Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Binnacle readers! In the words of Murphy MacManus from Boondock Saints, “It’s Saint Patty’s Day, everyone is Irish tonight.”
For some context, the following article was written in my undergraduate years. I will come up with some original TBB material at some point, but I felt that in light of the special feast day, an essay on one of Ireland’s most beloved heroes, Patrick Pearse, was only appropriate.
The name of the article title “The Fool,” is in reference to one of Pearse’s most famous poems, as you guessed it, called The Fool. I highly recommend that if you wish to sate your Irish-nationalist sensibilities that you look up the poem. Further, the subtitle echoes the words Pearse stated in a spirited speech at the funeral of his friend, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa. Although sounding like somewhat of a violent revolutionary at this point, the following article is unabashed hagiography on the less well-known, peaceful side of Pearse. I hope you enjoy it.
CÚCHULAINN: PATRICK PEARSE AND HIS ATTEMPT TO REFORM THE IRISH SCHOOL SYSTEM
One aspect of the Anglo-Irish tension throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was over the educational system. In the modern eye, it tends to go more unnoticed than the politics and violence that embroiled the two nations. However, the fight over the hearts and minds of the Irish youth through education was at the very core of the contention. It was over the education system that figures such as Patrick Pearse would focus on in their attempt to take back Ireland from the English. Despite becoming an extremely politically charged figure, Pearse believed that it would not be through political or military means that the Irish would win, but through the school system. More specifically, Pearse and the Gaelic League saw the revitalization of the Gaelic language and literature in the education system as seminal to their nationalist hopes.
Now, by way of laying down context, the state of the education system in Ireland was anything but Irish. What is mostly meant by not Irish is the fact that Irish as a language was not taught in most of the schools. Adrian Kelly writes: “The perception in independent Ireland was that the education system did indeed cause the demise of Irish as a spoken language.” Pearse himself was extremely virulent towards the state of Irish education as he writes: “There is no education system in Ireland. The English have established the simulacrum of an education system, but its object is the precise contrary of the object of an education. Education should foster; this education is meant to repress.” Granted, Pearse is speaking from a very nationalistic standpoint, nevertheless, to suppress a people’s language is to suppress every other aspect of their culture.
Pearse goes on further to diagnose what he sees as problems with the Irish school system. He writes about his disgust of the education situation as not only excluding Irish in the curriculum but as lacking the spirit of true education: “I put it that what education in Ireland needed was less a reconstruction of its machinery than a regeneration in spirit. The machinery, I said, has doubtless its defects, but what is chiefly wrong with it is that it is mere machinery, a lifeless thing without a soul.” This passage comes from Pearse’s The Murder Machine, which he states in the preface to the pamphlet embodies an article which was published in the Irish Review in 1913. As Gabriel Doherty notes, The Murder Machine was Pearse’s “call to arms to all those involved in education in Ireland.” One might consider it his manifesto: calling all men, women and children of Ireland to participate in the revival of their culture, which was slowly being suppressed through the Anglicization of literature.
As was stated briefly above, Pearse saw the forefront of the fight over the soul of Ireland not in politics, but in the vernacular. “To Pearse,” claims Roisin Higgins “the restoration of the language was the essence of being Irish; political nationalism should and could only come second.” In fact, Pearse believed that in giving primacy to the language, all other aspects of the Irish culture would necessarily fall into place: “‘When the position of Ireland’s language as her greatest heritage is once fixed, all other matters will insensibly adjust themselves. As it develops and because it develops, it will carry all kindred movements with it, Irish art, Irish dancing, Irish games and customs, Irish industries, Irish politics – all these are worthy objects. Not one of them, however can be said to be fundamental.’” Dialect was the lynchpin whereby, once implemented, would over time restore Irish culture to Ireland.
Pearse not only was vehement about the utilitarian aspect of the schools, but also about its complement, modernism. In this sense, his language is unanimous with the Catholic literary revival’s sentiments about modernism in general. In his discussion about the possibilities of Home Rule, Pearse addresses four things that many hoped for in regards to reform of education strictly under the Irish. For the purpose of this essay, only one of these things will be discussed as pertinent. That is his critique of the hope that, with the institution of Home Rule, there will be an ushering in of a sound modern education. Pearse notes that this hope irritated him the most, “Yet we find it in nearly every school prospectus, and it comes pat to the lips of nearly everyone that writes or talks about schools.” He further goes on to proclaim: “It should be obvious that the more ‘modern’ an education is the less ‘sound’, for in education ‘modernism’ is as much a heresy as in religion.” The attitude of Pearse towards the progressive ideal of the schools is important in the development of his curriculum for education.
