The 1916 Rising Was Not A Blood Sacrifice or Terrorism

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Tuesday March 25, 2008 10:21

by Jim

Revisionists of all shades need to be refuted.

Two intellectually lazy revisionist views have gained ground in the popular Irish historical mythology in relation to the Easter Rising.

1) That the Easter Rising was a a deliberate romantic blood sacrifice by rebels who knew in advance that they would fail.

2) That the Easter Rising was a terrorist act.

The truth is that Easter Rising was very nearly a successful overthrow of British Rule.

Eoin McNeill would certainly not have ordered the cancellation of the Rising had Roger Casement and the Aud slipped through with thousands of modern bolt action 7.92mm K98 Mauser rifles (effectively the AK-47 of the period of the Great War and used by elite German soldiers until the end of World War 2) and not to mention a consignment of Maxim machine guns.

The strategy and tactics and the overall plan to seize the capital was sound if enough men had actually turned out.

Even though Pearse, Connally et al knew that McNeill cancellation order removed a substantial number of men they had good reasons to assume that more men than the number who actually turned out for the rebellion would be available.

Besides once the rebellion kicked off it was not unreasonable to assume their ranks would be swelled by volunteers who had a change of mind - McNeill and co might well have been tempted to issue a new order to support the rebellion.

The standard version of history spoon fed to school kids is that the rebels were incompetant, seizing public buildings as strong points and isolating themselves to be defeated in detail once the British Army cordon was established.

In fact the majority of British casualties were inflicted on the Northumblerland Rd approach to Mount Street over the Grand Canal. Sherwood Forrestors had been landed at Kingstown and were marching on the city centre when they ran into an ambush crossfire by a party of seventeen volunteers who held Clanwilliam house and other buildings. The area was carpeted with dead and wounded British troops before the volunteers were eventually overrun, captured, wounded and killed.
British forces eventually closed the cordon roughly around the Royal and Grand Canals before crossing in forays into the city centre cutting off the key rebel held buildings and eventually forcing a surrender.
Had more volunteers turned up theoretically every bridge on the canals could have been contested as fiercely as Mount Street Bridge effectively preventing British troops from retaking the city centre.
British forces in Trinity College and Dublin Castle who held out against rebel attacks could have been force to surrender had this happened.
If more men had been available it is likely that the British attack from the direction of the Royal barracks (present day Collins Barracks) up the keys to relieve Dublin Castle could have been repelled.
With the bridges inaccessible the fighting at the South Dublin Union which attempted hold back British forces advancing from the West might not have succeeded instead of being outflanked.
Had the Aud got its cargo ashore the rifles could have been used for Risings in Cork and Limerick, a march on Dublin to relieve the garrisons or to continue guerilla attacks against the RIC and British forces to divide Crown forces.
Dublin Castle was initially defended by a handful of Crown forces who were no match for the rebels who could have easily taken it had they better intelligence.

The rebels therefore went out not on a suicide mission but reasonably expecting a good chance of success.

The idea that the rebellion was a terrorist attack on democracy is easily refuted.

The majority of Irish people voted for the Irish Parliamentary Party which had tried and failed to get Home Rule.
That fact that the majority of Irish people switched their vote to Sinn Fein in 1918 makes the rebellion legitimate.

It is true that some rebels did indeed shoot civilians dead - particularly the rebels who were sent on a mission to attack the magazine fort in the Phoenix Park who pursued an shot a young boy, the shooting of poverty striken slum dwellers who looted shops on O' Connell street in a misguided attempt to restore order and the shooting of harmless unarmed constables by overenthusiastic rebels.

However the majority of the rebels wore uniforms and behaved as a disciplined army rather than a rabble.

Indeed a British officer commended the rebels on fighting a fair fight and admired them for their esprit de corps.

Every Irish person should be unashamed to celebrate the bravery of the heroes of 1916 who stood up to arogant British imperialism and won Ireland's freedom.

The claim that the Rising was a stab in the back to Irishmen fighting in the trenches is unfair.

Stopping Germany from conquering Europe was a noble fight too.
But the fight for Irish freedom was also justified.

Irish rebels sourced their weapons from Germany, but they knew that if Germany won they might have to fight German occupation troops in Ireland just as they fought British troops.

Rebellion however was a risk worth taking.

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Comments (3 of 3)

need no persuation

by lyncher - eire

Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:56

the best part of the population does not need to be persuaded that the brave irish men who faught in the rising were anything other than great irish heroes they are and always be remebered fort heir bravery and sowing the seed for irish freedom and in time the northern republicans and the volounteers of the 50s onwards will be celebratedi n the same light and so will the next group of bravei rish men who will not tolerate brittish rule in the north and the giveawy of our natural resources by gangsters in dail eireann . tiochfiad ar la................are day willl come...... a glorious day... for irelands fighting son......the day will come....we will be free .......tiochfiad ar la..... the dawn of liberty.....

good points in article

by Barry - 32 csm

Tue Apr 01, 2008 20:30

The notion that so many people on both sides of the atlantic , including the Military staff of Imperial Germany , were prepared to go to such lengths to indulge a poets supposed death wish/blood sacrifice is , of course , absolutely preposterous and illogical . Lets not forget the standard myth has Padraig Pearse dreamily setting out to sacrifice himself , with the hard headed connolly somehow taking a fit of head staggers and somehow unexplainedly finding himself in the GPO . The reality is it was Pearse who had to step in and prevent Connolly from launching an insurrection with only 200 men and no arms shipments , no Clann support or offers of further assitance from Imperial Germany . He took Connolly into his confidence by convincing him that chances of success were a lot better under the IRB Military councils structures with the arrangements they had for an insurgency . Success was the goal , not glorious defeat .
1916 was no more an intentional blood sacrifice than Emmets failed uprising or the Viet Congs Tet offensive . As per usual the historical narrative has just been dumbed down in order to avoid addressing the pertinent issues which the 1916 leaders set out to address .

A popular uprising was unlikely

by Phil

Tue Apr 07, 2009 20:42

your analysis of the military possibilities are interesting and credible. The full force of the Irish Volunteers would have offered a significant challenge to British forces especially given the pressure under which they operated in 1916 elsewhere in Europe.

However, this assumes that the entire Volunteer force could be mobilised. MacNeill created the Volunteers as a defence force to bolster the implementation of Home Rule. He didnt support and offensive or Separatist agenda and knew that the maneouvres on Easter Monday were planned as a sepatarist attack. So, he was likely to come to the same conclusion whether Casement had successfully landed arms or not. Had the arms been landed on Good Friday, there would have been great logistical difficulties in ensuring their delivery to Dublin, Cork, Limerick to support a greater Volunteer attack in any case.

Given all that knowledge, Pearse decided to push ahead, knowing that only defeat awaited him. Connolly was keen to launch an attack much in the style of the yet to occur, Russian revolution, in the hopes that the proletariat would rush to his aid. The events of 1916 showed that whether MacNeill had supported the Rising or not, there was no popular rising up amongst the population and most were indifferent or hostile through the week. Lenin at the time understood that the Rising had taken place too soon and too much in isolation from similar pending revolutions across Europe.

It was only months later that popular opinion began to change through British mismanagement of the aftermath rather than calculated Irish leadership. The Volunteers became less important as the popular support the Rising leaders had hoped for, finally emerged. Influence moved to the IRB and ironically to Sinn Fein who was largely a spent force before April 1916. Sinn Fein capitalised well on the changing mood and became the dominant Irish party two years later.

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The 1916 Rising Was Not A Blood Sacrifice or Terrorism

Comments (3 of 3)