On This Day 23rd July in Irish History

Any nominations for the best ever speech from the dock?

cactus flower wrote:

Any nominations for the best ever speech from the dock?

James Connolly.

Quote :

don’t wish to make any defence except against charges of wanton cruelty to prisoners. These trifling allegations that have been made in that direction if they record facts that really happened deal only with the almost inevitable incidents of a hurried uprising and overthrowing of long established authorities, and no where show evidence of a set purpose to wantonly injure unarmed prisoners.

We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire and to establish an Irish Republic. We believe that the call we thus issued to the people of Ireland was a holier calling and a holier cause than any call issued to them during this war having any connection with the war. We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland their national rights which the British Government has been asking then to die to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case the cause of Irish Freedom is safe. Believing that the British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland. The presence in any one generation of even a respectable minority of Irishmen ready to die to affirm that truth makes that Government for ever an usurpation, and a crime against human progress. I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irishmen and boys, and hundreds of Irish women & girls, were equally ready to affirm that truth and seal it with their lives if necessary.

I like this one, although I disagree with its intentions, it very much elucidates why people resort to arms when dialogue fails.

Quote :

But, my Lords, I dissented from the resolutions before us for other reasons. I stated the first -- I now come to the second. I dissented from them, for I felt the by assenting to them I should have pledged myself to the unqualified repudiation of physical force in all countries, at all time, and under every circumstance.
This I could not do. For, my Lord, I do not abhor the use of arms in the vindication of national rights. There are times when arms will alone suffice, and when political ameliorations call for a drop of blood, and many thousand drops of blood. Opinion, I admit, will operate against opinion. But, as the honorable member for Kilkenny observed, force must be used against force. The soldier is proof against an argument -- but he is not proof against a bullet. The man that will listen to reason -- let him be reasoned with, but it is the weaponed arm of the patriot that can alone prevail against battalioned despotism.
Then, my lord, I do not condemn the use of arms as immoral, nor do I conceive it profane to say, that the King of Heaven -- the Lord of Hosts! the God of Battles! bestows His benediction upon those who unsheathe the sword in the hour of a nation's peril.
From that evening on which, in the valley of Bethulia He nerved the arm of the Jewish girl to smite the drunken tyrant in his tent, down to his day, in which He has blessed the insurgent chivalry of the Belgian nest, His Almighty hand hath ever been stretched forth from His throne of light, to consecrate the flag of freedom -- to bless the patriot's sword! Be it in the defense or be it in the assertion of a people's liberty, I hail the sword as a sacred weapon; and if, my lord, it has sometimes taken the shape of the serpent and reddened the shroud of the oppressor with too deep a dye, like the anointed rod of the High Priest, it has at other times, and as often, blossomed into celestial flowers to deck the freeman's brow.
Abhor the sword -- stigmatize the sword? No, my lord, for, in the passes of the Tyrol, it cut to pieces the banner of the Bavarian, and, through those cragged passes, struck a path to fame for the peasant insurrectionist of Innsbruck!
Abhor the sword -- stigmatize the sword? No, my lord, for, at its blow a giant nation started from the waters of the Atlantic, and by its redeeming magic, and in the quivering of its crimson light, the crippled colony rang into the attitude of a proud Republic -- prosperous, limitless, and invincible!
Abhor the sword -- stigmatize the sword? No, my lord, for it swept Dutch marauders out of the fine old towns of Belgium -- scourged them to their own phlegmatic swamps -- and knocked their flag and scepter, their laws and bayonets into the sluggish waters of the Scheldt.

It's by Thomas Francis Meagher who also made this wonderful speech from the dock:

Quote :

I do not despair of my poor old country - her peace, her liberty, her glory. For that country I can do no more than bid her hope. To lift this island up, to restore her native powers and her ancient constitution - this has been my ambition, and this ambition has been my crime. Judged by the law of England, I know this crime entails upon me the penalty of death, but the history of Ireland explains the crime and justifies it. Judged by that history I am no criminal, and deserve no punishment: judged by that history, the treason of which I stand convicted loses all its guilt, has been sanctified as a duty, and will be ennobled as a sacrifice. To my country I offer, as a pledge of the love I bore her, and of the sincerity with which I thought and spoke and struggled for her freedom, the life of the young heart; and with that life the hopes, the honors, the endearments, of a happy, a prosperous and honorable home. Proceed, then, with the sentence which the law directs - I am prepared to hear it - I trust I am prepared to meet its execution. I shall go, I think, with a light heart before a higher tribunal - a tribunal where a Judge of infinite goodness, as well as infinite justice, will preside, and where many of the judgments of this world will be reversed.

And not forgetting on being sentenced to be hung drawn and quartered:

Quote :

My lord, this is our first offense, but not our last. If you will be easy with us this once, we promise, on our word as gentlemen, to try to do better next time. And next time ---sure we won't be fools to get caught.