Most all of Pearse’s political life and career with the Gaelic League was directed towards this goal of reforming the schools. For instance, in 1907, an Irish Council Bill was proposed which gave Ireland extremely limited autonomy. Most nationalists rejected the Bill due to the fact that it gave such little power, but Pearse was ecstatic about it. Pearse stated that “If it will ‘reach the Statute Book, we shall be on the eve of the greatest and most beneficial revolution in the modern history of Ireland. The schools will be ours.’” Despite the failure of the Bill, Pearse was fairly satisfied with the reforms that had thus taken place regarding the schools. In 1908 he started his own school, St. Enda’s. Due to his work with the school, Pearse stepped back from politics for a while until, in 1911, Pearse was stirred back into political action by the prospect of a Home Rule Bill. It was his hope that through the Home Rule Bill, Ireland might, through political means, take back control of education.
The Gaelic League was the platform from which Pearse attempted to revitalize the Gaelic language into the schools. Kelly conveys that “In 1912 Padraic Pearse, in answer to the question: ‘Cad is cuspóir do Chonnradh na Gaedhilge?’ replied: ‘Gaedhil do chur ag labhairt Gaedhilge.’” (“What is the aim of the Gaelic League? To have Irish people speaking Irish.”) Of all the members of the League, Pearse appears the most zealous in regards to educational reform. P. S. O’Hegarty, a reader of the An Claidheamh Soluis, of which Pearse was an editor, noted on Pearse’s obsession with school reform: “One got the impression of a mere automaton, whose one strong passion was bilingual education. In season and out of season he urged bilingualism, and in season and out of season he brooded on the question of Irish education, seeing in that, as so many have done, the spear-point of English influence in Ireland.” The two languages of course were Irish and English. Pearse further noted in 1900, upon his promotion to secretary to the Publishing committee of the League, that the goal of the committee was to make open to students of all ages modern Irish texts. Of course, when he says “modern” in this regard, Pearse simply means updated and new.
Up to this point, Pearse’s critique of English education has been made quite clear. What of his solution? As Pearse believed, education under the English had no soul. He saw it as both utilitarian and detrimentally modern. The cure for such maladies then, as can be seen in Pearse’s works and life, is culture and history. Pearse claims that “the native Irish education system possesses pre-eminently two characteristics: first, freedom for the individual, and secondly, an adequate inspiration.” Further, the essence of Pearse’s teaching was to highlight and celebrate Irish history and folklore as distinct from England. “The authentic voice of Ireland,” he states, “is to be sought in her literature. And that literature is a Separatist literature. The ‘secret song’ of the dispossessed Irish are the most fiercely Separatist utterances in any literature.” It is through Irish literature then that Pearse hopes to shape the attitudes of the Irish youth.
Freedom and inspiration are thus the founding principles of education for Pearse. Pearse stresses freedom on three different levels: for the student, for the teacher, and for schools. In regards to these levels he writes:
The first thing I plead for, therefore, is freedom: freedom for each school to shape its own program in conformity with the circumstances of the school as to place, size, personnel, and so on; freedom again for the individual teacher to impart something of his own personality to his work, to bring his own peculiar gifts to the service of the pupils, to be, in short, a teacher, a master, one having an intimate and permanent relationship with his pupils, and not a mere part of the education system, a mere cog in the wheel; freedom finally for the individual pupil and scope for his development within the school and within the system.
Pearse uses the examples of St. Kieran, St. Enda, after which his school was named, and St. Colmcille and how they gathered a “little group of foster-children” around them. “It seems to me,” Pearse further claims, “that there has been nothing nobler in the history of education than this development of the old Irish plan of fosterage under a Christian rule, when the pagan ideals of strength and truth there were added the Christian ideals of love and humility.” Freedom is not an end, but only a means to an end. Freedom then, for Pearse, is giving Ireland the ability to create and foster such an atmosphere as expressed above.
