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An Piarsach, a Phaimfléid agus Aithreacha an Náisiúin

Ar lá Nollaig 1915 i Scoil Éanna, Rath Fearnáin, chuir Pádraig Mac Piarais críoch lena chéad phaimfléadGhosts. Ar lá breithe Íosa féin, leag sé amach stair thuiscint na saoirse mar a tháinig sé ó na glúine a d’imigh roimhe- aithreacha an náisiúin- Tone, Emmet, Davis, Lalor, Mitchel agus Parnell ach go háirithe. Mar a deir sé ina réamhrá: “Ghosts are troublesome things in a house or in a family, as we knew even before Ibsen taught us. There is only one way to appease a ghost. You must do the thing it asks you. The ghosts of a nation sometimes ask very big things; and they must be appeased, whatever the cost.”

Tá rian na Diagachta ar a thuiscint ar an Náisiún agus ar an tSaoirse: “Like a divine religion, national freedom bears the marks of unity, of sanctity, of catholicity, of apostolic succession.” Déanann sé cíoradh ar shainmhíniú na saoirse mar a thuig na glúine roimhe é, agus leagann sé béim ar uaisleacht agus ársaíocht an traidisiúin a tháinig ó na haithreacha.

Ar Lá Fhéile Bríde, 1 Feabhra, cuireann sé críoch lena dara phaimfléad; The separatist idea. Go luath ann, leagann sé amach a chur chuige:  “Now, the truth as to what a nation’s nationality is, what a nation’s freedom, is not to be found in the statute-book of the nation’s enemy. It is to be found in the books of the nation’s fathers.” Déanann sé idirdhealú idir thuiscint Henry Grattan ar an tsaoirse, agus tuiscint leithéidí Wolfe Tone.  I ndiaidh dó scríbhinní Tone agus a ghluaiseacht i dtreo an scarúnachais a chíoradh, scríobhann an Piarsach gur thug Tone fianaise ar a “chreideamh” mar scarúnaí ag a thriail:  “I mean not to give you the trouble of bringing judicial proof to convict me, legally, of having acted in hostility to the Government of his Britannic Majesty in Ireland. I admit the fact. From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Ireland and Great Britain as the curse of the Irish nation, and felt convinced that, whilst it lasted, this country could never be free nor happy.”

Pádraig Mac Piarais (Elsie Mahaffy's account of the Easter Rising, TCD MS 2074)
Pádraig Mac Piarais (Elsie Mahaffy’s account of the Easter Rising, TCD MS 2074)

Mar fhocal scoir, deir an Piarsach:  “That God spoke to Ireland through Tone and through those who, after Tone, have taken up his testimony, that Tone’s teaching and theirs is true and great and that no other teaching as to Ireland has any truth or worthiness at all, is a thing upon which I stake all my mortal and all my immortal hopes. And I ask the men and women of my generation to stake their mortal and immortal hopes with me.”

 Ar an 13 Feabhra 1916, eisíonn sé The spiritual nation. Ní mór, dar leis, neamhspleáchas spioradálta agus intleachta a chruthú lámh ar lámh le neamhspleáchas polaitiúil; in éagmais sin, bheadh neamhspleáchas ag brath ar “leas” a d’athródh ó am go ham- bheadh a leithéid neamhshocair.  “In one of the phrases in which such men as he give watchwords to the generations, a phrase which strangely anticipates the most famous of Parnell’s phrases, Davis tells us what that end was: ‘Ireland’s aspiration is for unbounded nationality.’ I have shown what he meant by ‘unbounded nationality’; he meant sovereign nationhood, he meant spiritual, intellectual, and political independence.”

 Tá an paimfléad deireanach á eisiúint aige ar an 31 Márta 2016- díreach trí sheachtainí roimh an Éirí Amach. Sa scríbhinn The sovereign people, deir an Piarsach go bhfuil dhá bhrí ag flaitheas- flaitheas inmheánach an náisiúin maidir le gach duine agus gach ní laistigh de, agus flaitheas seachtrach i gcoinne gach náisiúin eile. Téann sé i ngleic le ceisteanna ar nós na maoine príobháidí:  A nation may, for instance, determine, as the free Irish nation determined and enforced for many centuries, that private ownership shall not exist in land; that the whole of a nation’s soil is the public property of the nation.”

Tá beart déanta anois ag an bPiarsach: “This pamphlet concludes the examination of the Irish definition of freedom which I promised in Ghosts. For my part, I have no more to say.”

Mar sin, sna paimfléid seo, leagtar amach dúinn fealsúnacht an Phiarsaigh i leith shinsir an náisiúin, i leith an scarúnachais, i leith na saoirse intleachta agus spioradálta agus conas mar a phléadh náisiún saor le ceisteanna flaithis go hinmheánach, maidir le hacmhainní nádúrtha agus eile. Tiomna deiridh an Phiarsaigh a bhí sna scríbhinní seo: Sula i bhfad, bheadh sé féin curtha chun báis, rinne sé athair nua ar an náisiún as féin.

-Aonghus Dwane

Oifigeach na Gaeilge, Coláiste na Tríonóide