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Hibernian Chronicle The Easter Rising begins

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Edward T. O’Connell

First of three parts

Eighty-five years ago this week, on April 24, 1916, Padraig Pearse, James Connolly, John McBride and the rest launched the Easter Rising. Two years in the making, it was the largest military uprising against British authority in Ireland since the United Irishmen of 1798. But coming as it did during the dark hours of England’s war against Germany, it brought a brutal counterassault that left hundreds dead and downtown Dublin in ashes. The significance of the uprising would only become apparent long after the smoke had cleared.

The decision to stage an armed rebellion came in the summer of 1914. Just weeks before the outbreak of World War I, moderate Irish nationalists had succeeded in gaining passage of a home rule bill for Ireland (semi-autonomy within the United Kingdom) only to have the British government suspend its enactment until the war ended.

Moderate nationalists, led by John Redmond, called upon the Irish people to be patient and to support Britain in the war. They believed that a demonstration of loyalty would ensure British support for home rule after the war.

Radical Irish nationalists, particularly those in the Irish Republican Brotherhood, denounced Redmond as a sellout. The result was a split within the nationalist paramilitary organization known as the Irish Volunteers. The great majority of the 160,000 Volunteers sided with Redmond, formed a new organization called the National Volunteers, and marched off to fight in the war. The remainder, numbering only about 3,000, continued under the name Irish Volunteers and slowly rebuilt their forces to 15,000 by 1916.

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Soon after the split, a radical IRB faction within the Irish Volunteers began planning an armed insurrection. They did so without the knowledge of the Irish Volunteer commander-in-chief, Eoin MacNeill, who believed (as did most of the Irish people) an insurrection justified only if England reneged on its home rule promise after the war. The radicals, however, were impatient and motivated by the long-standing Fenian maxim that "England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity." They couldn’t let such a golden opportunity pass while waiting for the masses to grant their support.

John Devoy, head of Clan na Gael and leader of Irish nationalists in America, heartily supported the idea, as did the German ambassador in Washington, D.C. In January 1916, the plotters joined forces with James Connolly, commander-a-chief of a smaller paramilitary organization known as the Irish Citizen Army.

Their master plan called for a general uprising in Dublin and the provinces supported, it was hoped, by German arms. If successful England, at the moment overwhelmed with the war on the continent, would relent and grant Ireland outright independence.

They chose April 23, 1916, Easter Sunday, as the day of the rebellion. It was both strategic in that British forces might be caught by surprise on holiday and symbolic because of the underlying message of Easter — redemption through bloody sacrifice.

All was in order heading into Holy Week. Then things began to go awry. On Holy Thursday, April 20, the head of the Irish Volunteers, Eoin MacNeill, discovered the IRB plot and urged them to abandon it. It was a futile gesture, he argued, and would only harm Ireland’s chances of gaining home rule or independence after the war. The next morning, Roger Casement, a conspirator sent to Germany to arrange for German support, was arrested as he landed in Ireland via a German U-boat. He’d returned to urge his fellow nationalists to call off the uprising. Later that day, the British seized the German ship Aud loaded with arms destined for rebel hands. By Saturday, April 22, MacNeill issued on order canceling all Irish Volunteer military maneuvers for Sunday.

Despite these setbacks, Pearse, Connolly, and the hardcore radicals rallied a group of devoted nationalists and convinced them to stage the rising on Monday, April 24. The next morning, a force of more than 1,500 rebels (including 27 women auxiliaries) seized the General Post Office and other strategic sites in Dublin. They pulled down the Union Jack and raised the Irish tri-color. From the balcony of the Post Office, Pearse read a "Proclamation of the Irish Republic." It read in part:

"The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past."

Copies of the proclamation were distributed throughout the city.

The success or failure of the uprising depended on two assumptions by the rebels. The first, that British security would be lax due to the Easter holiday, proved correct. The second assumption, however, argued that the British would not use substantial force against the rebellion out of a reluctance to destroy property and kill civilians. In this they were proved wildly inaccurate. The British responded with fury, moving in thousands of troops and shelling rebel positions in the city.

Within hours it became clear the Easter Rising was doomed to failure, at least as a military operation. Only two questions remained to be answered. How long could the rebels hold out and how would the people of Ireland react to their actions?

HIBERNIAN HISTORY WEEK

April 18, 1890: Castle Garden, the immigrant depot in New York where 2 million Irish landed since 1855, closes. A temporary facility is used until Ellis Island would open two years later.

April 19, 1956: Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco, an event covered by media from around the world.

April 23, 1014: Brian Boru, high king of Ireland, defeats the Vikings of Dublin at the Battle of Clontarf. Brian dies that day from injuries sustained in the battle.

HIBERNIAN BIRTHDATES

April 18, 1817: Mathematician Michael Roberts is born in Cork.

April 20, 1829: "The Nun of Kenmare," feminist and social activist Margaret Anna Cusack, is born in Dublin.

April 21, 1887: Hall of Fame baseball manager Joe McCarthy is born in Philadelphia.

April 23, 1947: Northern Ireland Civil rights leader and MP Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is born in Dungannon, Co. Tyrone.

Readers may contact Edward T. O’Donnell at odonnell@PastWise.com.

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