Easter Rising

Easter Rising Proclamation of the Republic, Easter 1916 Date 24–30 April 1916 Location Dublin, skirmishes in counties Meath, Galway, Louth and Wexford Result Unconditional surrender of rebel forces, execution of leaders Belligerents Irish Republican Brotherhood Irish Volunteers Irish Citizen Army Cumann na mBan Hibernian Rifles Fianna Éireann British Army Dublin Metropolitan Police Royal Irish Constabulary Commanders and leaders Patrick Pearse James Connolly Brigadier-General WHM Lowe General Sir John Maxwell Strength 1,250 in Dublin, ~2,000–3,000 elsewhere, although they took little or no action. 16,000 troops and 1,000 armed police in Dublin by end of the week. Casualties and losses 82 killed 1,617 wounded 16 executed 157 killed 318 wounded 220 civilians killed 600 civilians wounded

Independence and partition of Ireland (1912–1922) Events Home Rule Crisis (1912–14) Easter Rising (1916) Conscription Crisis (1918) Irish general election (1918) Declaration of Independence (1919) War of Independence (1919–22) Creation of Northern Ireland (1921) Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) Civil War (1922–23) Organisations Irish Republican Brotherhood – Irish Parliamentary Party – Sinn Féin – Irish Volunteers – Irish Republican Army – Irish Citizen Army – Ulster Unionist Party – Ulster Volunteers

The Easter Rising (Irish: Éirí Amach na Cásca)^[1] was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic. It was the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798.^[2]

Organised by the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood,^[3] the Rising lasted from Easter Monday 24 April to 30 April 1916. Members of the Irish Volunteers, led by schoolteacher and barrister Patrick Pearse, joined by the smaller Irish Citizen Army of James Connolly, along with 200 members of Cumann na mBan, seized key locations in Dublin and proclaimed the Irish Republic independent of Britain. There were some actions in other parts of Ireland but, except for the attack on the RIC barracks at Ashbourne, County Meath, they were minor.

The Rising was suppressed after seven days of fighting, and its leaders were court-martialled and executed, but it succeeded in bringing physical force republicanism back to the forefront of Irish politics. In the 1918 General Election to the British Parliament, republicans (then represented by the Sinn Féin party) won 73 seats out of 105 on a policy of abstentionism and Irish independence. This came less than two years after the Rising. In January 1919, the elected members of Sinn Féin who were not still in prison at the time, including survivors of the Rising, convened the First Dáil and established the Irish Republic. The British Government refused to accept the legitimacy of the newly declared nation, precipitating the Irish War of Independence.

Background

The Act of Union 1801 united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland, abolishing the Irish Parliament and giving Ireland representation at Westminster. From early on, many Irish nationalists opposed the union and what was seen as the exploitation of the country.^[4] Opposition took various forms: constitutional (the Repeal Association; the Home Rule League), social (disestablishment of the Church of Ireland; the Land League) and revolutionary (Rebellion of 1848; Fenian Rising).^[5] Constitutional nationalism enjoyed its greatest success in the 1880s and 1890s when the Irish Parliamentary Party under Charles Stewart Parnell succeeded in having two Home Rule bills introduced by the Liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone, though both failed. The First Home Rule Bill of 1886 was defeated in the House of Commons, while the Second Home Rule Bill of 1893 was passed by the Commons but rejected by the House of Lords. After the fall of Parnell, younger and more radical nationalists became disillusioned with parliamentary politics and turned towards more extreme forms of separatism. The Gaelic Athletic Association, the Gaelic League and the cultural revival under W. B. Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory, together with the new political thinking of Arthur Griffith expressed in his newspaper Sinn Féin and the organisations the National Council and the Sinn Féin League led to the identification of Irish people with the concept of a Gaelic nation and culture, completely independent of Britain.^[6][7] This was sometimes referred to by the generic term Sinn Féin.^[8]

The Third Home Rule Bill was introduced by British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith in 1912. The Irish Unionists, led by Sir Edward Carson, opposed home rule in the light of what they saw as an impending Roman Catholic-dominated Dublin government. They formed the Ulster Volunteer Force on 13 January 1913.^[9] The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) saw an opportunity to create an armed organisation to advance its own ends, and on 25 November 1913 the Irish Volunteers, whose stated object was "to secure and to maintain the rights and liberties common to all the people of Ireland", was formed. Its leader was Eoin MacNeill, who was not an IRB member.^[10] A Provisional Committee was formed that included people with a wide range of political views, and the Volunteers' ranks were open to "all able-bodied Irishmen without distinction of creed, politics or social group."^[11] Another militant group, the Irish Citizen Army, was formed by trade unionists as a result of the Dublin Lockout of that year.^[12] However, the increasing militarisation of Irish politics was overshadowed soon after by the outbreak of a larger conflict—the First World War ^[13] and Ireland's involvement in the conflict.

