not in answer to events in England. The song recorded many of the criticisms directed against the recruiters. O'Casey quoted the Grand Oui' Dame as saying that . . . each Gael that for England dies Will enjoy Home Rule in the clear blue skies. . . .6 The Daily Express would have agreed with his stated belief that "No-one my story will tell", or that "secure in my grave I shall be .. . quiet then". Obversely, "Soldiers of Erin" expressed the shame of the Irish soldiers at being patronynimically linked with the domestic rebellion. It had a solemn tone: Alack! Alack! the pity of it all That in Eblana's streets her soldiers fall, Men of a corps that ne'er did battle shun, For Erin's stay-at-homes they fought the Hun. (Daily Express, 16 May 1916) 3. This song was issued anonymously in broadside, following its publication in The Workers* Republic of 15 January 1916. According to O'Casey's bibliographers, the newspaper edition was two verses longer than the former (Sean O'Casey: A Bibliography, ed. R. Ayling and M. Durkan (London, Macmillan, 1978) p. 4. Yet, a broadside (in a private collection) had seven verses; the full version of eight verses is found in Feathers From The Green Crow, ed. Robert Hogan (London: Macmillan, 1963), pp. 132-4. 4. Ayling and Durkan, p. 3. 5. Sean O'Casey, Windfalls (London: Macmillan, 1934), p. vi. 6. Feathers From the Green Crow, p. 132. 169 This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Mon, 17 Dec 2018 19:39:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms IRISH UNIVERSITY REVIEW Many Irish nationalists had joined the army in response to the promise of Home Rule, then on the statute books since September, 1914, but suspended for the duration of the war.7 "Johnny Redmond", leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, was stigmatised throughout the song. He had during the war proved to be "good and great - A Pillar of the English State".8 His nationalist antecedents were satirised, as O'Casey pined, "Who fears to speak of 'Ninety-Eight' ", a reference to the Wexford rebellion of 1798, Redmond's native county.9 The withholding of one half of the book grant for the National Library prompted the Dame's justifications: Ye want a pound or two from me! . . . For your oui' Hibernian Academy! . . . Don't ye know we've got the Huns to quell, And we want the cash for shot and shell; Your Artists - let them go to Hell!10 Redmond was slurred for his obeisance to the English throne. He was said to have bowed to it: the drawing room of the Dublin Castle was also that of the Irish race.11 He had also visited the front on 17 November 1915, and his activities were satirised: 7. Many had also joined to ensure a regular wage for themselves and their depen dants. The virtual closing of emigration outlets during the war was a unique feature of post-Famine Ireland. An anonymous balladeer implied that it was yet another English plot against the Irish race: they had . . . closed the ocean now to Pat, There's one place he must go - Right across the way to Flanders, To fight our German foe. ("Paddy Atkins", ballad in private collection) 8. John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, had offered to aid the British government in the home defence of Ireland, when speaking in an emo tional debate in the House of Commons on 4 August 1914. A series of complex negotiations and suggestions prompted Redmond to advise National Volunteers to enlist in the British Army, the first nationalist ever to do so. His speech at Wooden bridge, County Wicklow, on 24 September 1914, encouraged the volunteers to account for themselves "as men . . . wherever the firing line extends, in defence of right and freedom and religion in this war" (Stephen Gwynn,John Redmond's Last Years (London, Edward Arnold, 1919), p. 155. He vigorously publicised this policy, and his views were widely used in recruiting propaganda. 9. Redmond had been ridiculed by his unionist opponents in 1907 when they issued a pamphlet outlining many of his "seditious" statements. They placed a caricature of him as a peasant, complete with pile, on the cover. 10. Irish Times, 19 April 1915; Feathers From The Green Crow, p. 133. The broad side referred to above, differed in some printing details from the version quoted: in this verse alone there were five differences. 11. Redmond attended a widely publicised recruiting conference at the Vice Regal Lodge in the Phoenix Park on 15 October 1915. 170 This content downloaded from 128.59.222.107 on Mon, 17 Dec 2018 19:39:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms POLITICAL WAR BALLADS OF SEAN O'CASEY . . . Like a true born Gael he faced the Hun, Then he jumped around an' fired a gun - Faix, you should have seen the Germans run!12 Redmond had been invited to fire a large artillery piece. He obliged, "refusing to make use of the ear muffs of cotton that were proferred ... to deaden the sound".13 The Grand Oui' Dame,