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THE 1916 EASTER RISING
The Calm Before The Storm Easter Monday
From the book ' Agony at Easter ' The 1916 Irish Uprising By Thomas M. Coffey.
hus began the first successful revolution in 20th Century Europe, the 1916 Irish Easter uprising, when
a half-trained army bearing pikes, old rifles, and home-made grenades, and led by poets and intellectuals, marched on Dublin's General Post Office. This pitiful band of revolutionaries, though scorned by most of their fellow Irishmen, were convinced that through their defeat and deaths they would arouse the Irish People to a victorious fight for Independence. Amazingly they were right, and out of the agony at Easter, in 1916, came a resurgence of the Irish nationalism which led ultimately to Irish Independence.
This is their story.
This is their story.
Warm sunshine was not the only unusual element in the air of Dublin, Ireland, on Easter Monday, 1916.
After a fairly normal spring fortnight during which it had rained thirteen of the fourteen days, this had come up brilliant with only a few white puffs of cloud crossing the sky and the temperature what a Dubliner might call ' Close ' - in the sixties. But a Dubliner as sensative to his city's pulse as to its weather could feel something even stranger in the air as noon approached. A brooding curiosity hung over the holiday crowds on O' Connell Street ( the Sackville Street ) in the centre of the city, due perhaps to all the rumours of revolution that had circulated for the pastt week. The possibility of a rebellion had abated now, thanks to a published statement by the man most likely to lead it, Professor Eoin MacNeill, president of the Irish Volunteers, the country's largest armed nationalist organisation. Yet a Dubliner could still be aroused by the chance of an uprising, not because he favoured it, but mostly because the thought of excitement stirred him pleasantly after the prospect of excitement had passed. It is normal enough for an Irishman, accustomed to more talk than action,, to wish something dangerous would have happened , once he suspects, it wont happen.
After a fairly normal spring fortnight during which it had rained thirteen of the fourteen days, this had come up brilliant with only a few white puffs of cloud crossing the sky and the temperature what a Dubliner might call ' Close ' - in the sixties. But a Dubliner as sensative to his city's pulse as to its weather could feel something even stranger in the air as noon approached. A brooding curiosity hung over the holiday crowds on O' Connell Street ( the Sackville Street ) in the centre of the city, due perhaps to all the rumours of revolution that had circulated for the pastt week. The possibility of a rebellion had abated now, thanks to a published statement by the man most likely to lead it, Professor Eoin MacNeill, president of the Irish Volunteers, the country's largest armed nationalist organisation. Yet a Dubliner could still be aroused by the chance of an uprising, not because he favoured it, but mostly because the thought of excitement stirred him pleasantly after the prospect of excitement had passed. It is normal enough for an Irishman, accustomed to more talk than action,, to wish something dangerous would have happened , once he suspects, it wont happen.
Eoin MacNeill
Dublin was not a city where things often happened. Its charm lay in the unique wit of its people, the casual way of life it offered, the beauty of its seaside setting astride the River Liffey, the stateliness of its public buildings and Georgian houses and the spaciousness of its general plan. O' Connell Street, the main north-south thoroughfare, was 150 feet wide, thanks to the foresite of the City's Wide Street Commission in the 1790s, and O' Connell Bridge, which approached it from the south, had the distinction of being wider from railing to railing than from riverbank to riverbank. Some wag had said of it that it was the only bridge in the world even wider than it was wide.
View from the bridge along O' Connell Street with the GPO in the distance and on the left. Straight ahead is the statue to Daniel O' Connell. Opposite the GPO can be seen Nelson's Column. This photograph was taken on Monday the 24th April 1916.
At the lower end of O' Connell Street, looking down upon the bridge was a forty-foot monument to Daniel
O' Connell, a statesman whom the Irish called " The Liberator " because he had led the ultimately successful struggle for Catholic emancipation in the early 19th Century. At the upper end of the half mile long street stood a slightly less imposing monument to Charles Stewart Parnell, another statesman, who, in the latter part of the 19th Century, was close to winning home rule for Ireland when he fell victim to scandal for which some Irishmen haven't yet forgiven him. He was exposed to a divorce action as the lover of a married woman, Mrs Kitty O' Shea. About half way between these two monuments, and dominating both of them from a height of 120 feet, was Nelson's Pillar, a fluted Doric Column on which stood a statue to England's great naval hero Viscount Horatio Nelson.
Between Henry and Prince's Streets, on the west side of O' Connell Street, was Dublin's General Post Office, a deceptively large, rectangular, three-storey structure of classical design surrounded so closely by other buildings that it was difficult to appreciate either its magnitude or its beauty. Built in 1815, it had just been completely refurbished in recognition of its century of use. Its front Portico, which covered the O' Connell Street sidewalk, was supported by eight Ionic columns, and top of it stood statues and three figures - Hibernia, Mercury and Fifelity - whose presence together was one of Dublin's minor mysteries.
O' Connell, a statesman whom the Irish called " The Liberator " because he had led the ultimately successful struggle for Catholic emancipation in the early 19th Century. At the upper end of the half mile long street stood a slightly less imposing monument to Charles Stewart Parnell, another statesman, who, in the latter part of the 19th Century, was close to winning home rule for Ireland when he fell victim to scandal for which some Irishmen haven't yet forgiven him. He was exposed to a divorce action as the lover of a married woman, Mrs Kitty O' Shea. About half way between these two monuments, and dominating both of them from a height of 120 feet, was Nelson's Pillar, a fluted Doric Column on which stood a statue to England's great naval hero Viscount Horatio Nelson.
Between Henry and Prince's Streets, on the west side of O' Connell Street, was Dublin's General Post Office, a deceptively large, rectangular, three-storey structure of classical design surrounded so closely by other buildings that it was difficult to appreciate either its magnitude or its beauty. Built in 1815, it had just been completely refurbished in recognition of its century of use. Its front Portico, which covered the O' Connell Street sidewalk, was supported by eight Ionic columns, and top of it stood statues and three figures - Hibernia, Mercury and Fifelity - whose presence together was one of Dublin's minor mysteries.
Sackville Street, Dublin....British Flags and a large monument to a British hero,Nelson.
Though there were still a few large homes on Upper O' Connell Street, the two-block section from the General Post Office south to O' Connell Bridge was now entirely commercial. housing some of the city's finest shops and hotels. If there was such a thing as a centre of Dublin, it was here. Upriver from the bridge, west along the quays, were the Four Courts building, the huge Guiness brewery, Kingsbridge railway station, and finally Phoenix Park, one of Europe's most beautiful. Just a few blocks south of the bridge were Trinity College, the Bank of Ireland ( which had been the House of Parliament during the period in the 18th Century when Ireland had its own Parliament ) and Dublin Castle, which had long been the seat of British government in Ireland. Downriver from the bridge, eastward along the quays, were the Custom House and Dublin harbor, beyond which, across the Irish Sea, lay ever-present England, which had dominion over Ireland since 1169, when a desposed Irish King invited an English Army to come and help him regain his crown.
