Willie Pearse

Willie Pearse
Author: Róisín Ní Ghairbhí
Publisher: The O'Brien Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2015-03-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1847177484

Willie Pearse was a well-regarded sculptor who ran the family stone-carving business, but he was also a dynamic activist whose life offers fresh insights into political and cultural life before 1916. History has placed him in the shadow of his brother Patrick, but whether it was nationalism, education or the cultural revival, Willie shared in these activities as an equal. Being Patrick's right-hand man in the weeks preceding the Rising, he played an important role in making it happen. His gentle character and wide circle of friends meant that his execution on 4 May 1916 shocked even those who had little sympathy with the rebels and helped turn public opinion in their favour. In this book, using new sources, Róisin Ní Ghairbhi shows conclusively that, far from being dominated by his brother, Willie Pearse was always decidedly his own man.

Patrick Pearse

Patrick Pearse
Author: Ruán O'Donnell
Publisher: The O'Brien Press Ltd
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2016-02-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1847178537

On 24 April 1916, as President of the Provisional Government, Patrick Pearse appeared under the GPO Grand Portico on Dublin's O'Connell Street and read aloud the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Nine days later, he was the first of the rebel leaders to be executed. Pearse was born in Dublin on 11 November 1879, to an English father and an Irish mother. Considered the face of the 1916 Easter Rising, for many he was also its heart. In this definitive biography, using a wealth of primary sources, Dr Ruán O'Donnell establishes as never before the significance of Pearse's activism all across Ireland, as well as his dual roles as Director of Military Operations for the Irish Volunteers and member of the clandestine Military Council of the IRB. On 3 May 1916, Pearse was executed in the Stonebreakers Yard at Kilmainham Gaol, at the age of thirty-six.

The Pedagogy of Protest

The Pedagogy of Protest
Author: Brendan Walsh
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2007
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9783039109418

This book provides the first complete account of Patrick Pearse's educational work at St. Enda's and St. Ita's schools (Dublin). Extensive use of first-hand accounts reveals Pearse as a humane, energetic teacher and a forward-looking and innovative educational thinker. Between 1903 and 1916 Pearse developed a new concept of schooling as an agency of radical pedagogical and social reform, later echoed by school founders such as Bertrand Russell. This placed him firmly within the tradition of radical educational thought as articulated by Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux. The book examines the tension between Pearse's work and his increasingly public profile as an advocate of physical force separatism and, by employing previously unknown accounts, questions the perception that he influenced his students to become active supporters of militant separatism. The book describes the later history of St. Enda's, revealing the ambivalence of post-independence administrations, and shows how Pearse's work, which has long been neglected by historians, has had a direct influence on a later generation of school founders up to the present.

Sisters of the Revolutionaries

Sisters of the Revolutionaries
Author: Teresa O’Donnell
Publisher: Merrion Press
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2017-03-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1785371096

Sisters of the Revolutionaries focuses on the lives of Margaret and Mary Brigid Pearse, whose brothers, Patrick and Willie, were executed for their role in the Easter Rising and have been commemorated as martyrs ever since. Comparatively little is known about the two sisters, despite their considerable talents and their efforts to uphold the image of their brothers’ legacies. Margaret was an Irish language activist, politician and educator, working with Patrick in founding St Enda’s School in Dublin and taking it into her own hands following his execution. Mary Brigid was a musician and author of short stories and children’s fiction. The sisters’ successes were divergent, however, and their deep affection for their brothers never extended towards each other. Teresa and Mary Louise O’Donnell provide a fascinating insight into the lives of Margaret and Mary Brigid, illuminating the many joys of their upbringing, their personal trials following the Rising, and the poignant disintegration of their own relationship later in life. This book reveals the previously unknown importance of the Pearse sisters’ contributions and the formidability of their characters.

Seven Signatories

Seven Signatories
Author: Paul Gorry
Publisher: Merrion Press
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2016-10-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1785371002

The Proclamation of the Irish Republic is the most significant document in Irish history. The credo contained therein, to cherish ‘all of the children of the nation equally’, has come to define its seven signatories, marking a common bond in their life’s work. Their memory intensely moulded by their political activities, history can forget the diverse background from which these seven men came—family histories that touched upon twenty counties and economic environments ranging from extreme poverty to privilege. The Family Histories of the Seven Signatories is an indepensible genealogical history that uncovers the disparate lives that came together through the will for Irish independence. Thomas Clarke and James Connolly were born in England and Scotland respectively, their families having emigrated in the years after the Great Famine, an experience shared by many generations of Irish people before and since. Thomas McDonagh and Patrick Pearse had immediate English forebears. The signatories’ pasts from before they were born were an essential component in determining their ideas – each firmly their own – of an Irish republic. Their extended histories, fully disclosed within the pages of this book, are a riveting realisation of the complexities that defined nineteenth century Ireland and the lives of the seven signatories whose pasts reveal the many-faceted draw towards rebellion.

