Blood Sacrifice: Bas in Eirinn

This posting is rated AW (Academic Warning) for literary ranting, obscure reference, and twisty theory.

Today in the Literary Revival Tutorial some interesting ideas came up for which there was no time for discussion. Since I have been discussing them In My Mind, I thought I would put them into words and then put them here because you guys might be more interesting to discuss this with than the Dear Little Friends of my tutorial.

So, it would seem that the topic of Blood Sacrifice comes up a lot in early 20th century Irish drama, and, I might add, in early 4th century epics, too. It’s sort of the ‘dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’. In the Táin (4th century) Cuchulainn gains personal glory for sacrificing himself to die for Ulster’s defense against the armies of Connaught. In Yeats’ play ‘Cathleen Ni Houlihan’ (played in 1902) the young man about to be married runs off to join the rebellion for the greater glory of Ireland, and the play was loved by the audiences. Then in Augusta Gregory’s play ‘The Rising of the Moon’ (1907) has an Irish person in the pay of the British Army decide to let a rebel go free in the name of nationalism, rededicating himself, it would seem, to the nationalist cause. However, Yeats (in 1904) criticized this idea of sacrifice for glory by having Cuchulainn go mad in ‘On Baile’s Strand’ after killing his own son in single combat and then going out to fight the waves in a final futile act. Finally, in 1926, Sean O’Casey offered a play called ‘Juno and the Paycock’ which criticized all this blood sacrifice as stupid because all you get at the end is a bunch of dead young men and grieving families with not a whole lot of political and economic change.

But the point of Cuchulainn’s death in the 4th century Táin (and Enkidu, and Beowulf, and Siegfried, and Arthur ad nauseum) is not political and economic change, but glory. And surely the men who were executed in 1916 got glory as well as death. So is O’Casey missing the point? So what if mothers grieve: the boys died well. Or so the heroic theory goes. So in the tutorial and in another class by another professor, it was suggested that this idea of Blood Sacrifice and glory were passé now, in the early 21st century. We are more civilized now, and anyway, didn't Yeats and O'Casey write plays that criticized the idea? Both of the professors who said that this idea is no longer current are in their late 30s maybe early 40s, and they are referring to events of the early 20th century which included the war for the Free State and the following civil war. The civil war here ended in 1923 so the horror of this civil war is younger than that of the American civil war for Americans. Yet another professor, a history professor, commented a result of all this upheaval, splitting families, and divided country, was that the Irish population of the 30s, 40s, and 50s was very cautious about adopting anything new. So, currently in Ireland, this idea of dying for a cause is viewed with great caution and is not in vogue.

Nevertheless, I think the idea of dying for a cause, be it passe in Ireland, is still invoked in a lot of places. The most obvious example, I would think, would be the suicide bomber rhetoric. But I also think about the monks in Burma who certainly knew they were laying it on the line for an idea. However, I don’t think they were doing it for glory. I also think I hear the Blood Sacrifice rhetoric from the US army, but interestingly enough, one hears the O’Casey sentiment from people protesting the war. Nevertheless, in these protests, I really think I hear the Blood Sacrifice being used again: I hear people say, “These young people are dying for nothing” which would then imply that if they are dying, it should be for something. Blood Sacrifice is good if the cause is right, in this argument.

So to the assertion that these early 20th century Irish plays no longer resonate because the idea of Blood Sacrifice is no longer current could be false. I think the idea of dying for an idea is too old and too deeply located in the limbic brain for humans not to respond to it. I agree with O’Casey that it is so often a waste of a beloved life, but I do think Blood Sacrifice for ideas is still resonant on planet earth whether one agrees with it or not.