What's in a Name?

Caitlin Etherton
English 342

W. B. Yeats preserves the strong significance of names in Irish culture and history while using them artistically in his poetry. Names are important in Irish culture, as they indicate a person’s religion. They also carry on historical importance. The name, Connolly, used in Yeats’ poem “Easter Rising, 1916,” is more than just an Irish name. Connolly refers to James Connolly, an Irish nationalist whose name alone is a reference to the Easter Rising of 1916 and the social conflict surrounding it. Connolly was not just a leader of the Easter Rising, his execution made him a victim of London’s supposed over-reaction to the event, his life going down in a “huge swell of sympathy for the republicans.” (McKittrick and McVea 4) (Encyclopedia Britannica 1) In his poem “Easter 1916,” (lines 70-80) Yeats writes,
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born. (Yeats 182.)
Yeats verifies that Ireland has not forgotten past heroes. Connolly is tied into history in an emotional way. He is changed from just a name into a “terrible beauty” of a heroic symbol.
Artistically, Yeats goes beyond the typical, romantic portrayal of Connolly by showing a little more of his personality in his poem, “The Rose Tree.” He writes (lines 13-18),
"But where can we draw water,'
Said Pearse to Connolly,
"When all the wells are parched away?
O plain as plain can be
There's nothing but our own red blood
Can make a right Rose Tree.' (Yeats 183).
Yeats questions the purity of Connolly and Pearce’s motives in their nationalist efforts. Edna Longley explains, “Rather like stage-directors, Pearce and Connolly are represented as planning to pool, and thereby maximize, the historical symbolism available to them… Pearce can be seen as a narcissist performing before the mirror of history (Longley 72-73).” Through their dialogue, Yeats gets the reader to question whether or not these men knew their potential ahead of time. Maybe their community efforts were really out of selfish ambition. And still, his reference to them at all continues to immortalize their names, albeit now with a more conscious perspective.


Works Cited
Connolly, James." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia
Britannica Online. 28 Jan. 2008
.

Longley, Edna. The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in
Ireland. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: BloodaxeBooks, 1994.

McKittrick, David and McVea, David. Making Sense of the Troubles:
The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland. Chicago: New
Amsterdam Books. 2002.

Yeats, W. B. The Poems: A New Edition, Ed. R. J. Finneran. New York: Macmillan
Publishing Company, 1983.