April 20, 2016 • 26 mins
The Easter Rising is considered to be one of the most pivotal events in modern Irish history, and it was a precursor to a number of other events that have happened since then, both within and outside of Ireland.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You missed in History Class from dot Com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I am Tracy B. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frying. The anniversary of Ireland's nineteen sixteen
(00:21):
Easter Rising is really just around the corner, so consequently
we have been getting periodic requests to talk about it
for about the last year. Today. This is considered to
be one of the most pivotal moments in modern Irish history,
and it was the precursor to a number of events
that have happened since then, both within and outside of Ireland.
(00:41):
But at the same time, it's an event that was
and continues to be really full of contradictions. There were
a lot of different organizations that were involved in planning
the Easter Rising and carrying it out, and each group
had its own perspectives and goals, and the people within
each group did two and a lot of times these
contradicted each other. Although what happened is pretty well established,
(01:05):
there's still significant disagreement about what it meant and whether
it was justified. And depending on who is doing the talking,
it was either a much needed anti colonial revolt that
directly led to Ireland's independence or it was an unasked
for violent overthrow of a democratically elected government, so wildly
(01:26):
diverging perspectives on what it was all about, even though
it happened a century ago, so you might think things
were a little more settled about understanding it today. A
lot of papers related to it were only released by
Ireland's Bureau of Military History, and two thousand and three,
after the last of the survivors had died, the Irish
(01:48):
government actually established the Bureau of Military History in nineteen
forty seven to document the perspectives of the people who
had been involved involved in revolutionary activities between nineteen thirteen
and nineteen twenty one. This is the biggest collection of
written accounts from the Republican point of view that exists,
and so basically decades passed between when the events happened
(02:09):
and when a lot of these documentations or a lot
of these individual testimonies were written down, and then once
they were released to historians to review, which only happened
comparatively recently, all the people whose memories were documented there
had passed away. All this together means that today's podcast
cannot possibly touch on every motivation and every interpretation for
(02:30):
the Easter Rising, or even everything that happened during Easter
Week nineteen sixteen. It also means that the written history
of the Easter Rising and people's perspectives on its significance
and its impact will definitely continue to evolve long after
this podcast is over. So today is really an overview
of the basics and some of the ways that people
(02:50):
interpret the Easter Rising today. Conflicts between England and Ireland
about how Ireland should be ruled and by whom go
back for centuries, as we've talked about on the show before,
the Normans invaded what is now England in the Battle
of Hastings in ten sixty six, and then about a
hundred years later Anglo Norman's went on to invade Ireland,
(03:10):
with Henry the Second arriving there in eleven seventy one.
In fifteen forty one, Henry the Eighth was declared King
of Ireland. The Irish Parliament was formally abolished in eighteen
o one when the nation became part of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Act of Union.
At that point, Ireland's MP's and peers became part of
(03:31):
the UK Parliament rather than Ireland having a parliament of
its own, So throughout all of these centuries a wide
range of laws and policies were put into place that
restricted the Irish population in various ways, particularly related to
religious freedoms. Most but not all, of the people in
Ireland were and continued to be Catholic, just as examples
(03:54):
in the early seventeenth century, King James the First sent
Protestant farmers to Ireland specificly to take over farmland that
was owned by Catholics. Laws that forbade Catholics from voting,
owning land, or practicing their religion were passed in nineteen six.
