The Proclamation of 1916 contained core ideas which represented the authors looking back to a series of different moments in the past. The 16th and 17th centuries were marked by regular outbreaks of rebellion. The authors of the Proclamation had a set of views about universal principles that came out of a political activation of some philosophical ideas that were developed in the 1600s, part of what is called the ‘Enlightenment’. This is the idea that there are certain things that everyone should share: equal rights, equal liberties and equal opportunities.
Across the 16th and 17th centuries, to enforce control of the rebellions, the British withdrew basic civil rights from the Irish Catholics, making them second-class citizens in their own land. During the 1800s, the British Empire grew significantly, and following the Act of Union in 1801, the British state sought to incorporate Ireland more and more into its Imperial project. Whilst the British Empire grew rich, Ireland’s growth stagnated, and the living standards in Dublin declined gradually through the 1800s. This decline was accelerated by the Great Famine in the 1840s, which in itself highlighted the fact that the British government was not prepared to look after the Catholic population of Ireland as it would have done for its own English people.
In 1858, two organisations were formed: the Fenian Brotherhood in New York, and the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Dublin. From the outset they were regarded as two linked organisations working towards the same objective: the creation of an independent Irish Republic. Driven by the Irish journalist John Devoy, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) developed its vision, that only by becoming free from the British Empire could Ireland achieve self-determination and equality for her people. At the beginning of the 1900s, Ireland had no control of foreign policy, of taxation or of defence. When the 1910 election in Britain produced a hung parliament, John Redmond, leader of the Home Rule movement, offered liberal party leader Herbert Asquith his support on the condition that Home Rule was enacted. Asquith promised that for the first time since the Act of Union 100 years earlier, Ireland would have the right to govern its own affairs. The demand for Home Rule had huge support among the nationalist population, even those who would have liked something more robust and extreme, like the IRB. From the start, the IRB was intent on infiltrating the Irish volunteers, but the purpose of the volunteers was to ensure Home Rule, not to rise against the British state, and if they were to be used in an uprising they would have to be radicalised. The Irish volunteers began to acquire arms with help from networks abroad, and guns sourced from Germany. Soon after, Ireland was militarised on all sides. Ireland in the summer of 1914 was described as being on the brink of civil war, which was driven by the determination of the Irish volunteers to defend Home Rule by whatever means necessary. However, after war broke out in 1914, the whole context in which Britain was dealing with Ireland was changed, and Britain postponed the implementation of Irish Home Rule.
John Devoy saw the possibility of an alliance between the Germans and the Irish so began to have meetings with the Germans over the assistance that they might render for the rising. The military council decided the time had come for them to rebel against Britain, and within months the poet and journalist Joseph Plunkett became the IRB’s primary military strategist. Plunkett drew up plans to seize key locations in Dublin city centre whilst volunteers would also rise in towns across the country. Mobilisation in Ireland was a cover for a full-scale rebellion, and two days before the Rising, a cargo ship carrying 20,000 rifles and 1 million rounds of ammunition arrived in Ireland from Germany. However, when the British were alerted, these weapons were lost. Eoin MacNeill, one of the Irish volunteers, was convinced that the rising had no chance of succeeding and thought that it was immoral to have a rebellion which had no chance of success. On Easter Sunday, the day the rising was set to begin, MacNeill published a countermanding order in the Sunday Independent newspaper, and more than half of the Irish volunteers who had been expected to mobilise stayed at home. Despite the rumours that the rising was off, hundreds of men and women still made their way into Dublin city centre, including members of the Irish volunteers, the Irish citizen army and the Cumann na mBan (‘League of Women’).
During the weeks leading up to the rising, the Proclamation of the Irish Republic had been written by the teacher, barrister and poet Patrick Pearse, with help from Thomas MacDonagh and Thomas Clarke, who then went on to sign it. The other four signatories were Sean MacDiarmada, Eamonn Ceannt, Joseph Plunkett and James Connolly.
