One of the two Irish flags flown above the General Post Office during the uprising.
But we will not be reading in this entry about Mexico or New Mexico, or even of Pershing and Villa.
Today we read of Ireland.
On this day, in 1916, Irish republicans rose up in rebellion against the United Kingdom in an effort to take their nation out of it.
Proclamation by the Irish rebels declaring Irish independence.
The story is a fabled one, and up until the last decade or so, the conventional story was that Irish nationalist desperately, and perhaps with knowing doom, lashed out at the British oppressors in an action which ultimately founded their republic.
Well, there's some truth to that, but a lot of myth as well.
Indeed, the rebellion was, in terms of its immediate goals, a failure. What made it a success long term was British over reaction, not the small Irish uprising.
In popular myth the Irish, ever since the English first set foot on their island, rebelled again and again. And there's more than a little truth to that. The Irish never welcomed the English to Ireland. And after King Henry VIII decided that he wast the head of the church in England, the English occupation of Ireland became one unending bigoted disaster. The Irish stuck with the Catholic Church and would not be forced into any of the brands of Protestantism that, truth be known, the majority of the English in the countryside were not keen on either. Over time, but not much time, the contesting Protestant forces in the United Kingdom operated to oppress Catholics wherever they were and that came to mean Ireland as well. All of this is well known. Things became brutally bad for the Irish, who made some notable rebellions (in which, I'd note, two of my direct ancestors participated, and whom, I'd note, both were killed in). Reduced first to poverty, and then starting in the 1840s to starvation, things were brutally bad for the Irish.
But that was the Ireland from the 1500s until the middle of the 20th Century. It wasn't the Ireland, or the England, of 1916.
The United Kingdom, rather remarkably, began to self reform in the 18th and 19th Centuries in some remarkable ways. In 1829, ahead of the famine, the United Kingdom restored most civil rights to Catholics in the United Kingdom, which in practical terms meant that the average Catholic was restored to the same set of rights that the average Protestant in the UK had. This act extended to Ireland as well as to the rest of the United Kingdom. It certainly didn't make life wonderful for the Irish overnight, but it was a start.
Following the famine of the 1840s the United Kingdom recognized that in Ireland the long established Protestant ruling class system was unsustainable and it began to move towards reform in Ireland. Heavily contested by some Protestant elements, the movement became focused on Home Rule for Ireland and land reform, both of which became highly successful by the early 20th Century. To all save those with blinders on it was obvious that Home Rule was going to become the system for Ireland. The combined effect gave us much of what we recognize about Ireland today. The country went from a land of lords and peasants to one of small farmers, which was what the majority of Irish were and which became the economic foundation of the country. Just prior to World War One the movement towards Home Rule was so complete that it was obvious that was going to take effect.
Home Rule for Ireland would have left Ireland a self governing nation within the United Kingdom, somewhat, but not completely, analogous to what Scotland presently is. It would have largely passed its own laws, but foreign affairs would have been retained by Parliament. It was clear, from election returns, that the overwhelming majority of Irish favored it, rejecting both independence from the UK and the old full political union with the UK.
And then came World War One.
World War One did not turn the Irish off from Home Rule, but it did cause its backers to suspend the efforts temporarily in light of the Great War. Perhaps this was, in retrospect, a mistake, but the Irish showed no disappointment with that approach. Indeed, period writings from the time are remarkable in the extent to which Irish writers supported Empire and regarded themselves as British. Irishmen volunteered in large numbers to serve in the British Army, which of course was their Army.
For Irish Nationalist, however, the Great War was looked upon differently, and that was as an opportunity.
The way the wind was blowing was clear to Irish Nationalist. The First World War, therefore, was seen as a chance to turn that wind in its favor before it was really too late, which was what was going to occur. Viewing anything other than full independence for the entire island as unacceptable, they worked towards revolution during the war, acquiring antiquated arms from Germany in the process.
Then the British began to make mistakes. The biggest of those was the legal extension of conscription to Ireland.
The British had started off World War One with an all volunteer army. It was not until January 1916 that the British introduced conscription to start to fill the ranks of the British Army. Ireland was excluded from the act, reflecting the careful way that the UK approached Ireland at the time and recognizing its oncoming unique status in the United Kingdom. This caused resentment in other quarters however and raised tensions in Ireland. Still, conscription was not extended to Ireland until 1918, at which time it actually had very little effect.