When a potato blight struck Ireland in eighteen forty five,
which we've talked about in a previous two part or
(04:16):
on the show, the British government's response was basically to
do nothing, which led to about a million deaths and
a massive wave of immigration from Ireland to other nations,
including the United States. So unsurprisingly, there has also been
resistance to English rule of Ireland during those same centuries
through both violent and non violent means, and often these
(04:38):
conflicts have had multiple sides, with some of the Irish
population supporting the idea of self governance or independence, and
others supporting the idea of remaining as part of the
United Kingdom, and these conflicts have had both political and
religious roots, which have often been deeply interconnected. Throughout the
history of English presence in Ireland, more moderate groups and
(05:00):
political parties have basically tried to work within the system
through things like petitions and demons, demonstrations and getting nationalist
representatives elected to Parliament. At the same time, more radical
groups have led numerous armed uprisings, and whether they were
violent or non violent, all of these movements and uprisings
and rebellions have all had their own leaders, and their
(05:21):
own ideologies and their own tipping points, but at a
very basic level, they were all about Ireland resisting British
rule or British laws and practices that Irish people found
to be unjust or discriminatory. In the eighteen seventies, Isaac
Butt established the Home Government Association, which called for Home rule,
basically Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom while also
(05:42):
governing itself through its own parliament, which would convene in
Ireland rather than England. Through the late eighteen hundreds and
into the early nineteen hundreds, multiple Home Rule bills were
introduced in Parliament, but they ultimately failed. Then, finally, after
two years of debate, the Government of Ireland Act of
nineteen fourteen was given Royal assent on September eighteenth of
(06:04):
that year. This Act was intended to establish home rule
in Ireland, but on the same day the Suspensary Act
of nineteen fourteen was also passed, which effectively delayed the
Government of Ireland Act, along with the Welsh Church Act
of nineteen fourteen, which we're not really talking about today,
from going into effect for a year. This was because
(06:25):
of World War One, which was going on at the time.
This situation made a lot of people with widely diverging
ideologies extremely angry. The Government of Ireland Act itself infuriated
the most radical unionists, that is, the people who wanted
Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom because it
would allow for a separate parliament for Ireland. Many, but
(06:46):
not all, of these were Protestants living in the northern
part of Ireland. It simultaneously infuriated the most radical Republicans,
that is, the people who wanted Ireland to be completely
independent from the United Kingdom because under the Act, Ireland
would continue to be part of the UK, along with
other organizations that had been formed for and against the
(07:06):
idea of Home rule. While this Act was being debated,
militias had formed as well. There was the Ulster Volunteers.
These were on the unionist side, mostly in the northern
part of Ireland, and then there were the Irish Volunteers
on the nationalist side. They were basically the Irish Volunteers
were formed kind of in response to the existence of
the Ulster Volunteers. Then there was the Irish Citizen Army,
(07:31):
which was originally formed to protect protesters from police during
a labor dispute, which had evolved into a nationalist organization
as well. People whose opinions were more moderate were generally
in favor of Home rule. It was a sort of
compromise between being independent and remaining part of the UK,
and a lot of them agreed that the middle of
(07:51):
a war wasn't the right time to go about separating
Ireland's government from the UK Parliament. But the year long
delay brought about by the Suspensary Act did lead some
supporters of Home rule to fear that by the time
that year was up or the war was over, something
would happen to derail it entirely. I should also point
out that there were pretty moderate Protestants living in the
(08:11):
mostly in the northern part of Ireland, who were not
in favor of Home Rule because they were afraid that
if Home Rule were implemented that their needs would be
outweighed by the majority Catholic vote uh and that that
wasn't as much of a threat um as with everyone
being part of the UK Parliament rather than having a
separate parliament for Ireland. The people who planned and executed
(08:35):
the Easter Rising were against Home Rule. They were all
Republicans who wanted Ireland to be completely independent from the
United Kingdom. We'll talk about who they were and what
they planned to do after a brief word around the
fosor getting back to the story. A huge number of
(08:58):
people in organizations were involved in the nineteen sixteed Easter Rising.
The Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army has mentioned before
the break We're both involved, as was the Irish Republican
Brotherhood which went by i RB, who we discussed in
our podcast on the Catalpa. Kuman Naman was a women's
militia formed in response to the fact that the Irish
(09:19):
volunteers were all male. A nationalist youth organization called nafena
Aran was involved as well, along with many other smaller organizations.