Planning the Rising

Tom Clarke

Seán MacDermott

The Supreme Council of the IRB met on 5 September 1914, the day after the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. At this meeting they decided to stage a rising before the war ended and to accept whatever help Germany might offer.^[14] Responsibility for the planning of the rising was given to Tom Clarke and Seán MacDermott.^[15] The Irish Volunteers, the smaller of the two forces resulting from the September 1914 split over support for the British war effort,^[16] set up a "headquarters staff" that included Patrick Pearse as Director of Military Organisation, Joseph Plunkett as Director of Military Operations and Thomas MacDonagh as Director of Training. Éamonn Ceannt was later added as Director of Communications.^[17] In May 1915 Clarke and MacDermott established a Military Committee within the IRB, consisting of Pearse, Plunkett and Ceannt, to draw up plans for a rising.^[18] This dual rôle allowed the Committee, to which Clarke and MacDermott added themselves shortly afterwards, to promote their own policies and personnel independently of both the Volunteer Executive and the IRB Executive—in particular Volunteer Chief of Staff Eoin MacNeill, who was opposed to a rising unless popular support was secured by the introduction of conscription or an attempt to suppress the Volunteers or its leaders, and IRB President Denis McCullough, who held similar views.^[19] IRB members held officer rank in the Volunteers throughout the country and would take their orders from the Military Committee, not from MacNeill.^[20]

Plunkett had travelled to Germany in April 1915 to join Roger Casement. Casement had gone there from the United States the previous year with the support of Clan na Gael leader John Devoy, and after discussions with the German Ambassador in Washington, Count von Bernstorff, to try to recruit an "Irish Brigade" from among Irish prisoners of war and secure German support for Irish independence.^[21][22]. Together Plunkett and Casement presented a plan which involved a German expeditionary force landing on the west coast of Ireland, while a rising in Dublin diverted the British forces so that the Germans, with the help of local Volunteers, could secure the line of the River Shannon.^[23]

James Connolly, head of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), a group of armed socialist trade union men and women, was unaware of the IRB's plans, and threatened to start a rebellion on his own if other parties failed to act. If they had gone it alone, the IRB and the Volunteers would possibly have come to their aid,^[24] however the IRB leaders met with Connolly in January 1916 and convinced him to join forces with them. They agreed to act together the following Easter and made Connolly the sixth member of the Military Committee. Thomas MacDonagh would later become the seventh and final member.

Build-up to Easter Week

In an effort to thwart informers and, indeed, the Volunteers' own leadership, Pearse issued orders in early April for three days of "parades and manoeuvres" by the Volunteers for Easter Sunday (which he had the authority to do, as Director of Organization). The idea was that the republicans within the organization (particularly IRB members) would know exactly what this meant, while men such as MacNeill and the British authorities in Dublin Castle would take it at face value. However, MacNeill got wind of what was afoot and threatened to "do everything possible short of phoning Dublin Castle" to prevent the rising.

MacNeill was briefly convinced to go along with some sort of action when Mac Diarmada revealed to him that a shipment of German arms was about to land in County Kerry, planned by the IRB in conjunction with Roger Casement; he was certain that the authorities discovery of such a shipment would inevitably lead to suppression of the Volunteers, thus the Volunteers were justified in taking defensive action (including the originally planned maneuvers).^[25] Casement, disappointed with the level of support offered by the Germans, returned to Ireland on a German U-boat and was captured upon landing at Banna Strand in Tralee Bay. The arms shipment, aboard the German ship Aud — disguised as a Norwegian fishing trawler—had been scuttled after interception by the British navy, after the local Volunteers had failed to rendezvous with it.

The following day, MacNeill reverted to his original position when he found out that the ship carrying the arms had been scuttled. With the support of other leaders of like mind, notably Bulmer Hobson and The O'Rahilly, he issued a countermand to all Volunteers, canceling all actions for Sunday. This only succeeded in putting the rising off for a day, although it greatly reduced the number of Volunteers who turned out.

