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The Easter Rising; Memories from 1996 - 2: Consequences
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Leaders Of The Rising Who Were Executed |
They had lasted nearly a week – when their own best estimates had been for under a day. The longer they were in control of key places, the more grudging sympathy they began to receive. When they were being marched away: beaten and dischevelled but clearly not downhearted, they attracted admiration for their dignified bearing. Even so, rotten fruit and the contents of chamber pots were dropped on them from high tenements in areas where many husbands and fathers were away in France fighting for the British cause. A seed had been sown. It would need help to grow and would get it from an unexpected source. |
Just before the Rising, the British had intercepted the Aud – the steamer with the guns and ammunition from Germany - and arrested Sir Roger Casement shortly after he came ashore from the accompanying submarine. Some of the rebel leaders thought there was now little point going ahead with a rebellion that was doomed to fail. (And British intelligence also thought there was little danger of one now.) Pearse, on the other hand, sought to ensure that it went ahead and that it failed. For his plan for Irish liberation to work, he had to become a martyr.
His plan nearly failed. The British government had recommended lenient sentences for the ringleaders, but they wouldn’t overrule the man on the spot – and General Maxwell, whom they had sent to Dublin to sort things out speedily, carried out his orders to the letter. The Germans were probably behind it. Weren't the smuggled German guns and a mention of 'gallant allies in Europe' in the rebels' Proclamation sufficient proof of that? Courts Martial would be carried out with the utmost speed. The sentences must act as a deterrent, but the most severe sentences would be used only for "the organizers of this detestable Rising and on the Commanders who took an actual part in the fighting which occurred"*.
On the 3rd May the first executions took place (Pearse, McDonagh and Clarke - genuine ringleaders who accepted their role as martyrs). Four more happened the next day, but these included lesser players such as Willie Pearse, Patrick's younger brother, a footsoldier. There was one execution on the 5th, then all of the sentences on the 6th were commuted to prison terms. Surely the executions had come to an end?
*Maxwell quoted in 'Dublin Castle And The 1916 Rising', by Leon Ó Broin
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Inside Kilmainham Gaol |
There were four more on the 8th and these were mainly commanders of buildings, brave men who had fought well, but were by no means 'organizers'. They were ready-made heroes. The popular mood was changing day by day, unfortunately Asquith was at his least decisive: "Asquith, the prime minister, was himself uneasy but not uneasy enough". (Robert Kee in The Green Flag: Ourselves Alone). Despite mounting dismay and disapproval on both sides of the Irish Sea and in the USA, the executions (15 in total) dribbled on until the 12th May (with Sir Roger Casement being hanged in August after a show trial on the mainland). With some Unionists crying out for even tougher measures, Maxwell probably felt that he had shown the leniency demanded of him. Indeed a much larger number of death sentences were commuted (over 90) than were carried out. If the rebellion had taken place in a far-off country, General Maxwell would have been praised for bringing it to a speedy end in a balanced and judicious way. But it was in Ireland, a complex country close at hand, but little understood in the British mainland, so Maxwell became symbolic of that ignorance and resistance to change. He was what Pearse and Connolly needed for their seed to grow. |
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Kilmainham Gaol, where the executions took place, left the deepest impression of all. The rebel leaders had fought with honour and surrendered nobly, but they were held in solitary confinement in a block of dank Napoleonic-era stone cells that chilled the blood. When I stumbled out into the yard the same way the prisoners travelled on their last journeys, I gasped when I arrived blinking into the sun and saw the stake marking the spot of execution. Even worse was to see the stake at the other end of the yard, close to the door, where they dragged out the wounded Connolly and shot him, tied to a chair, in the last execution. |
Where Connolly Was Executed, Tied To a Chair |
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When we saw these sights, arguments began. “It was an act of treason and the penalty for treason in wartime is death,” announced the ex-Army Sergeant in our party, "They had stabbed the British in the back. They knew the rules". "And what better time to choose," retorted Brian, "the British were never going to give more than the most minor of concessions without the use of force. But the executions changed everything. It was only a matter of time before the War of Independence in 1919-21. Remember the WB Yeats poem about the Rising "All
changed, changed utterly: |
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We were settling into a full-scale slanging-match when the retired engineer chipped in: “Actually my best moment was when the Irish mechanics at the Curragh asked me if I could fix the engine of the Slibh na mban, the famous Rolls Royce Armoured Car that Michael Collins, veteran of the GPO occupation and hero of the War of Independence, was travelling in when he was ambushed by extremists in 1922.” There was a certain satisfying irony in that, in working together to respect the past. |
Antique Armoured Car Engines A Speciality |
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