On Easter Monday 1916, a small band of rebels including poets, teachers, actors and workers gathered in Dublin, intent on establishing an Independent Irish Republic and an end to 700 years of British rule. Pearse and Connolly led 200 men and women out of Liberty Hall to head for the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, which became the headquarters of the rebellion. One of the founding members of the Irish volunteers Michael O’Rahilly, (known as The O’Rahilly), drove to the General Post Office to join Pearse and Connolly in the fight, despite his fears that the rising was destined to fail. Plunkett divided Dublin into strategic garrisons, each with its own dedicated band of rebels, whilst the Cumann na mBan acted as messengers by bringing dispatches from the General Post Office to the other garrisons around the city. At daybreak on Tuesday, unknown to the rebels, British soldiers made their way up Kildare Street to set up a machine gun on the top floor of a hotel and open fire into the rebel trenches below. By the morning there were over 6,000 British troops in Dublin, and by Tuesday night thousands more soldiers were on their way to Ireland. British military might was directed on to Dublin. On Wednesday, these British soldiers landed at South Dublin’s Kingston Harbour.
It was not long before the British were being shot at by the rebels from their outpost at Clanwilliam House. The British were not aware of where the firing was coming from, as it echoed off the houses of the street, and by the time they had traced the fire, 230 British soldiers were dead or wounded, whilst the rebels had only lost four men. By Thursday afternoon the city centre was a battle zone, and James Connolly was shot in his ankle while setting up new outposts in the area around the General Post Office. Ultimately,strategic control rested with Sean MacDermott and Tom Clarke.
At the heart of Dublin, the Four Courts was by far the strongest location that the rebels held, with commander Ned Daly. In order to isolate the rebels at the Four Courts, the British drove a wedge between them and the General Post Office, so Daly and his men were alone. Meanwhile on O’Connell Street the assault intensified, and fire spread from building to building on the densely packed commercial street. 4,000 British troops began to head towards O’Connell Street. The reason for placing the headquarters at the General Post Office was because the rebels could see the British coming, however this view was now blocked by the fires. By Friday morning there were 20,000 British troops in Dublin against 2,000 rebels. Accepting the grim reality of their situation, Sean MacDermott decided to order the withdrawal from the outposts around the General Post Office as fires engulfed it.
O’Rahilly was killed whilst trying to move his men down Moore Street to set up a position to provide cover for the next wave of rebels abandoning the General Post Office. Having failed to get down Moore Street, O’Rahilly’s men took cover in nearby lanes and houses. Pearse and the other rebel leaders evacuated the burnt-out shell of the Post Office, moving away under heavy fire whilst carrying the injured James Connolly on a stretcher. The British soldiers made slow progress as they came under intense rebel fire, until they decided to bore through the walls of adjacent buildings to advance along the street and avoid their fire. That night, the British executed 15 men, although they had first claimed that they were shooting only those identified as rebels, these casualties were innocent civilians.
In a building on Moore Street, Pearse saw 3 old men lying dead with white flags in their hands, which according to Sean MacDermott was the moment that Pearse decided to save the lives of further civilians by calling an end to the rising. Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell carried the message of surrender to General Lowe in which Pearse requested fair conditions for his men. Lowe refused
his offer, he accepted nothing but an unconditional surrender, so Pearse met Lowe at the top of Moore Street, presenting his sword and with it the formal unconditional surrender of the provisional Irish government and the Irish Republican army. The Irish Republic had lasted for just six days.
During the six days of the uprising, Dublin was reduced to ruins and more than 500 people were killed: some 70 rebels, 140 soldiers and at least 300 civilians. After the rising, Ireland was governed under martial law by British General Maxwell, who was not merciful. He sent the volunteers to prison camps whilst the leaders faced a more extreme punishment: they were court martialed and if found guilty, would face death. By the 11th of May, Edward Daly, Michael O’Hanrahan, Joseph Plunkett, Pearse’s younger brother Willie, Con Colbert, Éamonn Ceannt, Sean Heuston, Michael Mallin, James Connolly and Sean MacDermott had been executed.
Despite its failure to create a long-lasting independent Irish Republic, the Easter Rising of 1916 was one of the most significant cultural awakenings in Irish history, as it proved that the Irish could and would strike for their freedom.
By Jemima L
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