The Irish Easter Rebellion 1916 Essay

This culminated in the Rebellion of 1798, lead by Wolfe Tone and the Society of United Irishmen, in which Hugh and Jimmy participated: “The road to Sligo. A spring morning. 1798. Going into battle” (445). But, as these characters soon discovered, the rebellion failed resulting in large executions and the passing of the Act of Union in 1800. This piece of legislation, effective from 1 January 1801, brought Ireland under the direct rule of the British Crown.

This text is a political speech that Daniel O`Connell, one of the fathers of the Irish Republic, gave at the House of Commons in London in 1836. The aim of O’Connell’s speech was to get equal justice for the Irish people as members of the British Crown, and in the same way that by that time the Scottish, English and Welsh people already had. The majority of the Parliament’s members were protestant and reluctant to give Irish Catholics more rights than they already had.

In the first place, my maternal grandfather instilled a pride and understanding of my Irish roots. Specifically, he brought me over to Belfast to learn and experience the culture. At the time, the hostility between the Protestants and Catholics was evident. Additionally, I saw people living under the threats of terrorism and bombing, propaganda graffiti, and a city under a police state. Similarly, I witnessed families torn apart because a mother was one

The Irish Brigade leader, Commander Thomas Francis Meagher, was born in Waterford, Ireland, and was active in the “Young Ireland” nationalist movement. As a result, he was exiled and imprisoned on Tasmania, Australia in 1849. In 1853, he escaped

The Irish were promised the Home Rule Act, but it was taken away at the start of the Ester Uprising. “This modest promise was swept away the Easter Uprising of 1916, when a small band of rebels paralyzed the city and the Irish Republic was proclaimed from the steps of the GPO” (Hegarty). Padhraic Pearse led about 2000 people into the Easter Revolution, only a small fraction of the people that had lived in Dublin at the time. Most of the Irish were involved in World War I. “They had little support – many Irish volunteers had joined the war effort and the rebels were perceived to be traitors to the great cause” (Hegarty). It would take more violence and rebellion against the British to bring attention to their cause both locally and abroad.

Unlike in the War of Independence the IRA did not have the backing of many Irish-Americans. Probably the major problem with finding backing amongst their former allies was the fact that they all almost universally welcomed the signing of the Treat. Even Irish strongholds like the city of Boston were pro-treaty, with one James Phelan telegramming the Lord Mayor of Dublin that he loved the treaty saying he expressed the “feeling(s) of all true friends of Ireland and England the world over” . Even the Catholic church in America refused to help the IRA. Former allies in Scotland were also of little help as most were loyal to Joseph Vize, who was a member of President Collins inner circle. With their assets in the United States frozen by Congress, the IRA had little chance of securing enough money to buy firearms. In addition to this the lack of support of the Irish in the United States meant that they would be unable to receive any substantial sum of money nor be able to secure weapons shipments. Additionally, unlike in the previous war they were unable to obtain arms and explosives from sympathizers in Scotland in large part thanks to Collin’s influence over this area. The IRA repeated a mistake they made during the earliest inkling of revolution, as in the Easter Rebellion they were reliant on outside forces acting on their

This small step to independence by a group of dissenters was able to use the built heritage site of Tara to invoke within the Irish people a sense of their lost traditionalism and new found fervor for nationalism (Laurence, 2008, p.159). Nevertheless, the continual dominance of British rule saw no substantial social and economic changes for Catholics as they were still”steeped in habitual misery” (Finn & Lynch, 1995, p.24).

The Act of Union in 1800 was a significant factor to the nature of Irish nationalism in 1800. Prior to the Act, the society of the united Irishmen, a republican society who wanted parliamentary reform and Catholic Emancipation, fought, under the leadership of Robert Emmet, with physical force for their complete independence. Because of their military strand they differed from their predecessors the ‘Protestant Patriots’, this is because the society was heavily influenced by revolutionary events in France and New America in the late 18th century. The rebellion, although unsuccessful, with its leader imprisoned, had major consequential effects; which was the passing of the Act of Union in 1800. The Act set the tone for the rest of Irish

The alleged origin of the Irish Republican Army could be traced back to the Easter Rising of 1916 (Alonso, 2001; Arena & Arrigo, 2004; Filardo-Llamas, 2013; Hart, 1997; Page & Smith, 2000). Radical nationalists, who were part of a group called the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), took the opportunity to take up arms against the British during the war in Europe (Filardo-Llamas, 2013). The Irish Republican Brotherhood was the precursor of the modern IRA. They were a secret society who was

The first known use of the term "Irish Republican Army" occurred in the Fenian raids on Canada in the 1860s. The original Irish Republican Army formed by 1917 from those Irish Volunteers who refused to enlist in the British Army during World War I, members of the Irish Citizen Army and others. During the Irish War of Independence it was the army of the Irish Republic, declared by Dáil Éireann in 1919. Some Irish people dispute the claims of more recently created organizations that insist that they are the only legitimate descendants of the original IRA, often referred to as the "Old IRA".

Following nearly 600 years of varying English rule the Irish people in the late 1800s experienced a voracious onset of nationalist sentiment, influenced by European enlightenment thinkers. The Irish under an initially moderate national leadership pushed for the policy of “home rule,” which would grant the Irish autonomy, self-rule and economic freedom in return for maintaining their position within the United Kingdom. The home rule issue would dominate Irish politics for nearly 50 years until 1919, when extremist nationals would attain control of local governments and officially declare the Irish Republic (Campbell 624-630.) The Irish revolution is commonly attributed to pre nationalistic revolutionary ideas of intolerance, economic propensity towards independence and foreign oppressment creating unity, this is a misplaced assumption though as the war and preceding conflict was fought and won almost

This was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration, even though it was illegal. Ten thousand people had gathered in the streets of Londonberry on that Sunday morning to participate in a civil rights march. The British Army had barricaded some of the streets, so most of the marchers made a detour from the original planned route. There were some marchers who continued on towards the barricade. Some of the youths who were marching began to throw rocks at the British soldiers. The soldiers retaliated with rubber bullets, a water cannon and CS gas. As the marchers began to leave the area, the 1st Parachute Regiment were instructed to arrest as many of the protestors as possible. The paratroopers opened fire on the crowd. Thirteen men were killed and another thirteen were wounded. One of the wounded died several months later. The ages of these men ranged from 17 to 41. The wounded people included a 15 year old boy and a woman. More protest continued throughout Ireland. In Dublin, the capital, outraged Irish citizens lit the British Embassy on fire in

The Irish had suffered long before in the hands of the English when Cromwell had been in control and had taken away land held by the catholic majority of the country to members of the protestant minority. This created a large tension among the population with the oppressed majority and the rather entitled minority who by Trevelyan’s snooty tone did indeed see themselves as the superior people in the country. (Trevelyan’s tone is probably the most dismissive when in discussion of the Irish, mayhaps showing his own true dislike.) (Trevelyan, p. 116-

2016 marks the 100th commemoration of the Ireland’s Easter Uprising. This was celebrated by a variety of people, then and now. The beginning of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic began with, “Irish men and Irish women (...).” This was one of the few times that women were seen on the same level as their male counterparts. Women played an important role in the rebellion in an era dominated by men.

Casement was convicted of treason and hanged. Many others prominently connected with the rebellion were sentenced to long prison terms. The uprising was the first of a series of events that culminated in the establishment of the Irish Free State (predecessor of the Republic of Ireland) in 1921. Casualties were about 440 British troops and an estimated 75 Irish (below are their names). Property damage included the destruction of about 200 buildings in Dublin.