HISTORY 265 –
Joshua Arbury – 2522603
Tutorial Time: Thursday
9-10
Second Essay:
"The Easter Rising of April 1916 was indeed
reckless, bloody, sacrificial and unsuccessful". Discuss.
This essay may only be used as a reference and not copied as is, all it takes is for a suspicious tutor to type a sentence of this essay into a search engine and it will come straight to this site, it's not worth the risk. However, I do suggest that you use tracts of this essay if you want - so long as your essay references back to me appropriately. This essay achieved an A+ grade at 2nd year university level.
The 1916 Easter Rising, a rebellion against both the British government in Ireland and the constitutional process towards Home Rule, has been interpreted in many different ways because its legacy was quite different to the actual events that took place. David Fitzpatrick’s claim that “The Easter Rising of April 1916 was indeed reckless, bloody, sacrificial and unsuccessful” appears obvious when one considers the events that took place during the week of the rising. While it is clear that the Rising was reckless, bloody and sacrificial – 450 people were killed including soldiers, civilians and revolutionaries, 2600 people were injured and much of central Dublin was left in ruin – the long-term effects of the Easter Rising were, in many ways, what the rebels had sought to achieve. Although they were crushed by the British Army inside a week, and their leaders were sentenced to death for their role in the uprising, clearly an unsuccessful rebellion in a military sense, the British response led to popular opinion shift towards the rebels. The ‘blood sacrifice’ of the Easter Rising created a sense of martyrdom for what was essentially a radical minority, and shifted the popular opinion in Ireland away from constitutional reform and Home Rule towards a more radical nationalism, culminating in the success of Sinn Fein in the 1918 elections.
The outbreak of war in 1914 led to the implementation of Home Rule in Ireland being postponed. John Redmond and his Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) had been the main proponents of the Home Rule Bill, and had achieved their aims through a constitutional process in the tradition of Isaac Butt and Charles Parnell. However, as the war dragged on throughout 1915 Redmond was becoming less and less popular. His support of the British war effort had divided supporters, and led to the splintering of the Irish Volunteers into two groups, with about 11,000 abandoning Redmond and instead following Eoin MacNeill. This group, who kept their name as ‘the Volunteers’, were infiltrated by the revolutionary Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) because of their military capacity to stage a violent uprising against British rule.
The leaders of the IRB, including Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Mary Punkett, had very violent and idealistic views of a nationalist uprising. They had not been pleased with the Home Rule process, and viewed the concessions made by the British government as “mere crumbs from the rich man’s political table.” It is clear that the IRB “aspired not to an Ireland with a degree of autonomy under the Crown, but to a free, independent republic.” Before the Easter Rising this opinion had a relatively small constituency – even among the Volunteers, who only considered violence as a last resort and saw themselves as a defensive force rather than a revolutionary militia. The IRB saw the First World War as the chance they needed – guided by the ancient Fenian dictum that “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity” – and planned from August 1914 onwards for an insurrection.
In order to decide whether or not the Easter Rising was successful, it needs to be analysed what the IRB and the other insurgents really wished to achieve through such an action. Pearse, who was instrumental in organising the rising and constructing the declaration of the republic, knew it was unlikely that their forces would be unable to defeat the British Army in a military battle. However they it was believed their actions could still contribute to the cause through a ‘blood sacrifice’ that would provoke a shift away from constitutionalism, and direct nationalism down a more radical path. “Republican visionaries hoped that the shock of civil conflict would awaken some latent Gaelic pride, and encourage deluded constitutionalists to fling off their English vestments.” Moreover, Pearse’s personal belief “in the solvent qualities of violence led him to see the ‘blood sacrifice’ of even a possibly hopeless rising as the culmination of earlier revivalist work in education and literature.” It appears as though many of the rebels were quite prepared to have their rebellion mercilessly crushed by the British, as they felt this process would inevitably advance their cause.
Nevertheless, it would be naïve to conclude that all the rebels felt defeat was inevitable from the first stages of planning. American Irish group Clan na Gael had arranged for Sir Roger Casement to travel to Germany, in the hope of securing arms and support for a rebellion in Ireland. Although Casement’s trip was largely ignored by the Germans, 20,000 rifles were dispatched aboard the Aud. However, rebellion’s poor planning is obvious when one considers that when the Aud arrived in Ireland there was nobody to meet it, and the German captain eventually had to scuttle the ship to avoid it falling into the hands of the British Navy. Moreover, even the leader of the Volunteers, Eoin MacNeill, was unaware of the planned rising until just a few days before it was due to take place – on Easter Sunday 1916. Acutely aware of Rising’s inevitable defeat, MacNeill sent out an order cancelling action throughout Ireland. But the IRB was determined for the rising to take place – regardless of what their chances of success were – and Pearse sent out another order countermanding MacNeill’s, which led to further confusion among supporters of the rebellion throughout the rest of Ireland. These problems in the days running up to the rebellion meant that it was clear there was little support from outside Dublin, and that the rebels’ numbers and ammunition would not be nearly enough to force a military victory over the British.
