“Let our generation not shirk its deed, which is to
accomplish the revolution.” P.H. Pearse, 1913.
The
Easter Rising is among the most significant moments in Irish history. It stands
out in memory as a profound moment for Irish freedom and lives as an example of
the everlasting strength and courage of Irish men and women. Sometimes referred
to as the Easter Rebellion, the “Easter Rising” was a revolt staged in Ireland
by Irish Republicans with the hopes of ending British rule and establishing an
Irish free state. It was prepared for Easter week, 1916 and it lasted from
Easter Monday, April 24th, until April 30th. The Easter
Rising, apart from its goal of ending British rule, was the first step towards
ending almost a thousand years of British oppression and tyranny on the island.
It blazed a pathway for Irish independence and had it never happened, the
nation may not be the free state that it is today.
Prior
to the Uprising, Ireland had a very personal relationship with British
sovereigns. From the 12th century until 1542, the British sovereign
had been considered the overlord of the Lordship of Ireland, which was a papal
possession.[1]
In that year, the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 was passed by Irish Parliament,
which granted the English sovereign kingship of the Emerald Isle, proclaiming
Henry VIII of England the King of Ireland.[2]
Following this legislation, true problems did not arise until 1707 when England
and Scotland were combined into one Great Britain, which Ireland could not join
as it was still under certain restrictions from England.[3]
Irish Parliament responded by addressing Queen Anne, stating “May God put it in your royal heart to add
greater strength and lustre to your crown, by a still more comprehensive
Union."[4]
The exclusion of Ireland while under British rule created a series of events
that led to many clashes, particularly the 1798 Rebellion, which is comparable
to none other than the Easter Uprising itself.
 |
| A propaganda sheet. ©Hulton Archive. |
The
Rebellion in 1798 was an uprising against British rule, lasting from May to
September, with over ten years worth of events leading up to revolt. It was one
of the most widespread rebellions, as eleven counties in Ulster, Leinster, and
Connacht participated and together lost a total of over 20-30,000 men and
women. The revolutionary movements of the Americans and the French in prior
decades influenced this particular uprising, and “The United Irishmen” became a
significant group inspired by the age of revolution.[5]
For this rebellion, the British government had in fact been unfair with the
Irish, as Parliament passed laws allowing Catholics with property to vote, but
no Irishman could be an elected or appointed as a state official.[6]
Rioting took place throughout the 1790’s and the country became more and more
angered by British oppression. Religious differences came into focus, and as
per Figure 1, there is a sheet from a propaganda booklet describing the bloody
massacres of Protestants by Catholics in 1798.[7]
The United Irishmen issued parliamentary plans for reform as early as 1794.
According to T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin, these plans suggested that “Ireland
should be divided into 300 parliamentary constituencies equal in population,
and that every man should have a vote.”[8]
The United Irishmen looked to secure reform by looking forward to the abolition
of tithe, a reduction in government expenditure, lower taxation, and the
encouragement of trade and help for education.[9]
Despite the fact that many of the reasons for clashing with the British were
due to clashes between religion and politics, the United Irishmen consisted of
people of all different religious backgrounds.
In
addition, Britain was still aggravated by the fact that France had helped the
American Colonies during the American Revolution from 1776-1783. Napoleon, who
was about to become Emperor of a new French Empire, had plans to invade
England.[10]
England was faced with Irish Rebellion with the help of Napoleon’s forces, and
by the end of 1796, a French fleet almost landed on the coast of Ireland with
the intent of driving English forces out of the region.[11]
According to Moody and Martin, from a military point of view, the efforts were
so badly planned that this failed, as it became an isolated struggle and an
even worse battle with the weather.
Widespread
fighting wracked the summer of 1798. British Prime Minister William Pitt
understood that the outcome of rebellion based on nationalism, which involves
emotional factors, was too unpredictable.[12]
He had the Act of Union passed in 1800 and in 1801 Ireland became a part of the
United Kingdom.[13] Ireland was
granted a seat in parliament and this gave the country a chance to let her
voice be heard.[14]
This
however simply gave Britain ‘breathing room’ and is interpreted by some
historians as a way that London avoided even worse conflicts between Catholics
and Protestants. There were several small uprisings throughout the nineteenth
century, particularly during the reign of Victoria. A notable protest of
British rule happened during the Great Famine from 1845 to 1847, when the Irish
had completely lost faith in the British government because of their lack of
aide. Yet still, no other uprising was as demanding as the one of Easter, 1916.