Irish Nationalist, who formed more than one group, began plotting for an uprising quite some time prior to Easter, 1916. Planning and preparing for an uprising, it appears disjointed and quixotic even today. There were various factions in the movement, not all of which had the same goal. The troops for the uprising, Irish Volunteers, had originally formed in order to protect Home Rule against violence from those opposed to it, and they were not necessarily nationalist Some of the leaders of the rebellion appeared to be accepting of a almost certain defeat and go down in sort of an odd romantic Irish tradition, which they hoped would lead to the success of their movement. Others appear to have really expected to spark a successful rebellion.
Patrick Pearse, a leading figure of the uprising but a romantic at heart, he carried a saber and wrote poetry during the uprising. He was one of the figures executed by the British after it. He held the position of Commander In Chief during it. Pearse's father was English.
Éamon de Valera. De Valera survived the uprising to go on to be the President of Ireland in the Anglo Irish War, and then to take his political party Sinn Fein into the Irish Civil War. He lead Ireland for years after the conclusion of peace in the Irish Civil War. He likely was not executed following the uprising as he was born in the United States and held American as well as British citizenship. Like Pearse, he was half Irish, as his father, whom he never knew, was Portuguese.
They struck on this day, Easter Monday, 1916. The uprising basically succeeded in taking a selection of government building in Dublin which caused, over a five day period the British put it down. They did so in a style that was quite heavy handed in military terms, but the British Army had been fighting in France for two years at the time and was acclimated to warfare. The battle was pitched in Dublin, but around the rest of the country the uprising was sporadic. There were some efforts, but they were not successful. In one county the Irish Volunteers mustered and then quickly disbanded, reflecting the fact that the Irish Volunteers were not Irish nationalist the way the leaders of the rebellion were, and their participation in the action was due to nationalist infiltration rather than their own goals. After a time, the survivors in Dublin, where there had been large numbers of casualties, surrendered and were jeered by Dubliners, many of whom had sons in the British Army.
James Connolly, Scottish born to Irish parents. He'd served for seven years in the British Army in Ireland, an experience that left him with a hatred of the British Army, which executed him 1916. Connolly was the real military leader in the Dublin Post Office, but he wasn't a member of the Irish Brotherhood but rather the leader of the Irish Citizens Army, a Socialist Irish army. He was a true Socialist and likely conceived of an Irish future that was much different than other Irish rebel leaders. His execution was amongst the most shocking to the Irish as, after receiving absolution from a Catholic Priest, he was executed by firing squad while sitting in his chair. He was likely already dying from injuries received in the uprising.
Gathering of the Irish Citizen Army prior to 1916. This group was a Socialist army that participated in the Easter Uprising.
At that point, the British had been successful in putting down a rebellion that had no support from the Irish population. But, after having treated Ireland with kid gloves over about a twenty year period, they went too far and executed many of the leaders of the rebellion in a rapid fashion. That in part likely reflected the actions of a nation that was now acclimated to war and which executed a fair number of its own solders for desertion, but it shocked the Irish population. The Irish, in turn, could not help but recall the heavy handed nature of prior Irish rule and sympathy began to swing towards Irish nationalist. British occupation of Dublin following the rebellion made things worse. Following World War One Irish nationalist launched a guerrilla war against the United Kingdom which took Ireland out of the United Kingdom, but which left it a dominion, and without Ulster, in 1921. That in turn lead to the Irish Civil War.
Irish Nationalist soldiers of the Anglo Irish War.
The irony, then, is that this is an instance in which history truly could have potentially worked out differently. The rebels of 1916 were not acting on behalf of Irish wishes, but against it. In order to even act they had to infiltrate and co-opt an Irish militia that was not really on their side. Their goals were not the goals of the Irish population in 1916 and indeed their leaders in some ways reflected an entirely different set of goals. If the revolution was successful, it was so because the British forgot themselves in reacting to it. Had the British simply charged the rebels with criminal offenses and then tried them, and more than that granted them leniency, the Anglo Irish War would almost certainly not have occurred and Home Rule within the United Kingdom would have come into effect by 1920 at the latest. Whether Ireland with Home Rule would have left the UK can be asked, but Scotland hasn't.
