Today is Easter Sunday 2016, and it marks the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising in Ireland.
This is something I knew nothing about until I started searching for Easter poetry, and I came across a very important rebellion that took place in Ireland in 1916. The event gave rise to a great surge in mixed sympathies and emotions, and a subsequent out pouring of Poetry, the most famous of which was written by WB Yeats, entitled Easter 1916.
Reading about this rebellion has given me new insight into the history of the struggles between Northern and Southern Ireland, and the United Kingdom. When I was at school, I was too young to grasp the gestalt of the IRA bombings and the Sinn Fen demonstrations. We were not taught the political history of Ireland, and the media seemed to emphasize the issue as essentially a struggle between Protestants and Catholics. The Rising can be seen as a foundational event that explains the struggle of the Irish people who wanted independence from the United Kingdom, which, despite a century forward, has not entirely actualized.
The Irish had staged rebellions against British rule for centuries without ever achieving the aim of independence. At the start of the 20th century, that looked like it was about to change as the British Government was considering Home Rule. However, negotiations fell through at the outbreak of WW1, leaving politically unfinished business.
200,000 Irishmen went to fight for Britain in the First World War, and the Irish began to question why they shouldn’t be fighting for Ireland instead. England was fighting to protect small nations such as Belgium, and nationalists pointed out that Ireland was also a small nation that had been occupied by the British for centuries. Nationalists felt that Ireland too should be free.
On Easter Monday, April 24th 1916, a group of Irish nationalists proclaimed the formation of the Irish Republic, along with 1600 followers. They staged a rebellion, seizing prominent buildings in Dublin, with little resistance.
The general post office became the main headquarters of the rebellion, with five of the seven members of the Military Council/Provisional Government of the Irish Republic serving there.
The proclamation called for the Irish abroad to rally to the cause especially the “Exiled children in America.”
It was the only proclamation of its era that mentions women’s equality, beginning “Irishmen and Irishwomen.”
The British authorities only had 400 troops to about 1,000 Irish rebels when the rising began. Yet, within a week, reinforcements arrived, and the rebellion was put down.
Many of the rebels were executed, despite a laying down of arms by the rebels to protect the Dublin citizens.
The Gaelic tradition is steeped in poetry and evocative stories, and it is not surprising that the rebel, and the dispossessed found expression in poetry and song for their dreams of freedom and independent rule. On that fateful Easter Monday morning in 1916, there were three young poets who stepped out to protest their country’s independence. Padriac Pearse, Thomas Macdonagh and Joseph Plunkett were amongst those poets who wrote of freedom for Ireland.
Pears’s poem, The Rebel includes a passionate declaration of his repressed heritage
I am come of the seed of the people,
The people that sorrow,
That have no treasure but hope,
No riches laid up but a memory.
Of an Ancient glory.
The rebellion produced mixed emotions amongst the Irish people at the time, but once the British began executing the rebels as “traitors” and not even giving them a proper burial, the tone changed. The British were seen as cruel, brutal and punishing, and it fueled the nationalist cause.
Songs were sung for those who laid down their lives, recruitment to the British Armed Forces dropped, and Irish nationalism as a whole was rejuvenated.
Women played a key role in the Rising, with over 200 members of the women’s auxiliary branch of the Irish Volunteers, fighting for Irish independence
Some wonderful poetry has emerged from the Easter Rising, from participants and onlookers.
While in Kilmainham Gaol, Pearse wrote his final poem as a farewell to life while awaiting his own execution:
The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red ladybird upon a stalk …
‘The Foggy Dew’, by Canon Charles O’Neill
Is one of my favorite poems, with a haunting Irish tune, yet I really knew little of the history until I realized it today.
As down the glen one Easter morn to a
city fair rode I
There armed lines of marching men in
squadrons passed me by
No fife did hum nor battle drum did
sound its dread tattoo
But the Angelus bell o’er the Liffey swell
rang out through the foggy dew
Right proudly high over Dublin town
they hung out the f lag of war
’Twas better to die ’neath an Irish sky
than at Suvla or Sedd El Bahr
And from the plains of Royal Meath
strong men came hurrying through
While Britannia’s Huns, with their
long-range guns sailed in through the
foggy dew
’Twas Britannia bade our Wild Geese go
that small nations might be free
But their lonely graves are by Suvla’s
waves or the shore of the Great North Sea
Oh, had they died by Pearse’s side or
fought with Cathal Brugha
Their names we will keep where the
Fenians sleep ’neath the shroud of the
foggy dew
But the bravest fell, and the requiem bell
rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide in
the springing of the year
And the world did gaze, in deep amaze,
at those fearless men, but few
Who bore the fight that freedom’s light
might shine through the foggy dew
Ah, back through the glen I rode again
and my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valiant men
whom I never shall see more
But to and fro in my dreams I go and
I’d kneel and pray for you,
For slavery f led, O glorious dead,
When you fell in the foggy dew
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is something I knew nothing about until I started searching for Easter poetry, and I came across a very important rebellion that took place in Ireland in 1916. The event gave rise to a great surge in mixed sympathies and emotions, and a subsequent out pouring of Poetry, the most famous of which was written by WB Yeats, entitled Easter 1916.