In terms of the participants, the largest numbers of actual
people were from the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army,
but in terms of leadership, the people who were in
(09:39):
the most powerful positions, who did the most strategic planning
were from the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who were also known
as the Fenians. This has since then evolved into a
slur often used against Irish people. A lot of the
first pieces of the planning and organization started with IRB
members Thomas Clark and Sean mcgarmada. Essentially with the start
(10:01):
of World War One, Thomas Clark and other momentant nationalists
in the i RB saw an opportunity. Within just a
couple of weeks of Britain's entry into the war on
August five of nineteen fourteen, the IRB had decided to
pursue the idea of an open rebellion before the end
of the war. The government was focused on the war
and not on Ireland. Plus, the war had led to
(10:25):
a schism within the Irish Volunteers, with many of them
volunteering to fight following the encouragement of Irish Revolutionary Party
leader John Redmond. The ones who were left were primarily
the organization's most radical members, who were against both Irish
involvement in the war and home rule. Consequently, the IRB
(10:45):
was able to place some of its most radical members
into leadership roles within the Irish Volunteers. Soon, Padrick Pierce,
whose name is often anglicized to Patrick, Joseph Plunkett, aim
And Kant and Thomas McDonough had all been played sas
into positions that were directing the organization's military, training and
communications functions. While planning the rising, they turned to Germany
(11:07):
for support, with Roger Casement, subject of a previous podcast
that previous hosts Are and Doblina worked on trying to
secure weapons, ammunition, officers, and an army of volunteers recruited
from Irish POW's being held in Germany. Neither of these
efforts was successful, few of the POWs wanted to volunteer,
(11:28):
and the largest weapons shipment was intercepted on its way
to Ireland. A couple of side notes here. Casement ultimately
realized that the rising was not likely to succeed, and
he tried to return to Ireland to discourage it, but
he arrived too late and he was captured and charged
with treason. There's a lot more detail about that in
this episode from the archive, which will link to you
in our show notes. Also, Germany basically wound up providing
(11:51):
weapons to both the Irish Volunteers and the Ulster Volunteers,
basically opposite sides of the Home Rule versus not Home
Rule disagreement, in part because Germany was really hoping to
turn World War One into a two front war, with
Britain being distracted by fighting in Ireland and unable to
focus on what was happening on the continent. By May
(12:14):
of nineteen fifteen, the i RB had established a military
Council specifically for planning a rebellion. They conducted their planning
in total secrecy. They had to avoid being caught by
Irish authorities as well as by the more moderate members
of all the organizations that were ultimately involved in the rising.
This was difficult since one of the things they needed
to do was to prepare the Irish volunteers on the
(12:36):
Irish Citizen Army to fight in the rebellion without tipping
their hands that they were planning one. Eventually, they settled
on Easter Sunday nineteen sixteen and planned a nationwide uprising.
The date was to was chosen deliberately. The Irish Volunteers
had conducted some pretty large exercises on St. Patrick's Day
(12:56):
that year, as well as on Easter the year before,
so they were hoping that this precedent would make it
seem like this mobilization was just a recognition of the
day and not something more violent. However, about a week
before Easter, Bulver Hobson, who was the i RBS Quartermaster General,
and Owen McNeil, chief of staff of the Irish Volunteers
(13:16):
heard about the uprising that was being planned, and they
confronted Patrick Pierce about it. McNeil published an order in
the Irish Sunday Independent on Easter Sunday commanding that the
rising not go forward. Another hiccup was that the weapons
shipment promised from Germany had not arrived on Good Friday
as expected. That was the one that had been uh
(13:36):
that had been intercepted on the way. Finally, the decision
was made to go ahead with the rising. In spite
of these obstacles, but it was moved to Easter Monday
and the focus was primarily Dublin. There were some other
smaller things outside of Dublin, but Dublin became the primary focus.
On Monday A, members of the Irish Volunteers led by
Patrick Pierce and the Irish Citizen Army led by James Connolly,
(14:00):
along with members of Kumanaman met at prearranged places at
about eleven in the morning. Just afternoon, they took multiple
locations around Dublin, including the General Post Office and Boland's Mills,
as well as laying siege to Dublin Castle. The rebels
established a headquarters at the General Post Office, and the
Komen Naman set up a field hospital there as well.
(14:23):
The g p O was also the location of the
provisional Government. From the steps of the g p O,
Pierce read the Proclamation of an Irish Republic, which he
had drafted and which was signed by seven men, Aiman Kant,
Thomas James Clark, James Connolly, Sean Mcdearmada, Thomas McDonough, Patrick Pierce,
and Joseph Mary Plunkett. It began irishman and Irish women
(14:48):
in the name of God and of the dead generations,
from which she receives her old traditions of nationhood Ireland
through us some of our children's air flag and strikes
for her freedom. It goes on to declare Ireland a
sovereign nation and quote guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal
rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares
its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the
(15:11):
whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all of
the children of the nation equally and oblivious of the
differences carefully fostered by an alien government which had divided
a minority from the majority in the past. It ends
by establishing a provisional government and placing the Irish Republic
under the protection of the Most High God. We're going
(15:32):
to talk about how the rising played out and what
happened in its aftermath, but first we're going to pause
once again for a word from one of our fantastic sponsors.
