BS: Easter Rising - April 24-29, 1916

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 16 - 11:27 AM

Sorry email- [e-mail]   Geraldine

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 16 - 11:25 AM

Sorry to digress Email not linking Hi, hope your well, Would you do me a favour and send me a good photo of the LP cover of 1070 Scotia Folk, I was never out of the pub then and want to see who I know, I wasn't there that day, nae luck!!! Any other pics too if your wife has any, thank you for taking the time to do that, Cheers Geraldine Kerlin, as I was then, Take Care

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Apr 16 - 07:20 AM

Hi, Desi - most of the Irish live outside Ireland, don't they? A huge number of Americans claim Irish ancestry.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 14 Apr 16 - 06:47 AM

Why would other countries be comemorating a purely Irish rebellion!?

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: LadyJean
Date: 11 Apr 16 - 08:01 PM

There will be a commemoration of the Easter Rising here in Pittsburgh.
My dad was in Ireland, back in the 30s. He went to a movie one night and was impressed when the entire audience stood and belted their new naitonal anthem.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Harry Rivers
Date: 11 Apr 16 - 02:29 AM

The Guardian newspaper, a couple of weeks ago, carried a number of essays by Irish writers on the Easter Rising.

I think Glenn Patterson's reflects my own view; if only I could have put it so beautifully:

"As a rule, I am wary of small numbers of men and women taking up arms in the name of the People, especially when they start invoking God. Yet I like Ireland. I feel at home in every part of it, south as well as north. I like the people, lower case: those born here and the increasing numbers who choose to live here. The thought that any part of what I like might have been brought into being by the women and men who rose on Easter Monday a century ago is, to say the least, paradoxical.

I am reminded of Sherwood Anderson's "The Book of the Grotesque" (I live in Belfast: it's never far from my mind), which describes a world full of beautiful truths to live by and the paradox whereby a person snatching up one of those truths and trying to make it his own becomes a grotesque, and the truth so embraced a falsehood.

There is much that is beautiful in the language of the 1916 Proclamation, and much that is grotesque in what it has been used (and is still being used by some) to justify, although even within Ireland it certainly doesn't have a monopoly on that. We seriously fucked up over the Rising's golden jubilee, or "they" did (I was four, it's one of the last things of which I can truly say I am absolved): the celebrations in the south and, more lethally, the overreaction in the north. I hope this time round all who wish to remember remember, and are allowed to remember, with dignity and magnanimity.

Then maybe once this and the other forthcoming centenaries are over – the clocks have been definitively reset, from 1916 to 2016 (or 2023) – we could all try squeezing our truths a little less tight."

They can all be read here:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/26/easter-rising-100-years-on-a-terrible-beauty-is-born

Best wishes,
Harry

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Apr 16 - 09:47 AM

This thread seems to be full of weasel words - "uprising" rather than Rising, "ringleaders" - and of course the ubiquitous "would have" assumptions by telepathic posters who possess time machines leading to alternate universes.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Apr 16 - 04:15 AM

"In 1916, at the height of WW1, armed insurgents rose up against the British in Dublin, the empire's second city. Using secret documents, cabinet papers, intelligence reports, military orders, diaries and letters, Michael Portillo pieces together the story of this uprising from the British point of view.

Was Dublin just another battle at a time of war where military justice was immediate and brutal or, by their actions, did the British men who wrote these documents hasten the end of an empire? Did an unlikely band of Irish rebels, led by playwrights and poets, do more to advance the cause of Irish freedom in five days than nationalist politicians had done in the previous 50 years, or did they damage the cause and condemn the island to a history of violence? Michael looks for the answers. This is the story of Ireland's Easter Rising as told by British politicians, soldiers, spies and bureaucrats."