The principle of inspiration for Pearse is a bit more specific than that of freedom. Albeit he does believe that each school, and each teacher within that school, should have freedom to teach as they see fit, one can see through the establishment of St. Enda’s what exactly he aspires for in a new school system.
I feel that I have ideas on the subject of the education of boys which are worth putting into practice. Among the features of my scheme would be : - (1) an Irish standpoint and “atmosphere”; (2) bilingual teaching as far as possible; (3) all language teaching on the Direct Method; (4) special attention to science and “modern” subjects generally, while not neglecting the classical side; (5) association of the pupils with the shaping of the curriculum, cultivation of the observation and reasoning, “nature study”, and several other points to which I have devoted a good deal of thought; (6) physical culture,ーIrish games, etc; and (7) above all, formation of character.
St. Enda’s was established as an all boys school because Pearse held that there were no schools in Ireland for Irish, Catholic boys. The inspiration and “formation of character” that Pearse proposed was based on the examples of both Christian and mythological Irish figures.
In his play, The Master, Pearse illustrates exactly his ideal of education and the role it should play in the fostering of students. Granted, it is anachronistic and unrealistic considering the setting is in Ireland under a monarchical rule. Yet, the reminiscent language of old Ireland is consistent with the whole of Pearse’s educational philosophy. Ciaran, the “Master” in the play, is clearly what Pearse dramatically aspires to be for his students and for Ireland. By way of quick narrative, the play opens with Ciaran’s students waiting for him outside his cell; the names of the students are Ronan, Art, Maine, and Breasal. They talk shortly and fondly of Ciaran. Then Ceallach enters stating that he has seen the King hunting: “My grief for the noble deer that the King hunts” proclaims Ceallach. Upon being asked what deer it is, Ceallach says that the deer is Ciaran. Ciaran then enters. The students exhort their Master to flee, but he refuses. The last student, Iollann Beag, finally arrives. They then begin the lesson, which entails each student sharing a poem or song about Christ’s friends. After two songs the Messenger of the King arrives exclaiming that the King has put aside his hate for Ciaran and wishes that he join him for a feast. Ciaran refuses but his students, all but Iollann, join the King instead. Daire, the King, finally goes to Ciaran himself; they have known each other for a long time. The King offers a second-hand position to Ciaran but he denies. The King threatens to kill Iollann lest Ciaran show him a sign of his faith. When the King raises his sword to strike Iollann, the angel Michael stands in the path of the blade. The King kneels to Michael, and Ciaran falls to the ground dead.
Now, what could not be captured in that brief narrative were the striking analogies Pearse uses between certain characters to biblical figures and the Irish situation. Pearse employs both his religious and nationalist sensibilities in the play; the two could be considered synonymous, for in those days, to be Irish was to be Catholic. Pearse himself proclaimed: “I am old-fashioned enough to be both a Catholic and Nationalist.” As stated before, he most definitely sees himself as the self-sacrificing Master who would rather die for his cause than serve the King; the King appears to be English rule over Ireland; the students in turn represent Ireland, except for Iollann; it is in the character of Iollann that the moral of the story seems to center. It is through Ciaran and Iollann that Pearse ties the biblical analogy. For in the lesson that Ciaran gives there is a discussion of friendship. In that discussion Ciaran states that all mortal friendships fail at some point, even “Our dear Lord had to bear the scattering of His friends.” Except, Ciaran goes on, for John, the disciple for who he loved, and a few women.
The discussion about John as the one loyal to Christ has a parallel in the conversation between the students in the beginning of the play. The students converse how Iollan seems to be Ciaran’s favorite pupil. “He is fond of little Iollann,” says Breasal. And then Maine goes on to remark that “when Iollann is late, or when he is inattentive, the Master pretends not to notice it.” Later in the play, it is Iollann that Ciaran asks to stay with him whilst the other students leave him to go feast with the King. The comparison between Iollan and the apostle John then give way to a further analogy: that of Ciaran and Christ. The connection between the analogies is undeniable. In other stories and plays too, Pearse expresses through specific characters, Christ-like attributes. However, they are not solely Christ-like, since considering Pearse was an ardent Nationalist, there needed to be some Gaelic symbolism with the characters of his work.