There were some fatalities in the first few hours of
the Easter Rising, but the uprising had caught the British
(15:53):
mostly by surprise. That changed, however, once Britain actually had
time to react to what was going on, Britain laired
martial law, and because Republican forces hadn't been able to
take control of the railroad stations with the docks, British
troops were able to make their way to Dublin really easily.
British troops who were already in Ireland were in Dublin
by Monday afternoon, and more troops arrived from England on Tuesday.
(16:17):
Soon about six hundred rebels were facing off against about
twenty thousand British soldiers. Street fighting was extensive, and the
rebel held locations that didn't fall right away wound up
mostly being besieged for the remainder of the week. Britain
had greater numbers and better weapons, and didn't really hesitate
to use heavy artillery. This led to extensive damage and
(16:40):
a number of fires. On Friday night, a fire forced
the rebels who were in the g p O to
have to flee. Patrick Pierce unconditionally surrendered the next day
with the hope of preventing more loss of life. With
his surrender, reading quote in order to prevent further slaughter
of the civil population, and in the hope of saving
the lives of our followers. The members of the Provisional
(17:00):
Government present at headquarters have decided on an unconditional surrender,
and commandants or officers commanding districts will order their commands
to lay down arms. By that point, though the death
toll was already significant, sixty two rebels died and from
the British troops, one hundred and six were killed and
three hundred and thirty four were wounded. Hardest hit were
(17:21):
civilians caught in the crossfire, with two hundred and fifty
six deaths and thousands of injuries. At first and the
immediate aftermath of the rising, both Republicans and Unionists were
outraged at the risings, leaders not at Britain. A lot
of people felt like this was a violent uprising that
had attempted to overthrow a democratically elected government and replace
(17:43):
it with people who had basically appointed themselves to the
job rather than being elected. When Irish Parliamentary Party MP
John Dylan expressed his disapproval of the rebels, but then
followed it with a statement that they had quote fought
a clean fight, and they fought with super bravery and
skill and no active savagery or act of the usual
customs of war end quote in the House of Commons,
(18:03):
people yelled shame at him so like, even though he
said pretty directly that he disapproved of what they had done,
but that they had fought bravely, people were angry enough
about it that they yelled shame at him on the
h on the floor of Parliament. Perception shifted, however, after
Britain began court martialing and executing the leaders of the rising,
including some whose roles had really been quite minor, and
(18:26):
imprisoning more people than had even participated. Between May three
and May twelve, all seven people who had signed the
Proclamation of the Irish Republic were executed, along with nine others,
for a total of sixteen. These included Roger Casement and
William Pierce, who was Patrick Pierce's younger brother, and all
of those executed were buried in a quick line with
(18:46):
no funeral. Only one woman was court martialed, although there
were many others who were involved, and that one woman
was Constance Marketiche. She was known as the larka nite
rebel countess, and when she surrendered, she was reported to
have kissed her revolver before handing it over. She was
one of the people who had helped found Nafina Aaron,
and during the rising, she was second in command to
(19:07):
Michael Mallin, who was one of the leaders who was executed.
She was sentenced to death as well, although it was
commuted to life in prison because of her sex, and
she was later released under age and a general amnesty.
From there, she became the first woman elected to the
British Parliament, although she and other members of Chanfine refused
to take her seat. After she had been elected, I
(19:27):
realized how awesome she was very late in the process
of this, and the kind of wish the whole episode
had been about her, because she's fascinating and maybe we
will do that later. I also coincidentally, like I emailed
you the outline for this episode, and then I checked
the inbox and we had an email from a listener
(19:50):
saying that exact thing. You could do something about the
Easter Rising, but this is really who you should focus on.
Maybe next year for Easter Rising anniversary that will not
be a hundred. Executing the rebellions leaders and imprisoning many
others had the opposite effect of Britain's intentions. It did
not discourage further rebellion or nationalist sentiment instead. This was
(20:12):
when republican sentiment, which had existed in Ireland for as
long as Britain had been present there to really start
to pick up steam. Thanks to the Irby secrecy and
planning the rising, for a time, authorities actually thought it
had been the work of sin Feign, even though this
was not correct. Sin Fain benefited really enormously from the
error it wreck. It reorganized in the wake up the
(20:33):
rising and became much more powerful, ultimately replacing the more
moderate Irish Parliamentary Party in Parliament in the next general election.