British Naval Intelligence had been aware of the arms shipment, Casement's return and the Easter date for the rising through radio messages between Germany and its embassy in the United States that were intercepted by the Navy and deciphered in Room 40 of the Admiralty.^[26] The information was passed to the Under-Secretary for Ireland, Sir Matthew Nathan, on 17 April, but without revealing its source, and Nathan was doubtful about its accuracy.^[27] When news reached Dublin of the capture of the Aud and the arrest of Casement, Nathan conferred with the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Wimborne. Nathan proposed to raid Liberty Hall, headquarters of the Citizen Army, and Volunteer properties at Father Matthew Park and at Kimmage, but Wimborne was insisting on wholesale arrests of the leaders. It was decided to postpone action until after Easter Monday and in the meantime Nathan telegraphed the Chief Secretary, Augustine Birrell, in London seeking his approval.^[28] By the time Birrell cabled his reply authorising the action, at noon on Monday 24 April 1916, the Rising had already begun.

The Rising

Easter Monday

General Post Office, Dublin. Centre of the Easter Rising

The Volunteers' Dublin division was organized into four battalions. As a result of the countermanding order all of them saw a far smaller turnout than originally planned.

The 1st battalion under Commandant Ned Daly mustered at Blackhall Street, numbering about 250 men. They were to occupy the Four Courts and areas to the northwest to guard against attack from the west, principally from the Royal and Marlborough Barracks; the exception was D Company, 1st Battalion, a company of 12 men led by Captain Seán Heuston, who were to occupy the Mendicity Institution, across the river from the Four Courts.

The 2nd battalion comprised about 200 men under Commandant Thomas MacDonagh who gathered at St. Stephen's Green with orders to take Jacob's Biscuit Factory, Bishop Street, south of the city centre, and a smaller number of men who gathered at Fairview, in the northeast, and who were later directed to the General Post Office.^[29]

In the southeast Commandant Éamon de Valera commanded about 130 men of the 3rd battalion who would take Boland's Bakery and a number of surrounding buildings to cover Beggars Bush Barracks and the main road and railway from Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) harbour.

Commandant Éamonn Ceannt's 4th battalion, numbering about 100 men, mustered at Emerald Square in Dolphin's Barn; They were to occupy the workhouse known as the South Dublin Union to the southwest and defend against attack from the Curragh.^[30]

St. Stephen's Green, showing the Shelbourne Hotel.

A joint force of about 400 Volunteers and Citizen Army gathered at Liberty Hall under the command of Commandant James Connolly. Of these, about 100 men and women of the Citizen Army under Commandant Michael Mallin were sent to occupy St. Stephen's Green, and a small detachment of the Citizen Army under Captain Seán Connolly were directed to seize the area around the City Hall, next to Dublin Castle, including the offices of the Daily Express.^[31] The remainder was to occupy the General Post Office. This was the headquarters battalion, and as well as Connolly it included four other members of the Military Council: Patrick Pearse, President and Commander-in-Chief, Tom Clarke, Seán Mac Dermott and Joseph Plunkett.^[32]

In at least two incidents, at Jacobs^[33] and Stephens Green,^[34] the Volunteers and Citizen Army shot dead civilians who were trying to attack them or dismantle their barricades. Elsewhere, they hit civilians with their rifle butts to drive them off.^[35]

At midday a small team of Volunteers and Fianna members attacked the Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park and disarmed the guards, with the intent to seize weapons and blow up the building as a signal that the rising had begun. They set explosives but failed to obtain any arms. The explosion was not loud enough to be heard in the city.^[36] At the same time the Volunteer and Citizen Army forces throughout the city moved to occupy and secure their positions. Seán Connolly's unit made an assault on Dublin Castle, shooting dead a police sentry and overpowering the soldiers in the guardroom, but did not press home the attack.