Patrick
Henry Pearse, a schoolteacher and barrister, stood outside the Dublin General
Post Office after noon on Easter Monday in 1916 to read the proclamation of the
Irish Republic.[15] In this
proclamation, he reflected on generations past, the ‘dead generations,’ from which
a great sense of nationalism and individual pride was born. It was a day that
he hoped would finally succeed in breaking eight centuries of British rule over
Ireland. Part of the framework that led up to the Rising included the fact that
the British government suspended the recently enacted Home Rule Bill because of
the outbreak of World War I.[16]
The Home Rule Bill had guaranteed a measure of political autonomy to Ireland. Taking
it away angered many nationalists who had waited forty years for it to take
effect.[17]
 |
| The 1916 Proclamation. |
Contrary
to the notion that Irish independence had to be shelved because of war efforts,
Patrick Pearse felt the complete opposite- he believed that the timing was
perfect to throw the British off course while their attention was divided. He
wanted full Irish independence and not what the suspended Home Rule Bill of
1912 would have offered him.[18]
Pearse helped to organize and lead the Irish Volunteers prior to the outbreak
of World War I in 1914, which were the public face of the outlawed Irish
Republican Brotherhood (IRB).[19]
The IRB is famously known today as a group that set its face against the danger
of political sell-outs, and according to historian Charles Townshend, “rejected
all participation in the British political system in favour [sic] of a
commitment to ‘physical force’ to remove British rule.”[20]
Together, both the Volunteers and the IRB made up a portion of the ‘rebels’ who
were committed to full on combat against Britain, and the smaller Irish Citizen
army soon joined them. Along with 200 members of Cumann na mBan, they hoped to
establish an Irish free state.
Before
noon on Easter, the rebels set out to occupy a number of imposing buildings in
the inner city area of Dublin, which included the General Post Office, Jacob’s
Factory and Boland’s Bakery. The General Post Office was the nerve center of
the rebellion, and after it was taken, two flags were hoisted on each side of
the building: one was the tricolored flag, the other was a green flag with the
inscription ‘Irish Rebublic’ on it. It was just after this that Patrick Pearse
read the proclamation outside the General Post Office, the powerful words that
called Irish men and women to their feet to claim what was and remains
rightfully theirs away from British hands.
In
the beginning of the Rising, the authorities had only 400 troops to confront
about 1,000 rebels. The British military onslaught did not mobilize at first,
but the week ensued several intense street battles. Before noon the rebels set
out to occupy a number of imposing buildings in the inner city area of Dublin,
which included the General Post Office, Jacob’s Factory and Boland’s Bakery.
The General Post Office was the nerve center of the rebellion, and after it was
taken, two flags were hoisted on each side of the building: one was the
tricolored flag, the other was a green flag with the inscription ‘Irish
Rebublic’ on it. It was just after this that Patrick Pearse read the
proclamation outside the General Post Office, the powerful words that called
Irish men and women to their feet to claim what was and remains rightfully
theirs away from British hands.
In
the beginning of the Rising, the authorities had only 400 troops to confront
about 1,000 rebels. The British military onslaught did not mobilize at first,
but the week ensued several intense street battles. By Friday of that week,
Britain responded by sending reinforcements to the capital, putting 1,600
rebels against roughly 17-20,000 soldiers.[21]
On April 28th, Dublin came under a violent attack that devastated a
great deal of the central parts of the city. By the end of the revolt, over 400
civilians had died.[22] The poet AE
(George Russell) explained his reactions to the events leading up to this kind
of catastrophe in a verse of his writing:
Their dream had left me numb and cold,
But yet my spirit rose in pride,
Refashioning in burnished gold
The images of those who died
Or were shut in the penal cell.[23]
 |
| Scavengers Poor children of Dublin collecting firewood from the ruined buildings damaged in the Easter Rising. ©Hulton Archive. |
Patrick
Pearse surrendered to the British army on Friday, April 28th.
