By Michelle Boyle
The Easter Insurrection of 1916 goes down as one of the
most historic events in modern history. When young
Irishmen and women took on the might of the British
Empire and struck a blow for freedom. Beneath the
exterior of the grand title of Easter Rising 1916 lie
stories of pain, hardship and suffering. Even now, 91
years later, little is spoken of events following the
Rising.
When, on Sunday, the arrested rebels were marched across
Dublin from one prison compound to another, they were at
times jeered at and booed by the crowds. The mass of
public opinion had been against the rebels. Some 3,430
suspects were arrested; 90 sentenced to death; and 16
leaders executed. A total of 1,480 people and 79 women
thought to be "Sinn Féiners" were interned after the
Rising, many of whom had little or nothing to do with
the affair. Even some of those who were deported, along
with the veterans of the Rising, to English prisons had
no previous involvement in violent nationalism. The main
effect of the arrests, therefore, was to alienate
nationalist opinion.
After Easter week all the volunteers not captured went
on the run enduring months of bitter cold, as they
wandered the country in search of sanctuary to escape
police raids. Tomás MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney
were arrested in May and interned in England.
On the direct orders of the cabinet in London,
punishment was swift, secret and brutal. Sir John
Maxwell, the British Commander-in-Chief ordered sixteen
of the Irish leaders to be court-martialed and shot. The
leaders were tried by court martial and shot: only when
they were dead were their sentences announced. The
execution of these men was an attempt to murder of the
Provisional Government of Ireland. Padraig Pearse was
the first to be singled out for execution; he was not
allowed to see his mother or brother before he was
executed on May 3, 1916.
At the same time, details began to emerge of British
atrocities, including the murders of Francis Sheehy
Skeffington and other innocent civilians.
Sheehy-Skeffington’s only role in the Easter Rising was
as a neutral party. A party of British troops arrested
him and took him as hostage on a raid. During this raid,
Francis and two other prisoners witnessed the murder of
an unarmed young boy by a British officer. The next
morning, these three men were taken out into the yard of
Portobello Barracks and executed on the order of the
same British captain. These revelations undermined the
assumption of moral superiority that, for the British
authorities, justified the executions of the leaders of
the Rising. Public opinion began to change and the
leaders were now seen as heroes.
When the last of the prisoners were deported to Britain,
British Authorities decided to move the bulk of Irish
Prisoners to Frongach, an internment camp in North
Wales. The camp was an old distillery, which had already
pressed into use as accommodation of German prisons.
Internees lay on thin dusty grey mattresses infested
with lice which inevitably seen them wake up covered in
the vermin, on this damp, cold rat infested site.
Immediately the volunteers began immediately setting up
structures, which would demonstrate to the world that
they were indeed soldiers. They took their orders from
their own officers, whom they elected to the camp
council. Although they were living in damp rat infested
conditions, the prisoners made the best of the situation
using their internment as a platform from which to
re-organize themselves. Classes were formed on every
subject in everyday life that would be expected of them
under law under the Republic. A former prisoner
reminisced years later “had the British known what was
taking place under their own guard and officials, we
would have been hunted out of the camp. For what they
didn’t relies was men from all over Ireland came
together in the camp, which was invaluable in training
the army of the Republic”.
In 1917 when London at last understood that its methods
were uniting all Ireland against Britain, there was yet
another change of British policy. Many of the 3,000-odd
men arrested after the Rising were released from British
gaols. They returned to Ireland and began immediately to
reorganize a new and more powerful IRA, now with the
backing of the people. As freed detainees reorganized
the Republican forces, nationalist sentiment slowly
began to swing behind the nationalist Sinn Féin party.
By 1917, Sinn Féin had become the vehicle by which most
Rising survivors expressed themselves politically. They
achieving an over whelming victory in the 1918 Election.
Sinn Féin was believed to be involved as it was the
best-known, openly anti-English nationalist body in
Dublin, and they had been hugely involved in the
Anti-conscription campaign swinging public opinion in
their favour. In the course of 1917, the movement was
transformed. First its organization changed: it absorbed
other militant nationalist bodies and its party branches
spread nationwide.
The executions on May 3rd, 1916 marked the beginning of
a change in Irish opinion, much of which had until now
seen the rebels as irresponsible adventurists whose
actions were likely to harm the nationalist cause. A
wave of disgust crossed all Ireland. That wave did not
subside when the British defended their measures in the
Commons. For those men and women who took part in the
events of Easter week it was only the beginning. Before
them lay a path of torture, suffering and pain. Easter
Week was but the foundation laid on the path to freedom.
From the ashes of the Easter Rising 1916 arose a new
national longing to be free. From behind the walls of
British internment camps emerged a band of Irish
soldiers who were willing to do whatever it took to
achieve independence and fight on for as long as that
took.
"They think they have foreseen everything, but the
fools! The fools! The fools! They have left us our
Fenian dead; and while Ireland holds these graves
Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”-Padraig Pearse
Michelle Boyle is a member of Sinn Fein and is based in
west Donegal. |