The Under-secretary, Sir Matthew Nathan, who was in his office with Colonel Ivor Price, the Military Intelligence Officer, and A. H. Norway, head of the Post Office, was alerted by the shots and helped close the castle gates.^[37] The rebels occupied the Dublin City Hall and adjacent buildings. Mallin's detachment, which was joined by Constance Markiewicz (Countess Markiewicz), occupied St. Stephen's Green, digging trenches and commandeering vehicles to build barricades. They took several buildings, including the Royal College of Surgeons, but did not make an attempt on the Shelbourne Hotel, a tall building overlooking the park.^[38]

Daly's men, erecting barricades at the Four Courts, were the first to see action. A troop of the 5th and 12th Lancers, part of the 6th Cavalry Reserve Regiment, was escorting an ammunition convoy along the north Quays when it came under fire from the rebels. Unable to break through, they took refuge in nearby buildings.^[39]

One of two flags flown over the GPO during the Rising

The headquarters battalion, led by Connolly, marched the short distance to O'Connell Street. They charged the GPO, expelled customers and staff, and took a number of British soldiers prisoner. Two flags were hoisted on the flag poles on either end of the GPO roof: the tricolour at the right corner at Henry Street and a green flag with the inscription 'Irish Republic' at the left corner at Princess Street. A short time later, Pearse read the Proclamation of the Republic outside the GPO.^[40]

The Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in Ireland, General Lovick Friend, was on leave in England. When the insurrection began the Officer Commanding the Dublin Garrison, Colonel Kennard, could not be located. His adjutant, Col. H. V. Cowan, telephoned Marlborough Barracks and asked for a detachment of troops to be sent to Sackville Street (O'Connell Street) to investigate the situation at the GPO. He then telephoned Portobello, Richmond and the Royal Barracks and ordered them to send troops to relieve Dublin Castle. Finally, he contacted the Curragh and asked for reinforcements to be sent to Dublin.^[41]

A troop of the 6th Reserve Cavalry Regiment, dispatched from Marlborough Barracks, proceeded down O'Connell Street. As it passed Nelson's Pillar, level with the GPO, the rebels opened fire, killing three cavalrymen and two horses^[42] and fatally wounding a fourth man. The cavalrymen retreated and were withdrawn to barracks. This action is often referred to, inaccurately, as the "Charge of the Lancers." ^[43]

"Birth of the Irish Republic"

A piquet from the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment (RIR), approaching the city from Richmond Barracks, encountered an outpost of Éamonn Ceannt's force under Section-Commander John Joyce in Mount Brown, at the north-western corner of the South Dublin Union. A party of twenty men under Lieutenant George Malone was ordered to march on to Dublin Castle. They proceeded a short distance with rifles sloped and unloaded before coming under fire, losing three men in the first volley, then broke into a tan-yard opposite. Malone's jaw was shattered by a bullet as he went in. The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel R. L. Owens, brought up the remainder of his men from Richmond Barracks. A company with a Lewis Gun was sent to the Royal Hospital (not then a hospital but the British military headquarters), overlooking the Union. The main body took up positions along the east and south walls of the Union, occupying houses and a block of flats, then opened fire on the rebel positions, forcing Joyce and his men to retreat across open ground. A party led by Lieut. Alan Ramsey broke open a small door next to the Rialto gate, but Ramsey was shot and killed, and the attack was repulsed. A second wave led by Capt. Warmington charged the door but Warmington, too, was killed.

The remaining troops, trying to break in further along the wall, were enfiladed from Jameson's distillery in Marrowbone Lane. Eventually the superior numbers and firepower of the British were decisive; they forced their way inside and the small rebel force in the tin huts at the eastern end of the Union surrendered.^[44]

Tuesday to Saturday

A British armoured truck, hastily built from locomotive boiler at Inchicore railway works^[45]

British forces initially put their efforts into securing the approaches to Dublin Castle and isolating the rebel headquarters, which they believed was in Liberty Hall. The British commander, Brigadier-General W. H. M. Lowe, worked slowly, unsure of the size of the force he was up against, and with only 1,269 troops in the city when he arrived from the Curragh Camp in the early hours of Tuesday 25 April. City Hall was taken on Tuesday morning. The rebel position at St Stephen's Green, held by the Citizen Army under Michael Mallin, was made untenable after the British placed snipers and machine guns in the Shelbourne Hotel and surrounding buildings. As a result, Mallin's men retreated to the Royal College of Surgeons building. British firepower was provided by field artillery summoned from their garrison at Athlone which they positioned on the northside of the city at Phibsborough and at Trinity College, and by the patrol vessel Helga, which sailed upriver from Kingstown. Lord Wimborne, the Lord Lieutenant, declared martial law on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, 26 April, the guns at Trinity College and Helga shelled Liberty Hall, and the Trinity College guns then began firing at rebel positions in O'Connell Street.