Therefore, by the time the rebellion did take place – a day later than originally planned – on Easter Monday, it was clear that the best the rebels could hope to achieve was a long drawn out battle that would create a sense of martyrdom, rather than an actual military victory. “[James] Connolly had predicted before leaving Liberty Hall that all the men would be slaughtered, and Plunkett, Clark and Pearse, although they believed they could have lasted longer with more troops, implied throughout that there would have been no hope of victory in any case.” This confirms the claim that the rebellion was both reckless and sacrificial, especially if one analyses the military plan that was devised by Joseph Mary Plunkett. The rebels occupied various public buildings, shops and factories rather than key administrative buildings which would have been useful during the Rising, an obvious sign “that military victory was not its primary objective.” Dublin Castle and Trinity College, important strategic sites, were ignored in favour of more public locations such as the GPO on O’Connell St., “a building without notable strategic, administrative, or symbolic importance.” By choosing public sites, the rebels confirmed their intention to promote the insurrection as a ‘blood sacrifice’, while also hoping that the British might refrain from using heavy artillery. Connolly was convinced the British would not bring themselves to destroy so much property – especially as they owned much of it – which would lead to a long battle, just as the rebels wanted. Nevertheless, “by raising the tricolour in the centre of the main shopping area and close to Dublin’s north-side slums, the rebels ensured massive human and material losses once their position was attacked.” Republican strategists wanted to encourage the British to cause maximum bloodshed, to incite anger and resentment against their rule.
In many ways their plan worked perfectly, as there was significant bloodshed and property destruction throughout the next five days. The rebels were disappointed by the lack of support from the rest of Ireland, although the events of the previous week had made this rather inevitable. The confusion of the days before the rising meant that there were only about 1000 armed rebels in the whole of Dublin, and although they initially caught the British Army off-guard, recalls and reinforcements built their strength up to more than 4000 very quickly. The British army treated Dublin as an enemy city, disgusted by attempts to overthrow their rule during a time of war, and aimed to destroy the rebels without regard for loss of civilian life or property. The bloody nature of the Rising can be seen not only in the figures, of 450 dead including 16 executions, 64 rebel losses, 132 crown force losses and 238 civilian, but also in the massive destruction of inner-city Dublin.
After provoking the highly reckless and bloody rising, Pearse finally surrendered unconditionally on the Saturday April 29th. The combatants had performed bravely and recklessly against overwhelming opposition, and had seized positions that were ultimately indefensible. However, the inability of the rebellion to attract widespread support suggests that as well as being sacrificial, the Easter Rising might prove to be highly unsuccessful. At this point, with the commanders of the rising imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail, and any hope of a republic having been thoroughly extinguished by the British, it seemed that the Easter Rising had been a giant failure. As Hoppen explains, “had the Rising ended there and then, the result of action similar to that after the 1848 uprising, then little might have come from the Easter Rising at all.” “Traditional accounts have emphasised a degree of hostility among the Dublin public towards the rebels”, who they initially blamed as responsible for destroying much of the inner city.
Fortunately for the rebels, the severe British response, fuelled by outrage at being ‘stabbed in the back’ while at war in Europe, meant that public sympathy quickly shifted away from the establishment and towards the rebels. “The decision to execute the rebel leaders was politically disastrous from a British government perspective, as it created martyrs for the republican cause and greatly alienated Irish public opinion at home and abroad, especially in America.” Even if the public had not necessarily supported the action taken by the rebels, they resented the British retribution – and began to view the leaders of the rebellion as heroes. This process was greatly assisted by the drawn-out process of coercion conducted by the British army. Martial law was immediately declared after the rebellion, and lasted until November 1916. 3,500 suspected revolutionaries were detained – many without more than suspicion of their activities, and although 1,500 were released almost immediately, others were interned in Britain for up to seven months. The combination of executions, martial law and internment led to increasing resentment from the Irish public directed at the British. Jackson claims “it was the mid-term British response, both in political as well as military terms, that helped to win a popular re-evaluation of the conflict.” In many ways the ferocity of the British government response to the Easter Rising legitimised the rebels’ use of violence in the minds of many people who had previously opposed the rebels’ cause.
As the Irish public began to sympathise more with the rebels than with the British government, they also began to lose faith in the constitutional process as a whole. This had severe repercussions for John Redmond’s IPP, as they began to lose the basis of their support – the mild nationalists, on the grounds that they had little shown little visible progress. They were now caught between supporting the increasingly popular rebels and the agreements which they had with the British government, and as a result lost the support of both. “The Easter Rebels had exposed the limitations and inconsistencies of the IPP’s rhetoric and actions – a party which celebrated the achievements of earlier insurgents, and which daily compromised the ideal of Irish self-government.” Even as the IPP was losing credibility and support from the Irish public, there was no obvious successor to forge a new political path from the shift in public support towards a more radical form of nationalism. All the groups that participated in the Easter Rising could not be represented by a single organisation, while the surviving leaders were not very prominent public figures. It was quite by accident that the radical republican party of Sinn Fein took up the challenge started by the Easter rebels.
Even though Sinn Fein had not been directly involved in the rebellion “the government, the police, the Irish Party (IPP), Unionists, and the press had appropriated its name in order to cast scorn and ridicule upon the rebels.” Ironically, this process backfired upon all these groups as Sinn Fein basked in its undeserved attention and, eventually, support. The national question had been reactivated, one of the main aims of the rebels, and the failure of the IPP in discussions relating to the immediate implementation of Home Rule proved to be the last nail in that party’s political coffin. In their discussions “the parliamentarians offered too much in terms of their political credibility, and yet too little to secure a binding agreement”, which led many people who had previously supported the IPP, to now turn to the more radical political path offered by Sinn Fein. Therefore, the Easter Rising – with the help of IPP incompetence – had been a turning point in the path to independence from Britain, fulfilling many of the rebels’ aims. The threat of conscription in Ireland in early 1918, brought anti-British activists further under the wing of Sinn Fein, as it provided a political path to vent their resentment of British rule. Sinn Fein only had one policy, to boycott the House of Commons and establish a parliament of sorts in Dublin, should they be elected. This simple approach struck a chord with the Irish public, from the mild nationalist frustrated at the slow implementation of Home Rule, to the radical nationalist determined to achieve a republic through any means possible. Sinn Fein’s growing popularity was translated into political power in the December 1918 general election, where they won 73 seats compared to the Unionists’ 26 and the IPP’s mere six. Clearly there had been a significant shift in the previous two years away from support of the constitutional process, and the Irish public was now far less prepared to accept any form of British rule than before the Rising. “The people had therefore voted for more than Home Rule, two and a half years after the Easter Rising they had by no stretch of the imagination voted uncompromisingly for ‘The Republic’ of Pearse’s dreams.”
While at first glance it does appear that the Easter Rising was ‘reckless, bloody, sacrificial and unsuccessful’, the legacy of the Rising means that it can actually be seen as a success – as it achieved many of the aims its leaders had hoped for. There is little doubt that the Rising was reckless and sacrificial, as most of those taking part knew they had little or no chance of actually achieving a military victory – especially after the multitude of blunders made in the days leading up to Easter 1916. The execution of the Rising was conducted in a way to ensure maximum bloodshed, located in the heart of Dublin and resulted in about 450 dead as well as the destruction of much of the inner-city. Therefore, it can certainly be described as bloody – the idea of ‘blood sacrifice’ was seen as incredibly important by the rebels to create martyrs for future movements to revere. Thus it appears that although the Easter Rising was ‘reckless, bloody and sacrificial’. If one is to only concentrate on the military defeat of the rebels the purpose of their insurrection is missed, as they always knew a military victory was unlikely if not impossible. As something is a success if its purpose is achieved, the huge increase in support for Sinn Fein at the 1918 election achieved many of the dreams of the 1916 rebels, by endorsing the idea of a republic and radicalising public opinion on Irish nationalism. Although the Easter Rising ended in defeat in April 1916, by December 1918 it appears to have been victorious.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Coogan, Tim Pat. 1916: The Easter Rising, London, 2001.
Cronin, Mike. A History of Ireland, Basingstoke, 2001.
Douglas, Roy., Liam Harte and Jim O’Hara. Ireland since 1690: A Concise History, Belfast, 1999.
Dudley Edwards, Ruth. Patrick Pearse: the Triumph of Failure, New York, 1977.
Fitzpatrick, David. ‘Militarism in Ireland, 1900-1922’, in Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery (eds.) A Military History of Ireland, Cambridge, 1996. pp. 379-406.
Fitzpatrick, David. The Two Irelands: 1912-1939, Oxford, 1998.
Hoppen, K. Theodore. Ireland since 1800: Conflict and Conformity, Harlow, 1999.
Jackson, Alvin. Ireland 1798-1998: Politics and War, Oxford, 1999.
Ward, Alan. The Easter Rising: Revolution and Irish Nationalism, Arlington Heights, 1980.