This Month in Irish History
April 15, 1848
Introduction of the Tricolor:
Thomas Francis Meagher, lawyer, orator and member of the Young Ireland Movement, introduced the Tricolor flag in public for the first time at a meeting of the Young Ireland movement on this day. Drawing inspiration from the tricolor of the French Revolution of 1789, Meagher designed a flag of Orange, White and Green. The Orange represented the Protestant tradition, the Green the Catholic tradition and the White represented a truce between the Orange and the Green. Interestingly enough, Meagher's Tricolor had the Orange closest to the staff, which is the opposite of today's tricolor.
While Meagher moved on to bigger and better things like getting deported to Australia for his involvement in the Young Irealnd Rebellion, escaping to the United States of America, becoming a General in the Union Army during the Civil War and eventually Governor of Montana, the Tricolor faded into obscurity. A solid Green flag with a Gold Harp emblazoned with "Erin Go Bragh" replaced the Tricolor as the symbol for Irish Nationalists for almost seventy years. It was only in April 1916 during the Easter Rising that the Tricolor reemerged as the Flag of the Irish Volunteers, but this time with the Green portion near the staff. The Tricolor would eventually become the flag of the Republic of Ireland, which is what flies over the Government Buildings in Dublin.
April 24-29, 1916:
The Easter Rising
90 years ago, on Easter Monday, Padraig H. Pearse walked out into the steps of the General Post Office (GPO) on Sackville (Now O’Connell Street) in Dublin and read aloud a stirring proclamation of Phoblacht na hEireann, an independent and sovereign Irish Republic. Pearse, along with his brother Willie and members of the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Citizen Army (led by James Connolly), seized several sites in Dublin, including the GPO, in the hopes of precipitating a nationwide uprising.
The Rising did not spread to other parts of the country. Prior to Easter, Roger Casement had sailed from Germany on the Aud with 50,000 rifles for the Irish Volunteers to use in the contemplated uprising. Unfortunately, when Casement arrived on Banna Strand in County Kerry, the people who were supposed to meet him to unload the rifles never arrived. Casement waited for three days to no avail. He was subsequently captured. Because of Casement’s capture, the crew scuttled the Aud, sending 50,000 rifles to the bottom of the Atlantic as opposed to in the hands of Irish men willing to fight for their freedom.
While a nationwide rising had been planned for Easter Week, the brigades of the Irish Volunteers throughout the countryside had their orders countermanded. Debate still rages as to whether Pearse and the men in Dublin did not receive the countermand order or refused to obey it. Pearse advocated a “blood sacrifice� to the cause of a free Ireland. There is an argument to be made that Pearse and his followers decided to start the Rising if only to create further unrest in Ireland to bring about a nationwide revolution.
Pearse and the men at the GPO did not capture the hearts and minds of their countrymen. While the British were initially caught off-guard by the Rising, they were quickly able to gain control of Dublin and lay siege to the GPO. Pearse and his men surrendered on Saturday the 29th.
If the British had sent Pearse and his comrades away to prison or Australia for a long time, the Rising would have been considered a failure. It would have been another in the long string of Irish attempts at rebellion. The years 1603,1649, 1798, 1803,1848, 1867 all held failed risings and dashed hopes for freedom for the people of Ireland. But the British, in their characteristic brilliance, decided to execute the leaders of the Easter Rising, making martyrs of them in the process. Padraig Pearse, William Pearse, Thomas Clarke, Eamon Ceannt, Joseph Plunkett, and Thomas MacDonagh, among others, were all executed in the Stonebreaker’s Yard at Kilmainham Jail. The British tied James Connolly, who was very badly wounded during the Rising, to a chair and shot him. Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins, who were both captured at the GPO, were spared.
The way the British handled the aftermath of the Rising created outrage and sympathy for the Leaders of the Rising. The events of 1916 lead to the Irish War of Independence lasting from 1918-1921. The events of Easter Week 1916 still reverberate through modern day Ireland. It also inspired the poem “Easter 1916� by W.B. Yeats: “All is changed, changed utterly/A terrible beauty is born.� You can still go to the GPO on O’Connell Street and see the bullet holes in the columns.
Birth of Famous Authors:
April 13, 1906: Samuel Beckett
April 16, 1871: John Millington Synge
John Millington Synge was a playwright most famous for "The Playboy of the Western World." He was also instrumental in the creation of the Abbey Theater and the revival of the theater in Ireland. Synge is revered today as one of the great playwrights of the English lanuage.
Samuel Beckett was James Joyce's personal secretary. He also wrote a bit in his spare time. He wrote "Waiting for Godot" and "Krapp's Last Tape" and like Synge, is revered as one of the great writers of the English language of the 20th Century.
It was highly ironic that while the English did their best to suppress the Irish language in the 19th century that the Irish used the language imposed upon them by force to surpass their oppressors and reach new literary heights.
Source: The Wild Geese Today