Reinforcements were sent to Dublin from England, and disembarked at Kingstown on the morning of 26 April. Heavy fighting occurred at the rebel-held positions around the Grand Canal as these troops advanced towards Dublin. The Sherwood Foresters were repeatedly caught in a cross-fire trying to cross the canal at Mount Street. Seventeen Volunteers were able to severely disrupt the British advance, killing or wounding 240 men. The rebel position at the South Dublin Union (site of the present day St. James's Hospital), further west along the canal, also inflicted heavy losses on British troops trying to advance towards Dublin Castle. Cathal Brugha, a rebel officer, distinguished himself in this action and was badly wounded.

Placements of Rebel forces and British troops around the River Liffey in Dublin

The headquarters garrison, after days of shelling, were forced to abandon their headquarters when fire caused by the shells spread to the GPO. They tunnelled through the walls of the neighbouring buildings in order to evacuate the Post Office without coming under fire and took up a new position in 16 Moore Street. On Saturday 29 April, from this new headquarters, after realizing that they could not break out of this position without further loss of civilian life, Pearse issued an order for all companies to surrender. Pearce surrendered unconditionally to Brigadier-General Lowe. The surrender document read:

"In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Provisional Government present at headquarters have agreed to an unconditional surrender, and the commandants of the various districts in the City and County will order their commands to lay down arms."

^[46]

The Rising outside Dublin

Irish Volunteer units turned out for the Rising in several places outside of Dublin, but due to Eoin MacNeill's countermanding order, most of them returned home without fighting. In addition, due to the interception of the German arms aboard the Aud, the provincial Volunteer units were very poorly armed.

At Ashbourne, County Meath, the North County Dublin Volunteers (also known as the Fingal Volunteers), led by Thomas Ashe and his second in command Richard Mulcahy, attacked the RIC barracks. Reinforcements came from Slane and after a five-hour battle, the Volunteers captured over 90 prisoners. There were 8–10 RIC deaths and two Volunteer fatalities, John Crennigan and Thomas Rafferty. The action pre-figured the guerrilla tactics of the Irish Republican Army in the Irish War of Independence from 1919 to 1921.

In County Louth, Volunteers shot dead an RIC man near the village of Castlebellingham on 24 April.^[47] Louth Volunteers also occupied Barmeath Castle on 28 April.^[47]

In rural County Dublin, fifty volunteers seized the RIC barracks and post office in the village of Swords.^[47] The RIC men inside were arrested and their weapons taken.^[47] The telegraph wires were also cut.^[47] Some of the Volunteers then continued to Donabate, where they repeated this process.^[47] These Volunteers also blew up a railway bridge near Rogerstown.^[47]

In County Wexford, Volunteers took over Enniscorthy on Thursday 27 April.^[47] They were led by six men and made Athenaeum Theatre their headquarters.^[47] The Volunteers blocked all roads and the railway line, and cut the telephone and telegraph wires.^[47] They then besieged the RIC barracks, which was defended by a number of armed constables. Shots were fired and one constable was wounded, although no real attempt was made to seize the barracks.^[47] The Volunteers also stopped a train travelling from Wexford to Arklow carrying workers to Kynoch's munitions factory.^[47]

Volunteer scouting parties scoured the countryside around Enniscorthy.^[47] A group was sent north and took over the town of Ferns, but retreated upon spotting a large force of British soldiers heading for the town.^[47] News of the surrender in Dublin reached Enniscorthy at midday on Sunday 30 April, by which time the 1,000 strong British force had arrived.^[47] However, the Volunteer leaders were sceptical of the news. Later that day the British escorted two of the leaders to Dublin to meet Patrick Pearse, who confirmed it to them.^[47] The following day, Monday 1 May, they returned to Enniscorthy and formally surrendered.^[47] There had been no bloodshed and little damage to property.

Irish War News, produced during the Rising

In the west, Liam Mellows led 600-700 Volunteers in abortive attacks on several police stations, at Oranmore and Clarinbridge in County Galway. There was also a skirmish at Carnmore in which two RIC men were killed. However his men were poorly-armed, with only 25 rifles and 300 shotguns, many of them being equipped only with pikes. Towards the end of the week, Mellows' followers were increasingly poorly-fed and heard that large British reinforcements were being sent westwards. In addition, the British warship, HMS Gloucester arrived in Galway Bay and shelled the fields around Athenry where the rebels were based. On 29 April the Volunteers, judging the situation to be hopeless, dispersed from the town of Athenry. Many of these Volunteers were arrested in the period following the rising, while others, including Mellows had to go "on the run" to escape. By the time British reinforcements arrived in the west, the rising there had already disintegrated.