Reading about this rebellion has given me new insight into the history of the struggles between Northern and Southern Ireland, and the United Kingdom. When I was at school, I was too young to grasp the gestalt of the IRA bombings and the Sinn Fen demonstrations. We were not taught the political history of Ireland, and the media seemed to emphasize the issue as essentially a struggle between Protestants and Catholics. The Rising can be seen as a foundational event that explains the struggle of the Irish people who wanted independence from the United Kingdom, which, despite a century forward, has not entirely actualized.
The Irish had staged rebellions against British rule for centuries without ever achieving the aim of independence. At the start of the 20th century, that looked like it was about to change as the British Government was considering Home Rule. However, negotiations fell through at the outbreak of WW1, leaving politically unfinished business.
200,000 Irishmen went to fight for Britain in the First World War, and the Irish began to question why they shouldn’t be fighting for Ireland instead. England was fighting to protect small nations such as Belgium, and nationalists pointed out that Ireland was also a small nation that had been occupied by the British for centuries. Nationalists felt that Ireland too should be free.
On Easter Monday, April 24th 1916, a group of Irish nationalists proclaimed the formation of the Irish Republic, along with 1600 followers. They staged a rebellion, seizing prominent buildings in Dublin, with little resistance.
The general post office became the main headquarters of the rebellion, with five of the seven members of the Military Council/Provisional Government of the Irish Republic serving there.
The proclamation called for the Irish abroad to rally to the cause especially the “Exiled children in America.”
It was the only proclamation of its era that mentions women’s equality, beginning “Irishmen and Irishwomen.”
The British authorities only had 400 troops to about 1,000 Irish rebels when the rising began. Yet, within a week, reinforcements arrived, and the rebellion was put down.
Many of the rebels were executed, despite a laying down of arms by the rebels to protect the Dublin citizens.
The Gaelic tradition is steeped in poetry and evocative stories, and it is not surprising that the rebel, and the dispossessed found expression in poetry and song for their dreams of freedom and independent rule. On that fateful Easter Monday morning in 1916, there were three young poets who stepped out to protest their country’s independence. Padriac Pearse, Thomas Macdonagh and Joseph Plunkett were amongst those poets who wrote of freedom for Ireland.
Pears’s poem, The Rebel includes a passionate declaration of his repressed heritage
I am come of the seed of the people,
The people that sorrow,
That have no treasure but hope,
No riches laid up but a memory.
Of an Ancient glory.
The rebellion produced mixed emotions amongst the Irish people at the time, but once the British began executing the rebels as “traitors” and not even giving them a proper burial, the tone changed. The British were seen as cruel, brutal and punishing, and it fueled the nationalist cause.
Songs were sung for those who laid down their lives, recruitment to the British Armed Forces dropped, and Irish nationalism as a whole was rejuvenated.
Women played a key role in the Rising, with over 200 members of the women’s auxiliary branch of the Irish Volunteers, fighting for Irish independence
Some wonderful poetry has emerged from the Easter Rising, from participants and onlookers.
While in Kilmainham Gaol, Pearse wrote his final poem as a farewell to life while awaiting his own execution:
The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red ladybird upon a stalk …
‘The Foggy Dew’, by Canon Charles O’Neill
Is one of my favorite poems, with a haunting Irish tune, yet I really knew little of the history until I realized it today.
As down the glen one Easter morn to a
city fair rode I
There armed lines of marching men in
squadrons passed me by
No fife did hum nor battle drum did
sound its dread tattoo
But the Angelus bell o’er the Liffey swell
rang out through the foggy dew
Right proudly high over Dublin town
they hung out the f lag of war
’Twas better to die ’neath an Irish sky
than at Suvla or Sedd El Bahr
And from the plains of Royal Meath
strong men came hurrying through
While Britannia’s Huns, with their
long-range guns sailed in through the
foggy dew
’Twas Britannia bade our Wild Geese go
that small nations might be free
But their lonely graves are by Suvla’s
waves or the shore of the Great North Sea
Oh, had they died by Pearse’s side or
fought with Cathal Brugha
Their names we will keep where the
Fenians sleep ’neath the shroud of the
foggy dew
But the bravest fell, and the requiem bell
rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide in
the springing of the year
And the world did gaze, in deep amaze,
at those fearless men, but few
Who bore the fight that freedom’s light
might shine through the foggy dew
Ah, back through the glen I rode again
and my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valiant men
whom I never shall see more
But to and fro in my dreams I go and
I’d kneel and pray for you,
For slavery f led, O glorious dead,
When you fell in the foggy dew
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Wayfarer, by Patrick Henry Pearse
The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk,
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun,
Or some green hill where shadows drifted by
Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown
And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;
Or children with bare feet upon the sands
Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets
Of little towns in Connacht,
Things young and happy.
