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The Other View |
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Issue No.2 Autumn 2000 Rebel Billy By Dr. Roy Johnson In the context of the discussions about controversial marches, I feel I should contribute the introductory section of a review that I did for Books Ireland, published, I think in February 1999 or thereabouts touching on this question: The 1798 bi-centenary has generated much food for reflection on the nature of nationhood and statehood. (I have for a long time cherished a belief in a sort of ‘apostolic succession’ for the republican form of statehood), beginning perhaps with the Romans, and re-emerging after the dark ages with the Venetians and the Dutch, with the democratic aspect becoming more assertive. The line of succession then goes to the English, with Cromwell, and then jumps to America and France, a link in the chain being Tom Paine. But I was always uneasy about how tradition was transmitted over the gap of a century from Cromwell to Washington et al. There must have been a link, but how did it work? The Irish then took it up, in equal measure from the French and the Americans, adding a substantial reinforcement of the democratic aspect, in that they provided for equal access in democracy for populations; this was absent in America, despite the earlier efforts of William Penn. A.T.Q. Stewart has provided the answer, in great detail: it was via the Scottish Enlightenment and the Whig ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, in which William III with his background in the Dutch Republic presided over the imposition of protodemocratic constitution on the English monarchy, reasserting the aspirations of Cromwell, and cheered on by the ageing Levellers and their descendants. Echoes of this are discernible in Padraig O’Farrell’s ‘98 Reader’ via the words of some orange songs. Cecil Kilpatrick’s ‘William of Orange a Dedicated Life’ constitutes an honest attempt to place the Orange perceptions in a European context, with a view to broadening the understanding of the faithful, while Derry Kelleher’s ‘1798 Myth and Truth’ reminds his targeted contemporary Irish social-republican readers of the positive roles of both Cromwell and William in the evolutionary background of the Republic. I should add that Kilpatrick’s ‘William of Orange’ acknowledges the role of the Pope in the Augsbur League, indicating that the order is making a creditable attempt to educate its members in the objective historical background, as an alternative to the mythology. Does it not follow, therefore, that this Dublin proposed orange march event constitutes an opportunity for supporters of the Republic to do what Derry Kelleher has long advocated, namely, join the march, and honour William as a key link in the Republican ‘apostolic succession’?
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