Ruairí Ó Brádaigh

Ruairí Ó Brádaigh
Author: Robert W. White
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2006-02-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780253347084

Since the mid-1950s, Ruairí Ó Bradáigh has played a singular role in the Irish Republican Movement. He is the only person who has served as chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army, as president of the political party Sinn Féin, and to have been elected, as an abstentionist, to the Dublin parliament. Today, he is the most prominent and articulate spokesperson of those Irish Republicans who reject the peace process in Northern Ireland. His rejection is rooted in his analysis of Irish history and his belief that the peace process will not achieve peace. Instead it will support the continued partition of Ireland and result in continued, inevitable, conflict. The child of Irish Republican veterans, Ó Bradáigh has led IRA raids, been arrested and interned, escaped and been "on the run," and even spent a period of time on a hunger strike. An articulate spokesman for the Irish Republican cause, he has at different times been excluded from Northern Ireland, Britain, the United States, and Canada. He was a key figure in the secret negotiation of a bilateral IRA-British truce. His "Notes" on these negotiations offer special insight to the 1975 truce, the IRA cease-fires of the 1990s, and the current peace process in Ireland. Ó Bradáigh has been a staunch defender of the traditional Republican position of abstention from participation in the parliaments in Dublin, Belfast, and Westminster. When Sinn Féin voted to recognize these parliaments in 1970, he led the walkout of the party convention and spearheaded the creation of Provisional Sinn Féin. He served as president of Provisional Sinn Féin until 1983, when he was forced from the position by his successor, Gerry Adams. In 1986, with Adams as its president, Provisional Sinn Féin recognized the Dublin parliament. Ó Bradáigh led another walkout and later became president of Republican Sinn Féin, a position he still holds.

Secret Court Martial Records

Secret Court Martial Records
Author: Brian Barton
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 511
Release: 2010-03-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0750959053

Following the suppression of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, the British Army court-martialled almost 200 prisoners. Around ninety of them received death sentences, but the death penalty was confirmed only for the fifteen men considered to be the leaders. All fifteen were executed. Until 1999, official British records of these fifteen trials were kept a close secret, and in 2001 further material was released, including the trial of Countess Markievicz and important evidence about the shoot to kill tactics used by the British Army. These records, the subject of heated speculation and propaganda for over eighty years, are clearly presented in this important new edition of From Behind a Closed Door, containing previously unpublished material from archive sources, such as the Bureau of Military History witness statements. The complete transcripts are all revealed, together with fascinating photographs of the Rising, the fifteen leaders and the key British players. Brian Barton incisive commentary explains the context of the trials and the motivations of the leaders, providing an invaluable insight into what went on behind closed doors at a defining moment in Irish history.

16 Dead Men: The Easter Rising Executions

16 Dead Men: The Easter Rising Executions
Author: Anne-Marie Ryan
Publisher: Mercier Press Ltd
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2014-09-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1781173060

Sixteen men were executed in the aftermath of the Easter Rising in Ireland, 1916: fifteen were shot and one was hanged. Their deaths changed the course of Irish history. But who were these leaders who set in motion events that would lead to the creation of an independent Ireland? The executed leaders of the Easter Rising were a diverse group. This book contains fascinating accounts of the life stories of these men and recounts the events that brought each of them to rebellion in April 1916.

The Rising

The Rising
Author: Bairbre Toibin
Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2016-05-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 147364139X

When Margaret Dempsey, daughter of a prosperous town merchant, falls in love with Michael Carty, son of a Fenian farmer, her family strongly disapprove. Bound closer by adversity, the couple enter their married life idealistic, yet innocent. Soon, however, their idyll is threatened, as Michael finds himself drawn into the struggle for Irish independence. Revolutionary movements bring the outside world crashing in on them, threatening all they hold dear. In 1916, Margaret fights to keep their growing family safe against the odds. Told in prose of extraordinary clarity, The Rising is a profoundly moving love story that delves deep into the mindset of Irish Republicanism, along with the complex social relationships of town and country during that era. An engrossing account of family, memory, history and belonging.

Ireland's National Theaters

Ireland's National Theaters
Author: Mary Trotter
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2001-04-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780815628880

In the annals of Irish studies and theater history much has been written about the Abbey Theatre. Now, Mary Trotter not only sheds new Light on that company's history but also examines other groups with a range of political, religious, gender, and class perspectives that consciously used performance to promote ideas about nationalism and culture in Ireland at the turn of the last century. This innovative, interdisciplinary work details how different nationalist organizations with diverse political and artistic goals employed theater as an anticolonial tool. In Dublin's turbulent cultural and political arena during the first decades of the twentieth century, nationalist audiences read popular Irish melodramas in subversive ways; the Daughters of Erin staged tableaux of great women heroes; and the Abbey players earned both acclaim and apprehension within the nationalist community. Here is a compelling analysis of these and other groups' prominent role in Irish nationalism in the years before Easter 1916, and the way these political theaters gave birth to modern Irish drama.