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Apr 16 - 04:13 AM

This BBC TV programme also questions the idea that Home Rule was advanced at all by those acts of violence.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b075f1f2

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 01:03 PM

If you look for 'Liverpool' in that Bureau of Military History search you'll find names that will lead you to other names, GSS.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 12:37 PM

The Liverpool Lambs was the nickname of the lads who came over from Liverpool and other places and were staying in Larkfield (sleeping in the barn and preparing a few little bombs and things for the coming Rising). They stayed there for six weeks or so, then got on the tram with George Plunkett, got off in O'Connell Street, formed up, marched to the GPO and on George's call of "LEFT - into the GPO - Charge!" they charged in, told everyone to get out, broke the windows and sandbagged them to prop their guns, and that was the start of the Rising. I think they may have been the first in; not sure about that, though.
In Jack Plunkett's witness statement to the Bureau of Military History he makes reference to them. (Jack was the youngest of the three Plunkett brothers; he was 18 during the Rising.)

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 12:32 PM

Tom Barry, may have never taken part in the ester rising, at the time he was being trained by the British Army, IMO he was one of the most important people in the guerilla warfare against Britain.
I would rather have Tom Barry on my side, than people who get excited about the correct spelling of James Connolly.
Tom Barry one of irelands greatest patriots not like the wanker enda kenny

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 12:22 PM

Thompson. As a native of Merseyside, I'm suprised that I've never come across the Liverpool Lambs before. Could you elucidate further?

I did of course do a Google search, but all that came up was a reference to Larry Lamb. Oh hell.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 11:57 AM

That farmer might have been one of the Liverpool Lambs, aka George's Lambs, who were staying at Larkfield before the Rising. They were mostly fellows of Irish parentage or nationality who went to Ireland to a) avoid conscription into the butchery of World War I and b) joined up to free Ireland from British occupation.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 11:02 AM

It's amazing the things you end up wishing you'd done something about at the time.

When I was an apprentice I went out on a job with my foreman. On the way back he announced that he was going to call in on an old farmer he knew, an ex-IRA man., who'd fought in the war of independence. I asked if the guy was Irish and my foreman said "No. He's English, but he got fed up with the dirty end of the stick that the Irish were getting and he decided to go over there and lend them a hand."

I was extremely shy and naive in those days, and I'd never heard of oral history. In fact, I don't think it even existed as a recognised discipline that far back, so I never did anything about it.

A few years later, this old bloke's farm was bulldozed to make room for a motorway and his memories of the troubles are now lying in a grave somewhere. Sad.

Some years later I was working in a civil engineering site office, along with a Mexican draughtsman called Eduardo. Eduardo hated General Franco, who at that time was coming to the end of his reign as Spain's only fascist dictator.

When I asked why, he explained that his father had been the Spanish Prime Minister at the time of Franco's coup, and that was why he and the rest of the family had ended up in Mexico. Unfortunately, with work commitments and whatnot, I never got the chance to follow up that conversation. But who knows what historical nuggets might have been uncovered.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 08:27 AM

Yes, Jim, I'm not saying it didn't happen - sorry, I should have phrased it more clearly - but the legend has grown up (or has been deliberately built) that this was the universal reaction, when it was not.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 06:06 AM

"That's the legend all right; "
Coffey gaave his source for the eye witness statement.
There is no doubt that there was support throughout Ireland, but a degree of confusion surrounding the attempted calling of of the uprising byy one leader let to a great deal of confusion as to how much
My father's brother-in-law was a runner for Collins later on - wish I'd spent more time with him while he was still living
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 05:54 AM

during war and revolution legality is never really an issue - all kinds of stuff goes on.

shooting people in cold blood is a shit thing to do, whatever the circumstances. its like the hanging of Casement. legally maybe they had the right - but morally, what a vile act!

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 05:21 AM

That's the legend all right; but funnily enough, some witness statements are now surfacing, including one by a Canadian journalist, saying that in many parts of Dublin people supported the rebels.
Even this is surprising. Can you imagine the state of terror of the people of a city that is under military occupation and curfew, where you couldn't walk through town without showing a military-granted pass to soldiers of doubtful stability at every barricade, and where every day the intellectuals of the country are being shot after hasty trials of doubtful legality?

