Dublin in 1910 was a culturally vibrant city: 12 years later, in Paris, the greatest novel of the 20th century, Joyce’s Ulysses would be published (see 1922: Proust, Joyce, Diaghilev, Stravinsky and Picasso share a night at the Majestic), and though none knew it in 1910, the setting for that novel was the Dublin of six years ago, on 16 June 1904.
Joyce’s earthy Dublin, however, had little in common with the popular world of Celtic myth – a cultural phenomenon deriving its common name from Yeats’ story collection, The Celtic Twilight (1893). Young romantics such as the English composer Arnold Bax were enraptured by all things ‘Celtic’. Bax was later to be described by one Russian critic as ‘the Celtic voice in English music’; in 1902, he toured Ireland with his brother and wrote fey prose and poetry of the sort indistinguishable from that produced by hundreds of other pale young men and women throughout Britain and Ireland (one of the best of those women poets, Fiona Macleod, was actually a man, William Sharp, who donned a nice frock to write Celtic poetry). Much of what we think of as ‘Celtic’ was actually invented during this period, even, indeed, the name ‘Fiona’, which was Sharp’s invention.
Bax wrote under the name of ‘Dermot O’Byrne’ (he later called his children Dermot and Maeve), and settled in Dublin, where one of his neighbours was the poet ‘AE’, George Russell. In the manner of the era, Russell hosted a salon in his house, where every Sunday, intellectuals could gather and chat. Many of the guests were prominent nationalists. One evening when Bax was present, he met Padraig Pearse. Bax was fascinated by Pearse, who had recently edited the Gaelic League’s newspaper, and had been doing sterling work for years in spreading Gaelic culture and education. Pearse and the young Englishman had a shared love of Ireland’s west country, and when Bax left Pearse told another guest: ‘I think your friend Arnold Bax may be one of us. I should like to see more of him’.
1910 was to be a crucial year for Pearse. By ‘one of us’ Pearse meant someone for whom Gaelic culture was tied into Irish nationalism. For Pearse, as for many other nationalists of the time, Irish mythological heroes such as Cuchulainn were figures to inspire heroic acts, and religion also became an increasing influence: nationalists should regard Christ’s sacrifice and redemption as an example (Pearce would have loved Mel Gibson’s blood-soaked movies). As Ruth Dudley Edwards said, Pearse’s heroes ‘died painful deaths’. Yeats said of him: ‘a dangerous man; he has the vertigo of self-sacrifice’.
What Happened Next
In 1913, Pearse became a co-founder of the Irish Volunteers, a paramilitary organisation founded in response to the anti-home rule Ulster Volunteers He died in the Easter Rising of 1916 and is still regarded by many in the way he wanted – as a revolutionary martyr. Bax later described Pearse as ‘leader of Ireland for a week’. Bax accepted (with mixed feelings) a knighthood in 1937 and became Master of the King’s Musick in 1942. One of his last works was a Coronation March for Elizabeth II.