According to Patrick Mannion, there is significant historical debate as to how
Irish popular opinion of independence shifted following the events of the
rising.[24]
It is said that most people did not approve of the mass violence that had taken
place. However, beginning on May 3rd of that year, 15 influential
rebel leaders were shot by firing squads, including Patrick Pearse and his
younger brother, Willie.[25]
Irish sentiments drastically changed. As one commentator noted, “a few unknown
men shot in a barrack yard has embittered a whole nation.”[26]
After
the end of the war in November 1918, Sinn Féin secured a majority of 73 Irish
seats in the general election. The Sinn Féin was a political party- a
manifestation of the Irish revolution.[27]
It represented a vast number of different beliefs, traditions, and methods, and
it was a coalition between two different forms of Irish nationalism.[28]
One was committed to the establishment of an Irish republic by revolutionary
measures (which had occurred).[29]
The other was aimed at a more limited degree of independence which could keep
Ireland a part of the United Kingdom but still have a great deal of freedom
from London.[30] Eamon de
Valera, co-rebel alongside Arthur Griffith and Patrick Pearse, and future
president of the Republic of Ireland, supported the latter.
In
1919, twenty-seven Sinn Féin MPs assembled in Dublin and proclaimed themselves
as an independent parliament of an Irish Republic, ignored by Britain, which
ensured the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921).[31]
War persisted until a truce on July 11, 1921, and Sinn Féin representatives were
sent to London to negotiate.[32]
Initially, Arthur Griffith and Eamon de Valera (who both lead the Sinn Féin, or
“do it ourselves” rebel movement of Ireland), were at one in the arrangement of
the negotiations.[33] A treaty
was in fact reached on January 7, 1922, and British troops left Ireland.[34]
And
so it is important to understand that people did not wake up on Easter and
decide to start a revolution. The seeds for the actions of that week were
planted centuries earlier, and fueled by centuries of oppression, tyranny, and
even neglect in years more recent to the rising itself. The people of Ireland
were treated like second to third class citizens when they had the spirits and
the will of first class nobility. It was not until 2011 that a British sovereign
made his or her first state visit to a free Ireland. Queen Elizabeth II made
perhaps the most successful state trip of her 60-year reign- immediately
striking a peaceful tone when she stepped out of a plane wearing green. In a
speech in front of President Mary McAleese at Dublin, she admitted to the
harshness and unnecessary brutality of their shared history. Above all, she
opened the speech in the Irish language.
 |
| Queen Elizabeth II observes a minute's silence after laying a weath at the Irish War Memorial Garden in Islandbridge during her visit. Source: The Australian. |
To
have done so is the mark of someone who hopes to find peace between two nations
that share a rough history. Especially, when a hundred years ago, the Irish
would have been persecuted for speaking their own language. One can only hope
that the Queen’s visit in 2011 secured Irish freedom and a sense of sympathy
from British neighbors, and remain confident that peace will remain intact
throughout the new century and forward.
[1] James Loughlin. The British Monarchy and Ireland, 1800 to the Present. Cambridge;
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 1.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 2.
[4] William Cobett and Thomas Curson. The Parliamentary History of England, from
the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. London: T.C. Hansard, 1819.
[5] T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin. The Course of Irish History. Cork: The
Mercier Press, 1967. 239.
[6] Edward Hay. History of the Irish Insurrection of 1798. New York: John Kennedy,
1847. 7.
[7] Getty.
“Scenes from the Irish Rebellion of 1798”. ©Hulton Archive, 1886.
[8]
T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin, The Course of
Irish History, 239.
[9]
Ibid.
[10] Thomas Packenham. The Year of Liberty : The Story of the Great
Irish Rebellion of 1798.
Panther, 1972. 392.
[11] Ibid.
[12]
T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin, The Course of
Irish History, 246-247.
[13]
Ibid., 247.
[14]
Charles Townshend. Easter 1916: The Irish
Rebellion. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006. 24.
[15] Ibid., 1.
[16]
T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin, The Course of
Irish History, 304-305.
[17]
T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin, The Course of
Irish History, 304-305.
[18]
Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish
Rebellion, 21.
[19]
Ibid., 3.
[20]
Ibid.
[21] Patrick Mannion. “Newfoundland Responses
to the Easter Rebellion and the Rise of Sinn Fein ,” 1, no. April 1916 (1919):
1719–1726. 2.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Goddard Lieberson. The Irish Uprising. New York: Hinkhouse, Inc., 1966. 24.
[24] Patrick Mannion, “Newfoundland Responses to the Easter
Rebellion and the Rise of Sinn Fein ,” 1, no. April 1916 (1919): 1719–1726. 2.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Michael Laffan. The Resurrection of Ireland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999. 53.
[27]
Ibid., 4.
[28]
Ibid.
[29]
Ibid.
[30]
Ibid.
[31]
T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin, The Course of
Irish History, 311.
[32]
Ibid., 324.
[33]
Ibid., 324-325.
[34]
Ibid., 304-305.
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