In the north, several Volunteer companies were mobilised in County Tyrone and 132 men on the Falls Road in Belfast.

In the south, around 1,000 Volunteers mustered in Cork, under Tomás Mac Curtain on Easter Sunday, but they dispersed after receiving several contradictory orders from the Volunteer leadership in Dublin.

In County Kerry, two RIC men were shot and wounded in the village of Firies after posting a proclamation about martial law.^[47]

Casualties

The British Army reported casualties of 116 dead, 368 wounded and 9 missing. Sixteen policemen died, and 29 were wounded. Rebel and civilian casualties were 318 dead and 2,217 wounded. The Volunteers and ICA recorded 64 killed in action, but otherwise Irish casualties were not divided into rebels and civilians.^[48]

Aftermath

Sackville (now O'Connell) Street, Dublin, after the Rising

The Leaders of the Rising were buried in the old prison yard of Arbour Hill prison. The memorial was designed by G. McNicholl, the Proclamation of 1916 is inscribed on the wall in both Irish and English

Arrests and executions

General Maxwell quickly signalled his intention “to arrest all dangerous Sinn Feiners,” including “those who have taken an active part in the movement although not in the present rebellion,”^[49] reflecting the popular belief that Sinn Féin, a separatist organisation that was neither militant nor republican, was behind the Rising.

A total of 3,430 men and 79 women were arrested, although most were subsequently released. In attempting to arrest members of the Kent family in County Cork on 2 May, a Head Constable was shot dead in a gun battle. Richard Kent was also killed, and Thomas and William Kent were arrested.

In a series of courts martial beginning on 2 May, ninety people were sentenced to death. Fifteen of those (including all seven signatories of the Proclamation) had their sentences confirmed by Maxwell and were executed by firing squad between 3 May and 12 May (among them the seriously-wounded Connolly, shot while tied to a chair due to a shattered ankle). Not all of those executed were leaders: Willie Pearse described himself as "a personal attaché to my brother, Patrick Pearse"; John MacBride had not even been aware of the Rising until it began, but had fought against the British in the Boer War fifteen years before; Thomas Kent did not come out at all—he was executed for the killing of a police officer during the raid on his house the week after the Rising. The most prominent leader to escape execution was Eamon de Valera, Commandant of the 3rd Battalion. The president of the courts-martial was Charles Blackadder.

1,480 men were interned in England and Wales under Regulation 14B of the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, many of whom, like Arthur Griffith, had little or nothing to do with the affair. Camps such as Frongoch internment camp became “Universities of Revolution” where future leaders like Michael Collins, Terence McSwiney and J. J. O'Connell began to plan the coming struggle for independence.^[50] Roger Casement was tried in London for high treason and hanged at Pentonville Prison on 3 August.

Enquiry

A Royal Commission was set up to enquire into the causes of the Rising. It began hearings on 18 May under the chairmanship of Lord Hardinge of Penshurst. The Commission heard evidence from Sir Matthew Nathan, Augustine Birrell, Lord Wimborne, Sir Neville Chamberlain (Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary), General Lovick Friend, Major Ivor Price of Military Intelligence and others.^[51] The report, published on 26 June, was critical of the Dublin administration, saying that "Ireland for several years had been administered on the principle that it was safer and more expedient to leave the law in abeyance if collision with any faction of the Irish people could thereby be avoided."^[52] Birrell and Nathan had resigned immediately after the Rising. Wimborne had also reluctantly resigned, but was re-appointed, and Chamberlain resigned soon after.

Reaction of the Dublin public

A mural in Belfast commemorating the rising.

At first, many members of the Dublin public were simply bewildered by the outbreak of the Rising.^[53] James Stephens, who was in Dublin during the week, thought, "None of these people were prepared for Insurrection. The thing had been sprung on them so suddenly they were unable to take sides".^[54]

There was considerable hostility towards the Volunteers in some parts of the city. When occupying positions in the South Dublin Union and Jacobs factory, the rebels got involved in physical confrontations with civilians trying to prevent them from taking over the buildings. The Volunteers' shooting and clubbing of civilians made them extremely unpopular in these localities.^[55] There was outright hostility to the Volunteers from the "separation women", (so-called because they were paid "Separation Money" by the British government) who had husbands and son fighting in the British Army in World War I, and among unionists.^[56] Supporters of the Irish Parliamentary Party also felt the rebellion was a betrayal of their party.^[57]

