MAYO-L Archives

Archiver > MAYO > 2001-04 > 0987540805


From: "conaught" <>
Subject: [MAYO] Easter Week Series #2
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 13:53:25 -0700


The War of Independence in the Aftermath of The Easter Rising of 1916


The Easter Rising brought national attention to the Irish cause and to the
oppressive ways in which the English ruled the country. Nationalism swept
the country in the wake of the executions of the Easter Rising leaders. The
War of Independence, which followed in 1919, the subsequent Civil War of
1922, and the formation of the Irish Free State in 1923 had their roots in
the Easter Rising of 1916.
Tom Clarke urged the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood
that a rising must happen before the end of the Great War. Patrick Pearse,
Joseph Plunket and Éamonn Ceannt drafted the first military plans. The
Supreme Council decided unanimously to proceed with the uprising although
they knew it had little chance of success. The Irish Volunteers were holding
recruiting meetings throughout Ireland and training recruits
enthusiastically. In spite of the order from Eoin McNeill not to revolt,
over 2,000 soldiers made a strike for freedom on Easter Monday. The
Volunteers seized and fortified six positions in Dublin city: the General
Post Office, the Four Courts, Boland's Mill, St. Stephen's Green, Jacobs
Factory and the South Dublin Union. The Volunteers' failed attempts to seize
Dublin Castle and Trinity College severely restricted their means of
communicating with each other and to prevent the arrival of English
reinforcements. By Wednesday, the English outnumbered the revolutionaries by
twenty to one. The English secured a perimeter around the city and closed
in. By Friday the GPO was engulfed in flames and Pearse gave the order to
surrender. Four hundred fifty people, many civilians, were dead with over
2500 wounded. The city was in ruins with the damage estimated at 2 Million
pounds. The English subsequently arrested over 3,500 people, including Éamon
DeValera and Michael Collins. The English executed all seven signatories of
the proclamation of independence (Pearse, Connolly, Clarke, MacDonagh,
MacDermott, Plunkett, and Ceannt). The masses of the country now thought
that the insurgents were heroic and, for the first time, wanted an end to
English rule. Nationalism swept the country.

© 2001
Ellen Naliboff

All rights reserved





This thread: