WHY IS 1916 AN IMPORTANT DATE IN IRISH HISTORY?

Easter Monday, 1916

For hundreds of years the Irish people had suffered greatly under English rule. There had been many unsuccessful attempts to defeat the English. 

On Easter Monday 1916, a few hundred men and woman took over key buildings in Dublin City. A proclamation was read outside the General Post Office in O’Connell Street, declaring Ireland’s right to freedom. 

It was like a Greek tragedy. The leaders were mostly poets, thinkers, men of culture. They hoped for a miracle but they must have known before they marched out that they couldn’t win. Padraig Pearse, one of the leaders, forecast his own death in his poem A Vision. He drew his strength to go on partly from a religious belief in the power of blood sacrifice such as that of Jesus Christ on Calvary. Events proved him right. 

More information: Easter 1916

The majority of the people in 1916 were no longer oppressed. They didn’t want the trauma of a war. They knew that Home Rule, regional Government such as Wales and Scotland have, was a certainly as soon as the First World War was over. Farmers had won the right to own their land, there was religious freedom and the Irish language and culture were experiencing a tremendous revival. 

At first the Easter Rising, as it is now called, was as unsuccessful as all previous risings. Within a week the leaders had surrendered and it all seemed to be over. Then the executions began. As fifteen leaders were executed in ones and twos at intervals of days, the people grew shocked and angry. Nationalist feeling was awakened where it had been dormant. There was no looking back until Independence was achieved in 1921.

 Source: Why do the Irish? by Fiana Griffin

I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow;
Who have no treasure but hope,
No riches laid up but a memory of an ancient glory,
My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born,
I am of the blood of serfs;
The children with whom I have played, 

the men and women with whom I have eaten
Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters,
and though gentle, have served churls.

Padraig Pearse