Finally, the fact that the Rising had caused a great deal of death and destruction also contributed towards antagonism towards the rebels. After the surrender, the Volunteers were hissed at, pelted with refuse, and denounced as 'murderers' and 'starvers of the people'.^[58] Volunteer Robert Holland for example remembered being abused by people he knew as he was being marched into captivity and said the British troops saved them from being manhandled by the crowds.^[59]

However, there was not universal hostility towards the defeated insurgents. Some onlookers were cowed rather than hostile and it appeared to the Volunteers that some of those watching in silence were sympathetic.^[60] Canadian journalist and writer Frederick Arthur McKenzie wrote that in poorer areas, "there was a vast amount of sympathy with the rebels, particularly after the rebels were defeated."^[61] Thomas Johnson, the Labour leader thought there was, "no sign of sympathy for the rebels, but general admiration for their courage and strategy" ^[62]

The aftermath of the Rising, and in particular the British reaction to it, helped to sway a large section of Irish nationalist opinion away from hostility or ambivalence and towards support for the rebels of Easter 1916. Dublin businessman and Quaker James Douglas, for example, hitherto a Home Ruler, wrote that his political outlook changed radically during the course of the Rising due to the British military occupation of the city and that he became convinced that parliamentary methods would not be sufficient to remove the British presence.^[63]

Rise of Sinn Féin

A meeting called by Count Plunkett on 19 April 1917 led to the formation of a broad political movement under the banner of Sinn Féin^[64] which was formalised at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis of 25 October 1917. The Conscription Crisis of 1918 further intensified public support for Sinn Féin before the general elections to the British Parliament on 14 December 1918, which resulted in a landslide victory for Sinn Féin, whose MPs gathered in Dublin on 21 January 1919 to form Dáil Éireann and adopt the Declaration of Independence.^[65]

Legacy of the Rising

A plaque commemorating the Easter Rising at the General Post Office, Dublin, with the Irish text in Gaelic script, and the English text in regular Latin script.

Some survivors of the Rising went on to become leaders of the independent Irish state and those who died were venerated by many as martyrs. Their graves in the former military prison of Arbour Hill in Dublin became a national monument and the text of the Proclamation was taught in schools. An annual commemoration, in the form of a military parade, was held each year on Easter Sunday, culminating in a huge national celebration on the 50th anniversary in 1966.^[66]

With the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, government, academics and the media began to revise the country’s militant past, and particularly the Easter Rising. The coalition government of 1973—1977, in particular the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Conor Cruise O'Brien, began to promote the view that the violence of 1916 was essentially no different to the violence then taking place in the streets of Belfast and Derry.

Cruise O'Brien and others asserted that the Rising was doomed to military defeat from the outset, and that it failed to account for the determination of Ulster Unionists to remain in the United Kingdom.^[67] "Revisionist" historians^[68] began to write of it in terms of a "blood sacrifice."^[69]

While the Rising and its leaders continued to be venerated by Irish republicans – including members and supporters of the Provisional IRA and the modern Sinn Féin – with murals in republican areas of Belfast and other towns celebrating the actions of Pearse and his comrades, and a number of parades held annually in remembrance of the Rising, the Irish government discontinued its annual parade in Dublin in the early 1970s, and in 1976 it took the unprecedented step of proscribing (under the Offences against the State Act) a 1916 commemoration ceremony at the GPO organised by Sinn Féin and the Republican commemoration Committee.^[70]

A Labour Party TD, David Thornley, embarrassed the government (of which Labour was a member) by appearing on the platform at the ceremony, along with Máire Comerford, a survivor of the Rising, and Fiona Plunkett, sister of Joseph Plunkett.^[71]

With the advent of a Provisional IRA ceasefire and the beginning of what became known as the Peace Process during the 1990s, the official view of the Rising became more positive and in 1996 an eightieth anniversary commemoration at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin was attended by the Taoiseach and leader of Fine Gael, John Bruton.^[72] In 2005 the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, announced the government’s intention to resume the military parade past the GPO from Easter 2006, and to form a committee to plan centenary celebrations in 2016.^[73]