This victory ultimately led to the Irish War of Independence
from nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty one, after which the
six northeastern counties which did not want to leave the
United Kingdom were partitioned into Northern Ireland and the rest
(20:55):
of Ireland became the Irish Free State and then the
Republic of Ireland. And this is really why people point
to the Easter Rising as being this extremely important formative
moment in the history of of the in the history
of the Republic of Ireland. Like it, it wasn't the
thing that like it wasn't quite the same as say,
(21:17):
the Revolutionary War in the America's There was a whole
other conflict that followed this one, but this was sort
of the turning point of a lot of Republican sentiment,
Like a lot of people who had been a lot
more moderate and said, well, it will be fine if
we just have home rule, if we can rule ourselves
but be part of the UK still like that, it
was really the thing that turned a lot of that
opinion to be no, we need to be completely independent
(21:39):
from the UK. Um. So it was galvanizing moment, uh
in in terms of Republican sentiment in Ireland. And then
in the years that have passed since then, the Easter
Rising has been cited as the inspiration for other a
lot of other events, including the Russian Revolution and then
the troubles in Northern Ireland, which uh for folks who
(22:01):
don't personally remember it, which I think a lot of
us do, a lot of us were alive at the
either through all of it or at the end of
the troubles. The decades long conflict between Northern Ireland's Unionist
Protestants and Republican Catholics, and extremely basic level law enforcement
in Northern Ireland have actually expressed some concerns that the
(22:22):
centennial of the Eastern Rising of the Easter Rising may
lead to violent protests in Northern Ireland from the folks
who would have preferred to have become independent with the
remainder of Ireland as well. And that's the scoop that
is the basics of the Easter Rising. I'm not kidding.
There is so much more that we could talk about,
(22:43):
Like they're the one of the books that that I
got for this is one of the ones. There there
are several books that have come out after that release
of documents that we talked about at the beginning UM
that generally have a have made a lot of use
of those particular documents UM. And one of them is
quite long. We will they will all be in the
(23:04):
show notes if you were interested in learning more. UM.
There is all curients, so much more stuff to actually
that we could actually get into. But this is a
thirty minute podcast, so when we are not do you
also have a bit of listener mail for us? I do.
It's term Abigail who writes to us about the Lost.
We got several extremely touching emails so far about the Lost.
(23:27):
We have had lots of people who have written in
and talked about UH their grandmothers having served with the WASP,
And we've talked had other people talk about UH their
mothers or grandmothers serving in the military and some other capacity,
and this one from Abigail was particularly moving. So she
writes a little bit about figuring out what her role
would be when she was in basic training, and she says,
(23:49):
the civilian woman who was assisting me looked at my
as bad scores and told me that my scores were
very similar to hers. But during her time in the
Air Force, many jobs, like jobs working on jets, were
not open to women. She asked if I would be
willing to take that career path for her, for all
of the women who could not serve in that role.
In that single moment, I felt the full weight of
(24:10):
all the women who had served before me, and the
full weight of the women who would serve after me.
And I said yes, and I took on that job.
Every day after that, I was conscious of the history
of women in the service and how I and how
I serve would impact the women who would serve after me.
Working on the flight line was a constant balancing act
of proving my worth to be there, demanding, demanding to
(24:32):
be respected as an airman, and working as hard as
my male counterparts, often having to work harder to prove
the same worth. At one point, I served under a
temporary supervisor during Desert Shield. He told me to my
face that he didn't think that women belonged on the
flight line, but I was there and we were going
to have to do the best with what we had.
This former farm boy with arms larger than my head
(24:52):
was by far my favorite sergeant during my entire career
because in the end he treated me as an airman
and didn't treat me better or worse based on my gender.
Highlighting the history of women pilots and by extension, women
in the service, and your podcast is deeply moving to me.
To hear about their stories and their experiences is so valuable.
Thank you for sharing this story and helping me understand
better my place in history as I marched with all
(25:14):
the women who have served, are serving, and will serve
in the future. Thank you from a loyal fan, Abigail.
