-
Subject Index A-B
-
Subject Index C-F
-
Subject Index G-K
-
Subject Index L-O
-
Subject Index P-Z
Email: info@searcs-web.com
|
|
Email: info@searcs-web.com |
|
Alfred O'Rahilly was born in Listowel, County Kerry and educated at St.Michael's College,
Listowel and Blackrock College, Dublin. He was a member of the Society of Jesus from 1901
until 1914 when he became assistant lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and
Mathematical Physics at University College, Cork.
O'Rahilly was appointed a Professor of Mathematical Physics at UCC in 1917 and held the
post until 1943 when he became President of the University. After the 1916 Rising O'Rahilly supported Sinn Féin and wrote many articles and
pamphlets in defence of his views.
In January, 1920 he was elected to Cork City Council as a Sinn Féin and Transport Workers
candidate.
In 1921 O'Rahilly published Who Burnt Cork City? which contained depositions of
eye-witnesses who had seen the Black and Tans set fire to the City in December, 1920. O'Rahilly was arrested on April 26th, 1921 and imprisoned in Victoria Barracks, Cork before being interned on Spike Island Prison Colony and on Bere Island Internment Camp in Bantry Bay. He was released in October, 1921 and was constitutional adviser to the Irish Treaty Delegation. O'Rahilly supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and in 1922 he composed a draft constitution for the Irish Free State with Edmund Darrell Figgis. O'Rahilly lead Irish delegations to the International Labour Organisation Conferences in 1924, 1925 and 1932. Throughout the period 1923 to 1946 he took a conciliatory role in trade union and employers disputes in Munster and was respected by workers and employers alike. At University College Cork O'Rahilly was influential in the establishment of courses for workers. This extract is O'Rahilly's article 'Government in Fact' which was first published in New Ireland December 21st, 1918.© It has been the constant teaching of Catholic philosophers and theologians that civil government (a) exists for the good of the governed (b) derives its power from the consent of the governed. Now it is obvious that there actually exists so-called governments which do not fulfil these two essential conditions. It is therefore not only of theoretical but of practical interest to consider the exact political and moral status of such governments. For we seem to be on the horns of a dilemma. If such governments are accepted and recognised, the fundamental principles of liberty and democracy seem to be abandoned. And on the other hand, if they are rejected, if their authority is impugned, chaos and anarchy seem inevitable. A Government may be a usurpation, in the sense that it has never received the consent of the people: or it may be a tyranny, in the sense that it has forfeited this consent by failing to subserve the good of the governed; or it may be both, eg; if one people unjustly seizes another country by force and exploits it for its own advantage. In any one of these cases the intruding government may, as a matter of fact if not of right, continue to exist. The oppressed people have, of course, the right and the duty to denounce and to see to overthrow the ursurper. 'That it is the unlawful and contrary to our holy religion', writes Balmez (European Civilisation, page 477), 'to combine together and raise forces for the overthrow of a de facto government, is a doctrine which Catholic theologians have never professed, which true philosophy has never admitted, and which no nation has ever observed.' Speaking of a tyrannical government - and his reasoning applies still more forcibly to a usurping government - St. Thomas Aquinas says: - 'A tyrannical rule is not just, for it is directed not to the common good but to the private good of the ruler. And therefore any disturbance of this rule is not of the nature of sedition - unless perhaps when the tyrants rule is inordinately disturbed so that the people suffers greater harm from the resulting disturbance than from the tyrants rule. It is rather the tyrant who is seditious.' St. Thomas is here quite explicit concerning the people's right to resist; though he recommended prudence, he did not disguise it under a false doctrine. Even when a community can not enforce its rights against a ruler, these rights are merely in abeyance waiting - perhaps for centuries, - for the opportunity of assertion. The mere fact neither creates nor destroys a right. But meanwhile what are we to say of the authority of the government in possession? There is, of course, no meaning in an unjust authority; all authority as such must be just. But there may be unjust possession of just authority; a man or a body of men may hold, actually in fact and against right, the right of commanding. A community requires social order and co-ordination in order to maintain its existance; when it is itself unable to exercise the necessary authority, it must do so through the only physically possible means, namely, the ursurper. Thus the right in the ursurper is not his own but comes from the oppressed community itself; it is this, and not any intrinsic claim of the usurper, which the people obey. Thus a robber-chief has force but has no authority; whereas an illegitimate civil government has not only physical force but - thought unjustly - it also has moral authority. This distinction may seem subtle, but it is absolutely essential in order to assert and preserve the undiminished rights of a nation against an oppressive usurpation which it cannot - just yet - shake off. On the one hand there are people who think that the smallest attribution of authority to the usurping government - eg: payment of taxes, availing of courts -thereby acknowledges the moral validity of that government. On the other hand, there are those who think that no amount of positive co-operation - eg: acceptance of office, oath of allegiance, facilitation of rule - can imply the acknowledgment that the government is in rightful possession of the nation's civil authority. The truth lies between the these extreme positions... As soon as it appears that the negative acceptance of unorganised individuals is becoming a danger to the national claim, it is the nation's duty to organise and to take over as much as possible of the civic authority which the usurper is unjustly exercising. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2007 |
|
|