European country case study

¶ … Republic of Ireland

The history of the Republic of Ireland is said by many to have begun with the Easter Rising of 1916. And it is true that, at the start of that momentous conflict between Ireland and England, the Irish Republic was declared by the self-proclaimed Provisional government. But a single event such as that was born in the planning, and in this case, it had it true effects in the aftermath. The personalities contributing to it, too, had a major impact on the birth of that nation. So, it might well be argued that the Easter Rising of 1916 got its start in about 1913, and culminated about 1917 or so...or even, to stretch a point, in 1921 when the War of Independence (the Black and Tan War) was over. (Timeline, 1995)

On April 24, 1916, 1,550 members of two Irish paramilitary groups, the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizens' Army, took control of important buildings in the center of Dublin and declared the landmass a republic, (Kennedy, 2000) separate from England and sovereign in its own right.

There had, of course, been Irish groups for more than a century trying to separate Ireland from English domination. In the run-up to the Rising, however, there had been agitation that might be considered part and parcel of it as early as 1911, and as far of as Tipperary. Then, Canon Arthur Ryan, a parish priest, argued that "No man, whether he be Englishman, Frenchman, German or Irishman, is worthy of his country until he is ready to be an extremist in her cause and ready to die for her at her call. (McGee, 2001)

In 1914, there was what some have said was the last truly grand Manchester-martyr demonstration in Dublin. Groups which would later play a role in the Easter Rising all marched, including the Ancient Order of Hibernians (American Alliance), Cumann na mBan (a woman's auxiliary), the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Transport Worker's Union. By the time of that march, Pearse and others had already begun planning a rising in Dublin for the relatively near future, perhaps all the more so as Dublin Castle, the seat of British domination in Ireland, had banned that Dublin march.

Padraig Pearse was one of a small handful of unusual men -- and one woman -- who can be credited in large part with the birth of the Republic of Ireland. Padraig Pearse, a leader of the Easter Rising, had, in fact, witnessed Ireland in what are known as the Manchester-martyr demonstrations in Dublin. Once held each year, the demonstrations commemorated the killing by the British of Irish who demonstrated in '867 for Irish independence. It is possible Pearse was using 1916, approximately the 5 oth anniversary of that event, to make another stab at getting free of England once and for all. (McGee, 2001)

At the time of the Manchester martyrs, a song, "God Save Ireland," was penned; it was still being sun after the Rising.

Pearse, like others before him, also knew that there would be a blood sacrifice to free Ireland from England's rule. He remarked that "the blood which was being shed in Ireland's cause... would bear fruit in the future."

Naturally, an armed uprising would need guns. Sir Roger Casement, born in Ireland but a career bureaucrat for the British, was nonetheless an Irish patriot whose mission for the Rising was to go to Germany and bring back boatloads of guns. For this, he was executed by the British. (Cotter, 2004)

Despite having some weapons, the rising itself was a disaster. Even the population of Dublin was against the rebellion; the city center was destroyed with artillery shells. As well, thousands of young Irish men had enlisted in the British army and were fighting for Britain in World War I.

The British had most of the ordinary Irish on their side. But then they made the blunder that cost them, eventually, the land that would become the Republic of Ireland. Between the third and tenth of May 1916, they executed the rebel leaders including Pearse, Casement and James Connolly, who ha been wounded and had to be tied to a chair to be shot. (Neville, 2001)