Thank you so much, Abigail. We will We have cut
out the part where I had to start over because
I was I was tearing up. Uh Thank you so
much for this gracious and generous letter. Thank you for
everybody who has written to share stories of your your
(25:34):
mothers and your grandmother's, and your aunts and and other
family members who either served with the WASP or served
elsewhere in the armed forces. You have been really really
touching and generous to read. If you would like to
write to us, we're a history podcasts at how stuff
works dot com. We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot
com slash miss in history and on Twitter at miss
in History. Our tumbler is missed in History dot tom
(25:56):
or dot com. We're also on panterst at pentrist dot
com slash miss in history. Are Instagram is also missed History.
If you would like to learn more about the Air
Force or Ireland or anything else, you can come to
our parent company's website, which is how stuff works dot com.
You can also come to our website which is missed
in History dot com, which, as we noted in our
show notes, I will list the books that were very
(26:19):
useful and and researching this episode, as well as the
other sources that I consulted with working on it. We
also have an archive of every episode we've ever done
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that and a whole lot more at how stuff works
dot com or Missed than History dot com for more
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(26:40):
stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You missed in History Class from dot Com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I am Tracy B. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frying. The anniversary of Ireland's nineteen sixteen
(00:21):
Easter Rising is really just around the corner, so consequently
we have been getting periodic requests to talk about it
for about the last year. Today. This is considered to
be one of the most pivotal moments in modern Irish history,
and it was the precursor to a number of events
that have happened since then, both within and outside of Ireland.
(00:41):
But at the same time, it's an event that was
and continues to be really full of contradictions. There were
a lot of different organizations that were involved in planning
the Easter Rising and carrying it out, and each group
had its own perspectives and goals, and the people within
each group did two and a lot of times these
contradicted each other. Although what happened is pretty well established,
(01:05):
there's still significant disagreement about what it meant and whether
it was justified. And depending on who is doing the talking,
it was either a much needed anti colonial revolt that
directly led to Ireland's independence or it was an unasked
for violent overthrow of a democratically elected government, so wildly
(01:26):
diverging perspectives on what it was all about, even though
it happened a century ago, so you might think things
were a little more settled about understanding it today. A
lot of papers related to it were only released by
Ireland's Bureau of Military History, and two thousand and three,
after the last of the survivors had died, the Irish
(01:48):
government actually established the Bureau of Military History in nineteen
forty seven to document the perspectives of the people who
had been involved involved in revolutionary activities between nineteen thirteen
and nineteen twenty one. This is the biggest collection of
written accounts from the Republican point of view that exists,
and so basically decades passed between when the events happened
(02:09):
and when a lot of these documentations or a lot
of these individual testimonies were written down, and then once
they were released to historians to review, which only happened
comparatively recently, all the people whose memories were documented there
had passed away. All this together means that today's podcast
cannot possibly touch on every motivation and every interpretation for
(02:30):
the Easter Rising, or even everything that happened during Easter
Week nineteen sixteen. It also means that the written history
of the Easter Rising and people's perspectives on its significance
and its impact will definitely continue to evolve long after
this podcast is over. So today is really an overview
of the basics and some of the ways that people
(02:50):
interpret the Easter Rising today. Conflicts between England and Ireland
about how Ireland should be ruled and by whom go
back for centuries, as we've talked about on the show before,
the Normans invaded what is now England in the Battle
of Hastings in ten sixty six, and then about a
hundred years later Anglo Norman's went on to invade Ireland,
(03:10):
with Henry the Second arriving there in eleven seventy one.
In fifteen forty one, Henry the Eighth was declared King
of Ireland. The Irish Parliament was formally abolished in eighteen
o one when the nation became part of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Act of Union.
At that point, Ireland's MP's and peers became part of
(03:31):
the UK Parliament rather than Ireland having a parliament of
its own, So throughout all of these centuries a wide
range of laws and policies were put into place that
restricted the Irish population in various ways, particularly related to
religious freedoms. Most but not all, of the people in
Ireland were and continued to be Catholic, just as examples
(03:54):
in the early seventeenth century, King James the First sent
Protestant farmers to Ireland specificly to take over farmland that
was owned by Catholics. Laws that forbade Catholics from voting,
owning land, or practicing their religion were passed in nineteen six.
