At Easter a century ago in Dublin, a poorly organized group of Irish rebels led by poets, journalists, socialists, schoolteachers, trade unionists and dreamers became the latest in a long line of their countrymen to attempt to throw off the yoke of seven centuries of British rule in Ireland.
Like many efforts before it, the Easter Rising of 1916 failed miserably. The rebels, in pockets of several hundred around Dublin and in a few spots across the countryside, held out for less than a week before the initially surprised British troops regrouped, reinforced and crushed the rebellion. Yet its defeat became the catalyst for independent Ireland.
The center of action was the General Post Office, which the rebels seized and made their headquarters. One of their leaders, schoolmaster and Irish language enthusiast Patrick Pearse, read to curious onlookers the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which declared Ireland a free and independent nation. Like the United States’ Declaration of Independence, it provided the ideas and language for the freedom being sought by armed rebellion.
Unlike the successful American Revolution, the Irish Rising was initially viewed as a dismal failure. Just over 1,200 Irish men and women took up arms, mostly in the capital. They didn’t capture Dublin Castle, the seat of British power, nor did they take armories, key ports or rail stations, allowing British troops to flood Dublin and overwhelm the revolutionaries. The rebels were almost comically disorganized, with confused strategy, poor communication and little direction.
Just six days after the rising’s start, Pearse agreed to an unconditional surrender to “prevent further bloodshed.” He and his comrades were arrested and marched through the streets of Dublin to Kilmainham Gaol, the foreboding prison on the city’s west side. Along the way, Dubliners angry at the city’s disruption and destruction pelted the rebels with trash and insults.
Pearse and the other six signatories of the Proclamation, along with nine more leaders of the rising, were executed by firing squad within two weeks of surrender. In a letter to his mother sent shortly before his execution, he wrote, “Our deeds of last week are the most splendid things in Ireland’s history. People will say hard things of us now, but we shall be remembered by posterity and blessed by unborn generations.”
Events proved him right. Irish public opinion, which initially ranged from indifferent to hostile to the rebel cause, soon turned sympathetic, then active. The swift executions of the leaders and the brutality of British suppression of the rising awakened Ireland’s slumbering nationalist movement. It gained momentum in the coming years through the political process, in tandem with a guerrilla war that forced British negotiation.
The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 ended British rule in Ireland and led to the Irish Free State, but not without difficulties. The treaty had the unfortunate effect of partitioning six counties in the north of Ireland, which would remain part of the United Kingdom. A civil war followed between treaty supporters and others who held out for a united Ireland. The country was free, but remained a dominion of the British Empire until 1949, when it achieved full nationhood.
In a land where myth and idealism are important ingredients in the brew of national identity, the memory of 1916 remains strong. The doomed, foolhardy, splendid effort galvanized the Irish then and continues to today. It was not a bad week’s work for poets and dreamers who became martyrs to their nation’s cause, remembered by posterity and blessed by unborn generations.
Ken McConnellogue (kieranmc13@gmail.com) lives in Denver.
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