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 05:16 AM

Thanks for that T
One of the most memorable parts of Coffey's book is the description of the survivors of the uprising being brought out of the GPO and being set on by Dublin 'Shawlies' demanding, "why aren't you supporting our lads in the trenches".
It took the brutality of unnecessary, hastily carried out executions to turn what was widely regarded as a somewhat eccentric incident into a revolution.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 05:09 AM

Well, the lads didn't actually get off the ferry. They'd come over some months before and been living at Larkfield, a farm owned by Joseph Plunkett's family, and training there. George Plunkett at their head, they marched down to the Kimmage tram stop and piled on to the first tram, and George said "Fifty-two tuppenny tickets to the city centre please".

The songs that were most sung during the Rising were Step Together - always used as a marching song before the Rising while on exercises - and The Soldier's Song, now in translation our national anthem, Amhrán na bhFíann.

Incidentally, something that isn't often understood in modern times when people have more ready cash and guns are more common: the Volunteers and Citizen Army were very sparsely armed, and had very little ammunition. This was a couple of thousand men and women with shotguns and heavy Boer War era rifles and a few revolvers, and one or two with actual machine guns, and some even with old or homemade pikes and household implements, up against the most modern army in the world, armed with the most modern weapons and heavy artillery. The defenders were fighting through their home city; the attackers in many cases thought they were at the front in France, and were baffled by everyone knowing English.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 03:28 AM

Incidentally, the term "ringleaders" for the leaders of the Rising is about as acceptable as if I were to refer to George Washington as "one of the ringleaders" of the American Rising.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Thompson
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 03:27 AM

Are all the posters on this thread drunk?

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: JenBurdoo
Date: 25 Mar 15 - 02:09 AM

My dad and I visited the GPO in Dublin last year. Quite interesting. There's a video with actors playing the roles of postal employees and their reactions to the Rising, and also some good dioramas. Unrelated to the Rising is a mini-museum of postal history. Outside is a giant metal spire which stands in place of Nelson's Column and is a lot less impressive - none of the locals we met had anything complimentary to say about it.

We also spent a couple hours in a nearby bar named for one of the ringleaders (Can't remember which - Connolly?) who had spent much of his time there before the war.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: Murpholly
Date: 24 Mar 15 - 07:09 AM

G.P.O. in Dublin was re-built and is still operational as Major Post Office and as a tourist focal point. Great boards round the waiting areas depict various happenings of the Rising almost like stations of the cross!!! Will be interested to know which date they celebrate next year - Easter - or the actual date which is different with the changing dates of Easter. On last visit to Glasnevin they had almost finished the clearing up, tidying and rebuilding ready for the Centenary. Should be interesting times.

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: mayomick
Date: 24 Mar 15 - 06:21 AM

You're mixing up Sinn Fein, the IRA and the IRB , Desi. The IRA was never a pacifist organization. Sinn Fein had pacifists in it but was never a pacifist organization (nor a republican one for that matter -Arthur Griffith its founder was a monarchist ). The IRA didn't exist in 1916 , the IRB from which the IRA was formed and the Irish Citizens Army did the fighting.

An interesting Orange song whose proud, all-Ireland dimension would make any modern Orangeman who was capable of being embarrassed blush. What's mystery , Mr Peasant other than the"dismal shade" of self-induced ignorance? Research the song and you'll find it perfectly explainable , I'm sure!

By the way re the Behan joke - there are no steps into the GPO .

Subject: RE: Easter Rising
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 24 Mar 15 - 05:06 AM

There's a great misconception that the IRA staged the Easter rising, wrong. It was the Irish National Brotherhood. The IRA at that time was actually a Pacifist org. They were asked to support it by the Brotherhood but refused. So against it they even took out an ad in TheDublin Post waring their members not to take part! Even more remarkable is the fact that the neither the British or the Post office seemed to read the paper, as they were still un prepared on the 16th! It was a vry ill fated if brave attempt. In fact such was the lack of popular support for the Brotherhood that when they were finally led away as prisoners they were booed and jeered by the crowds!
Had the British NOT xecuted the leaders it would surely have gone down as just another failed uprising, but the executions finally stirred the Irish public out of their submissivness and into action, even the IRA were finally moved to arms
May they rest i peace. 'Beware The Risen Few'