1916 Easter Rising
1916 Easter Rising
We visited during Ireland's year long 100th anniversary celebrations and remembrances of its "Easter Rising", aka the “Easter Rebellion”. It was an armed insurrection launched by Irish republicans in 1916 to end British rule and establish an independent Irish Republic.
Although unsuccessful it is accepted that it was this rising, followed by the harsh, absolutely merciless series of executions and other acts of atrocities and retaliation by the British that turned the rebels into political martyrs. As the executions went on, the Irish public grew increasingly hostile towards the British and sympathetic to the rebels and their cause. This unrest eventually led to a war of independence in 1919.
In 1921 a treaty was signed to end the war. However, it partitioned Ireland into two regions. While it established an Irish Free State in 26 counties it retained British rule in 6 counties in the north. More unrest followed with a civil war pitting pro and anti treaty sides against each other. The civil war ended in 1923 in defeat of the anti-treaty side. However, the partitioning of Ireland is the root of Northern Ireland's continuing tensions and violence which exist to this day. While its “troubles” have simmered down in recent years the peace there is still very fragile.
The Republic of Ireland was officially independent of the British in 1949 with the introduction of the Republic of Ireland Act.
Below is one of the posters of the proclamation which had been read out at the Post Office and posted throughout the city, as well as its text.
We visited during Ireland's year long 100th anniversary celebrations and remembrances of its "Easter Rising", aka the “Easter Rebellion”. It was an armed insurrection launched by Irish republicans in 1916 to end British rule and establish an independent Irish Republic.
Although unsuccessful it is accepted that it was this rising, followed by the harsh, absolutely merciless series of executions and other acts of atrocities and retaliation by the British that turned the rebels into political martyrs. As the executions went on, the Irish public grew increasingly hostile towards the British and sympathetic to the rebels and their cause. This unrest eventually led to a war of independence in 1919.
In 1921 a treaty was signed to end the war. However, it partitioned Ireland into two regions. While it established an Irish Free State in 26 counties it retained British rule in 6 counties in the north. More unrest followed with a civil war pitting pro and anti treaty sides against each other. The civil war ended in 1923 in defeat of the anti-treaty side. However, the partitioning of Ireland is the root of Northern Ireland's continuing tensions and violence which exist to this day. While its “troubles” have simmered down in recent years the peace there is still very fragile.
The Republic of Ireland was officially independent of the British in 1949 with the introduction of the Republic of Ireland Act.
Below is one of the posters of the proclamation which had been read out at the Post Office and posted throughout the city, as well as its text.
POBLACHT NA hÉIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.
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 of all its parts, cherishing all of 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.
Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government:
THOMAS J. CLARKE
SEAN Mac DIARMADA THOMAS MacDONAGH
P. H. PEARSE EAMONN CEANNT
JAMES CONNOLLY JOSEPH PLUNKETT
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.
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 of all its parts, cherishing all of 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.
Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government:
THOMAS J. CLARKE
SEAN Mac DIARMADA THOMAS MacDONAGH
P. H. PEARSE EAMONN CEANNT
JAMES CONNOLLY JOSEPH PLUNKETT
Some pictures in the slide show below include places associated with the rising: The General Post Office where the Proclamation of Independence was read and where the uprising began, the Statue of Daniel O'Connell (the “great Liberator” who was responsible for the 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act), which still has bullet holes from the conflict, as well as murals commemorating the anniversary.