SKINFUCK

Just think of it. A hundred-and-fifty pure-bred sons of bitches on horseback… and you facing ‘em. Alone. You’ll be written up in all the history books.

And you’ll be down on Earth reading ‘em. While I'm under it, in my grave.

Our 5th Annual March for Choice, takes place on Saturday the 24th of September, assembling at the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square from 1.30pm, before we march to Dáil Éireann at 2pm.

The theme of our March this year is ‘Rise and Repeal’ a comment on the failure of our Republic to fulfil the promise of equality made in 1916.

100 years ago, the signatories of the Irish proclamation declared a land of “equal rights and equal opportunities” for all its citizens, but this Republic has failed to live up to their ideals. Until recently, our women revolutionaries – who fought and died alongside their male counterparts – were erased from history; quite literally in the case of Elizabeth O’Farrell, a trained midwife, suffragist and trade unionist. This ‘airbrushing’ continues to this day – the parallels between Nurse O’Farrell’s photograph, and the removal of Maser’s Repeal the 8th mural are clear to see.

We have been fighting for equal rights and equal opportunities since the birth of our conservative Catholic nation. 

We have made some progress; we have won the right to marry and divorce our partners irrespective of their gender; we have won the right to use contraceptives so that we may exercise a limited control over our reproductive lives, but in 2016, 100 years on, the equality promised in the proclamation hasn’t been realised. Women, trans men and non-binary people who may need to access abortion in Ireland, North and South, still don’t have the right to choose.

The Easter Rising sought Sovereignty and self determination for Ireland. Today, we seek the same control over our own bodies. No longer will the Irish State force us to self-administer health care by taking abortion pills (risking a fourteen year jail term), or spend thousands of euro travelling secretly to England. This year we, the women of Ireland, with the support of all those who care about equality and human rights, are self administering our independence.

We are tired of the delay tactics being used by successive governments who bury their heads in the sand, ignoring the urgent need and desire for change. We are tired of being told to wait – tired of being told we need a ‘calm and measured debate’ while our contributions to this debate are silenced or belittled. We are tired of seeing our sisters in the North criminalised for taking medicine which is legal in the rest of the UK, and is on the World Health Organisation’s list of essential medicines. We are afraid of what Britain’s exit from the EU will mean for our sisters living in Ireland who are not citizens. We are tired of hearing of horrific case after horrific case while yet another EU body or court tell us our laws go against international human rights standards. Women’s rights are Human Rights. There can be no freedom without Women’s freedom.

Enough blood has been spilled, enough women have died unwillingly. No more death, no more silence, no more shame. This is our Rising!

Rise, and Repeal the 8th!

Image: Half-hanging of suspected United Irishmen by government troops.

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 (Irish: Éirí Amach 1798), also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion (Irish: Éirí Amach na nÉireannach Aontaithe), was an uprising against British rule in Ireland lasting from May to September 1798. The United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary group influenced by the ideas of the American and French revolutions, were the main organising force behind the rebellion.

Background

Since 1691 and the end of the Williamite War, Ireland had chiefly been controlled by the minority Anglican Protestant Ascendancy constituting members of the established Church of Ireland loyal to the British Crown. It governed through a form of institutionalised sectarianism codified in the Penal Laws which discriminated against both the majority Irish Catholic population and non-Anglican Protestants (for example Presbyterians). In the late 18th century, liberal elements among the ruling class were inspired by the example of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and sought to form common cause with the Catholic populace to achieve reform and greater autonomy from Britain. As in England, the majority of Protestants, as well as all Catholics, were barred from voting because they did not pass a property threshold. Another grievance was that Ireland, although nominally a sovereign kingdom governed by the monarch and Parliament of the island, in reality had less independence than most of Britain’s North American colonies, due to a series of laws enacted by the English, such as Poynings’ law of 1494 and the Declaratory Act of 1719, the former of which gave the English veto power over Irish legislation, and the latter of which gave the British the right to legislate for the kingdom.

When France joined the Americans in support of their Revolutionary War, London called for volunteers to join militias to defend Ireland against the threat of invasion from France (since regular British forces had been dispatched to America). Many thousands joined the Irish Volunteers. In 1782 they used their newly powerful position to force the Crown to grant the landed Ascendancy self-rule and a more independent parliament (“Grattan’s Parliament”). The Irish Patriot Party, led by Henry Grattan, pushed for greater enfranchisement. In 1793 parliament passed laws allowing Catholics with some property to vote, but they could neither be elected nor appointed as state officials. Liberal elements of the Ascendancy seeking a greater franchise for the people, and an end to religious discrimination, were further inspired by the French Revolution, which had taken place in a Catholic country.

United Irishmen

The prospect of reform inspired a small group of Protestant liberals in Belfast to found the Society of United Irishmen in 1791. The organisation crossed the religious divide with a membership comprising Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, other Protestant “dissenters” groups, and some from the Protestant Ascendancy. The Society openly put forward policies of further democratic reforms and Catholic emancipation, reforms which the Irish Parliament had little intention of granting. The outbreak of war with France earlier in 1793, following the execution of Louis XVI, forced the Society underground and toward armed insurrection with French aid. The avowed intent of the United Irishmen was to “break the connection with England”; the organisation spread throughout Ireland and had at least 200,000 members by 1797.[6] It linked up with Catholic agrarian resistance groups, known as the Defenders, who had started raiding houses for arms in early 1793.

Photo: Grave of James Fitzharris (Skin the Goat), the carriage driver of the Invincible’s. Spent 15 years in prison, and refused to give the names of his comrades.

Brady was one of the Invincibles – a Fenian splinter group – that murdered the Chief Secretary of Ireland on his first day in the country. Four others were executed for the murders.

Brady by all accounts was a mountain of a man. The Times wrote after his execution. “He was brought up as a stonemason of herculean strength, his occupation developing the muscular power of his arms, which told with such terrible effect when he drove the knives into the bodies of Lord Cavendish and his secretary T. H. Burke.”

Brady was a Member of the Irish National Invincibles. The Irish National Invincibles was a secret society formed in 1881. Their aim was to remove the country of Ireland of tyrants. They targeted Thomas Henry Burke, permanent under-secretary, in the Phoenix Park in Dublin on 6 May 1882. With Burke at the time was the British chief secretary for Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish. Both men were knifed to death. Five men were hanged by William Marwood in Kilmainham Gaol near Dublin in May and June of 1883 for the killings. They were: Joe Brady, Michael Fagan, Thomas Caffrey, Dan Curley and Tim Kelly. The principle witness was the informer James Carey, who was given passage to South Africa but was shot on board ship by Patrick O’Donnell. O’Donnell was brought back to England and hanged in December 1883. Kilmainham Gaol contains the graves of the Invincibles convicted and executed for the Phoenix park stabbings. They were: Joe Brady, hanged Monday, 14 May 1883. Daniel Curley, 18 May 1883. Tim Kelly (19 years of age) 9 June 1883. Thomas Caffrey, 2 June 1883, and Michael Fagan, 28 May 1883. See also the grave of the Invincible James “Skin the Goat” Fitzharris, who is buried in Glasnevin cemetery.

In Episode Seven of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus and other characters discuss the murders in the offices of the Freeman newspaper. In Episode Sixteen Bloom and Daedalus stop in a cabman’s shelter run by a man they believe to be James ‘Skin-the-Goat’ Fitzharris.

The Invincibles and Carey are mentioned in the folk song “Monto (Take Her Up To Monto)”: