A modern Irish Republican representation of the Rising - A wall mural in Belfast.
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A modern Irish Republican representation of the Rising - A wall mural in Belfast. |
The
Easter Rising was a rebellion staged
in Ireland against British rule on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916. Despite its
military failure, it can be judged as being a significant stepping-stone in the
eventual creation of the Irish Republic. The rising was the most significant
since the rebellion of 1798. It was an attempt by militant republicans to
violently force independence from the United Kingdom. The Irish Republican
revolutionary attempt occurred from April 24 to April 30, 1916, in which the
Irish Republican Brotherhood led by school teacher and barrister Pádraig Pearse,
joined by a part of the Irish Volunteers and the smaller Irish Citizen Army of
James Connolly, seized key locations in Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic
independent of Britain. The Rising was suppressed and its leaders executed.
The event is seen as a key turning-point on the road to Irish independence, as
it marked a split between physical-force republicanism and mainstream
non-violent nationalism represented by the Irish Parliamentary Party. Surviving
officers of the rising (including Eamon de Valera, Cathal Brugha, and Michael
Collins - see below) went on to organise the Irish War of Independence from 1919-1921 which
resulted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and independence for 26 of Ireland's
32 counties. The executed leaders of the Easter Rising are venerated in the
Irish Republican tradition as martyrs and as founders of the Irish Republic.
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Critics of the Rising have pointed to the fact that the Rising is generally seen as having been doomed to military defeat from the outset, and to have been understood as such by at least some of its leaders. Such critics have therefore seen in it elements of a "blood sacrifice" in line with some of the romantically-inclined Pearse's writings. Though the violent precursor to Irish statehood, it did nothing to reassure Irish unionists nor alleviate the demand to partition Ulster. Others, however, point out that the Rising had not originally been planned with failure in mind, and that the outcome in military terms might have been very different if the weapons from the "Aud" had arrived safely and if MacNeill's countermanding order had not been issued. |
Nationalist views of the Rising have stressed the role of the Rising in stimulating latent sentiment towards Irish independence. On this view the momentous events of 1918-22 are directly attributable to the revitalisation of the nationalist consciousness as a result of the Rising and its immediate aftermath.
The theory has also been mooted that the Rising would have given the Irish Republic a role in a peace conference following an anticipated German victory in the First World War. |
Historians generally date Irish independence (for the 26 counties) from 1 April 1922 (transfer of executive power under the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed between Irish delegates and the British government after the Anglo-Irish War, forming the Irish Free State) and 6 December 1922 (transfer of legislative power) rather than from the 1916 Rising. The Irish Free State existed until 1937 when Bunreacht na hÉireann (the Irish constitution) was introduced, renaming the country "Ireland". At this stage Ireland was a Republic in everything but name. In 1949 the Oireachtas (national parliament) declared Ireland to be a Republic.
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credits:
1. The text was extracted from Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia under GNU Free Documentation Licence.