90th Anniversary of the 1916 Rising

Garden of Remembrance Dublin

The 90th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising was commemorated by a military parade held in Dublin on Easter Sunday, 16 April 2006. The President of Ireland (Mary McAleese), the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Catherine Byrne), the Taoiseach (Bertie Ahern), members of the Irish Government and other invited guests reviewed the parade as it passed the General Post Office, headquarters of the Rising. The parade comprised some 2,500 personnel from the Irish Defence Forces (representing the Army, Air Corps, Naval Service, Irish Army Reserve and Naval Reserve), the Garda Síochána, Irish United Nations Veterans Association and members of the Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen and Women. The parade started at Dublin Castle and proceeded via Dame Street and College Green to the GPO, where a wreath was laid by the President. Earlier Ahern laid a wreath in Kilmainham Gaol where the leaders of the rising were executed. The Taoiseach said the ceremonies were 'about discharging one generation's debt of honour to another.' The wreath-laying was attended by 92-year-old Father Joseph Mallin (son of ICA leader Michael Mallin), the only surviving child of the executed rebels, who was flown in from Hong Kong by the Irish Government for the event.^[74] This was the first official commemoration held in Dublin since the early 1970s.

See also

• "Easter, 1916", a poem by William Butler Yeats
• The Foggy Dew, popular ballad chronicling the Rising, written by Canon Charles O’Neill in 1919.
• List of Irish rebellions
• Rebel Heart (film)
• Rebel Heart (song)

Notes

The Garden of Remembrance was opened in 1966, to mark the anniversary of the Rising. The Garden is "dedicated to all those who gave their lives in the fight for Ireland's freedom."

Bibliography

• Bell, J. Bowyer, The Secret Army: The IRA ISBN 1-85371-813-0
• Caulfield, Max, The Easter Rebellion, Dublin 1916 ISBN 1-57098-042-X
• Coogan, Tim Pat, 1916: The Easter Rising ISBN 0-304-35902-5
• Coogan, Tim Pat, The IRA (Fully Revised & Updated), HarperCollins, London, 2000, ISBN 0 00 653155 5
• De Rosa, Peter. Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916. Fawcett Columbine, New York. 1990. ISBN 0-449-90682-5
• Foy, Michael and Barton, Brian, The Easter Rising ISBN 0-7509-2616-3
• Greaves, C. Desmond, The Life and Times of James Connolly
• Kee, Robert, The Green Flag ISBN 0-14-029165-2
• Kostick, Conor & Collins, Lorcan, The Easter Rising, A Guide to Dublin in 1916 ISBN 0-86278-638-X
• Lyons, F.S.L., Ireland Since the Famine ISBN 0-00-633200-5
• Martin, F.X. (ed.), Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising, Dublin 1916
• Macardle, Dorothy, The Irish Republic
• McNally, Michael and Dennis, Peter, Easter Rising 1916: Birth of the Irish Republic (2007), Osprey Publishing, ISBN 9781846030673
• Murphy, John A., Ireland In the Twentieth Century
• Neeson, Eoin, Myths from Easter 1916, Aubane Historical Society, Cork, 2007, ISBN 978 1 903497 34 0
• Ó Broin, Leon, Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1970
• Purdon, Edward, The 1916 Rising
• Townshend, Charles, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion
• The Memoirs of John M. Regan, a Catholic Officer in the RIC and RUC, 1909–48, Joost Augusteijn, editor, Witnessed Rising, ISBN 978-1-84682-069-4.
• Clayton, Xander: AUD, Plymouth 2007.
• Eberspächer, Cord/Wiechmann, Gerhard: "Erfolg Revolution kann Krieg entscheiden". Der Einsatz von S.M.H. LIBAU im irischen Osteraufstand 1916 ("Success revolution may decide war". The use of S.M.H. LIBAU in the Irish Easter rising 1916), in: Schiff & Zeit, Nr. 67, Frühjahr 2008, S. 2-16.
• Edited by Ruán O’Donnell, The Impact of the 1916 Rising: Among the Nations, Irish Academic Press Dublin 2008, ISBN 978 0 7165 2965

External links

• The 1916 Rising - an Online Exhibition. National Library of Ireland
• Essay on the Rising, by Garret FitzGerald
• Special 90th Anniversary supplement from The Irish Times
• Easter Rising 50th Anniversary audio & video footage from RTÉ (Irish public television)
• Primary and secondary sources relating to the Easter Rising (Sources database, National Library of Ireland)
• Easter Rising site and walking tour of 1916 Dublin
• News articles and letters to the editor in "The Age", 27 April 1916
• Press comments 1916-1996
• The 1916 Rising by Norman Teeling a ten-painting suite acquired by An Post for permanent display at the General Post Office (Dublin)
• BBC History - The Easter Rising