And then my heart hath told me:
These will pass,
Will pass and change, will die and be no more,
Things bright and green, things young and happy;
And I have gone upon my way
Sorrowful.
Patrick Henry Pearse
To the poets and rebels of 1916, the future of Ireland was closely linked to the next generation of Irish men and women, who would keep the revolutionary ideals alive. In his poem, Wishes for my son, born on St Cecilia’s Day, Thomas MacDonagh expresses his own hopes for his son’s future.
'Wishes For My Son, Born On St Cecilia's Day, 1912'
Thomas MacDonagh
Now, my son, is life for you,
And I wish you joy of it,-
Joy of power in all you do,
Deeper passion, better wit
Than I had who had enough,
Quicker life and length thereof,
More of every gift but love.
Love I have beyond all men,
Love that now you share with me-
What have I to wish you then
But that you be good and free,
And that God to you may give
Grace in stronger days to live?
For I wish you more than I
Ever knew of glorious deed,
Though no rapture passed me by
That an eager heart could heed,
Though I followed heights and sought
Things the sequel never brought.
Wild and perilous holy things
Flaming with a martyr's blood,
And the joy that laughs and sings
Where a foe must be withstood,
Joy of headlong happy chance
Leading on the battle dance.
But I found no enemy,
No man in a world of wrong,
That Christ's word of charity
Did not render clean and strong-
Who was I to judge my kind,
Blindest groper of the blind?
God to you may give the sight
And the clear, undoubting strength
Wars to knit for single right,
Freedom's war to knit at length,
And to win through wrath and strife,
To the sequel of my life.
But for you, so small and young,
Born on Saint Cecilia's Day,
I in more harmonious song
Now for nearer joys should pray-
Simpler joys: the natural growth
Of your childhood and your youth,
Courage, innocence, and truth:
These for you, so small and young,
In your hand and heart and tongue.
After the 1916 Rising, W. B. Yeats was shaken by the events in Dublin as the city was left in ruins.
Yeats wrote his poem 'Easter 1916' during the months after the rebellion, while he was working through his feelings about the revolutionary movement, and even as he realized that the execution of the leaders of the Easter Rising by the British had the opposite effect to the warnings intended.
The brutal killings by the British led to a revitalization of the Irish Republican movement rather than its' dissolution.. The refrain "a terrible beauty is born" is a lament throughout the poem, where Yeats expresses that "All is changed, changed utterly’, and Ireland will never be the same again.
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Yeats wrote his poem 'Easter 1916' during the months after the rebellion, while he was working through his feelings about the revolutionary movement, and even as he realized that the execution of the leaders of the Easter Rising by the British had the opposite effect to the warnings intended.
The brutal killings by the British led to a revitalization of the Irish Republican movement rather than its' dissolution.. The refrain "a terrible beauty is born" is a lament throughout the poem, where Yeats expresses that "All is changed, changed utterly’, and Ireland will never be the same again.
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
For centuries, England has treated Ireland with imperialist dismissal. Today, most Brits, including myself, are completely oblivious to the pain our country inflicted over the years. That needs to change. We owe Ireland an apology. Maybe, as we commemorate the centennial of the Easter Rising we should remember the revolutionaries and continue to dream; dream of peaceful resolution to so many of our world’s conflicts.
“For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;”
- WB Yeats, Easter 1916
May this Easter bring you love for your country and your fellow man.
“For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;”
- WB Yeats, Easter 1916
May this Easter bring you love for your country and your fellow man.
All photos were taken by me today, EASTER SUNDAY, at the Dallas Arboretum
I have chosen the colors of Green for Ireland, White for Freedom, and Red for Blood spilled.
This comes with my wish that peaceful solutions may always pave the way for social change..
Womensvoice1.
references:
http://www.irishtimes.com/
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/1916
https://en.wikipedia.org
I have chosen the colors of Green for Ireland, White for Freedom, and Red for Blood spilled.
This comes with my wish that peaceful solutions may always pave the way for social change..
Womensvoice1.
references:
http://www.irishtimes.com/
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/1916
https://en.wikipedia.org
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