Thus enters Cúchalainn, the great mythological hero. It was through figures such as a Christianized Cúchalainn that Pearse used to attempt to inspire his students to courageous action for the sake of Ireland. It was in fact Cúchalainn that influenced Pearse’s whole attitude and ultimately his part in the Easter Uprising. Padraic Ó Conaire, a student at St. Enda’s, recalled that “it was understood that it was Pearse’s goal to make every student a Cúchalainn, for Cúchalainn was his exemplar.” Roisin Higgins further notes that “The life of Cúchulain offered a template for the transition from boyhood to adolescence to manhood within an Irish context. Obviously the life of Christ also offers such a template and there are several connections between the two figures. Christ however, no matter how hard an ardent nationalist tried, could never be claimed as Irish.” Thus Pearse had to create a hybrid that could embody both Catholic and Gealic symbolism. There were other figures such as St. Colmcille and other great saints and men, yet Cúchalainn became the token figure for Irish nationalism.
The mythological aspect of Cúchalainn was important in the sense that the hero both captures the imagination of the child and embodies the old Ireland to which Pearse hoped to return. On this note, Alasdair MacIntrye might interject to agree:
Deprive children of their stories and you leave them unscripted, anxious stutterers in their action as in their words. Hence there is no way to give us an understanding of any society, including our own, except through the stock of stories which constitute its initial dramatic resources. Mythology, in its original sense, is at the heart of things.
Pearse sought to ingrain into the hearts and minds of his students a love for Ireland through this stock of stories that MacIntrye mentions. Mythology was at the very heart of those stories and created the context for the culture. It seems appropriate then for Pearse to so strongly desire a resurgence in Gaelic literature and stories. For it is in the study of such literature, notes Pearse, that the student will realize the separatist nature of it.
The play “The Singer '' appeals most of all to the Cúchalainn-inspired teaching of Pearse. In the play, the character MacDara expresses that he is willing to die for the sake of the Irish people: “One man can free a people as one man redeemed the world. I will take no pike, I will go into the battle with bare hands. I will stand up before the Gall as Christ hung naked before men on the tree!” This is the mentality that pearse hopes to inspire in the Irish youth. Pearse also writes that “The old Irish system, pagan and Christian, possessed in pre-eminent degree the thing most needful in education: an adequate inspiration. Colmcille suggested what that inspiration was when he said, ‘If I die it shall be from the excess of the love that I bear the Gael.’” Thus Pearse draws all kinds of heroic figures from Gaelic mythology, history and his own works to revitalize Irish culture and pride.
Unfortunately for Pearse, his school failed and his system of education was never adopted. Had he remained out of politics in the last years of his life, perhaps he would have had better luck in grounding his curriculum into the Irish school system. Nevertheless, it would have been both inconsistent with his character and his teaching. For he had called the battle cry and sung the Irish rebel song in his works and life; that he should become the embodiment of the characters that he sought to inspire his students with is nothing but appropriate. “I believe,” asserts P. Browne in the introduction to Pearse’s Collected Works, “the generations of Irishmen yet to be born into the national faith will come to the reading of this book as to a kind of Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum, a journey to the realization of Ireland, past, present and to come, a learning of all the love and enthusiasm and resolve which that realization implies.” Once again, despite the failure of his curriculum, Patrick Pearse’s attitude pervades Irish sentiment even to this day.
“And the wise have pitied the fool that hath striven to give a life
In the world of time and space among the bulks of actual things,
To a dream that was dreamed in the heart, and that only the heart could hold.”
- The Fool, Patrick Pearse
Sources
Primary Sources
Pearse, Padraic H. Collected Works of Padraic H. Pearse, 4th ed. New York: Frederick A. Stokes
Company, 1917.
Pearse, Patrick. The Coming Revolution: The Political Writings and Speeches of Patrick Pearse.
Cork: Mercier Press, 2012.
Secondary Sources
Edwards, Ruth Dudley. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure. New York: Taplinger Publishing
Company, 1978.
Fanning, Bryan. Irish Adventures in Nation Building. Manchester: Manchester University Press,
2016.
Higgins, Roisín and Regina Uí Chollataín, The Life and After-Life of P.H. Pearse. Dublin: Irish
Academic Press, 2009.
Kelly, Adrian. Compulsory Irish: Language and Education in Ireland, 1870s一1970s. Dublin,
Irish Academic Press, 2002.
MacIntrye, Alasdair. After Virtue. Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 2007.