When a potato blight struck Ireland in eighteen forty five,
which we've talked about in a previous two part or
(04:16):
on the show, the British government's response was basically to
do nothing, which led to about a million deaths and
a massive wave of immigration from Ireland to other nations,
including the United States. So unsurprisingly, there has also been
resistance to English rule of Ireland during those same centuries
through both violent and non violent means, and often these
(04:38):
conflicts have had multiple sides, with some of the Irish
population supporting the idea of self governance or independence, and
others supporting the idea of remaining as part of the
United Kingdom, and these conflicts have had both political and
religious roots, which have often been deeply interconnected. Throughout the
history of English presence in Ireland, more moderate groups and
(05:00):
political parties have basically tried to work within the system
through things like petitions and demons, demonstrations and getting nationalist
representatives elected to Parliament. At the same time, more radical
groups have led numerous armed uprisings, and whether they were
violent or non violent, all of these movements and uprisings
and rebellions have all had their own leaders, and their
(05:21):
own ideologies and their own tipping points, but at a
very basic level, they were all about Ireland resisting British
rule or British laws and practices that Irish people found
to be unjust or discriminatory. In the eighteen seventies, Isaac
Butt established the Home Government Association, which called for Home rule,
basically Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom while also
(05:42):
governing itself through its own parliament, which would convene in
Ireland rather than England. Through the late eighteen hundreds and
into the early nineteen hundreds, multiple Home Rule bills were
introduced in Parliament, but they ultimately failed. Then, finally, after
two years of debate, the Government of Ireland Act of
nineteen fourteen was given Royal assent on September eighteenth of
(06:04):
that year. This Act was intended to establish home rule
in Ireland, but on the same day the Suspensary Act
of nineteen fourteen was also passed, which effectively delayed the
Government of Ireland Act, along with the Welsh Church Act
of nineteen fourteen, which we're not really talking about today,
from going into effect for a year. This was because
(06:25):
of World War One, which was going on at the time.
This situation made a lot of people with widely diverging
ideologies extremely angry. The Government of Ireland Act itself infuriated
the most radical unionists, that is, the people who wanted
Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom because it
would allow for a separate parliament for Ireland. Many, but
(06:46):
not all, of these were Protestants living in the northern
part of Ireland. It simultaneously infuriated the most radical Republicans,
that is, the people who wanted Ireland to be completely
independent from the United Kingdom because under the Act, Ireland
would continue to be part of the UK, along with
other organizations that had been formed for and against the
(07:06):
idea of Home rule. While this Act was being debated,
militias had formed as well. There was the Ulster Volunteers.
These were on the unionist side, mostly in the northern
part of Ireland, and then there were the Irish Volunteers
on the nationalist side. They were basically the Irish Volunteers
were formed kind of in response to the existence of
the Ulster Volunteers. Then there was the Irish Citizen Army,
(07:31):
which was originally formed to protect protesters from police during
a labor dispute, which had evolved into a nationalist organization
as well. People whose opinions were more moderate were generally
in favor of Home rule. It was a sort of
compromise between being independent and remaining part of the UK,
and a lot of them agreed that the middle of
(07:51):
a war wasn't the right time to go about separating
Ireland's government from the UK Parliament. But the year long
delay brought about by the Suspensary Act did lead some
supporters of Home rule to fear that by the time
that year was up or the war was over, something
would happen to derail it entirely. I should also point
out that there were pretty moderate Protestants living in the
(08:11):
mostly in the northern part of Ireland, who were not
in favor of Home Rule because they were afraid that
if Home Rule were implemented that their needs would be
outweighed by the majority Catholic vote uh and that that
wasn't as much of a threat um as with everyone
being part of the UK Parliament rather than having a
separate parliament for Ireland. The people who planned and executed
(08:35):
the Easter Rising were against Home Rule. They were all
Republicans who wanted Ireland to be completely independent from the
United Kingdom. We'll talk about who they were and what
they planned to do after a brief word around the
fosor getting back to the story. A huge number of
(08:58):
people in organizations were involved in the nineteen sixteed Easter Rising.
The Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army has mentioned before
the break We're both involved, as was the Irish Republican
Brotherhood which went by i RB, who we discussed in
our podcast on the Catalpa. Kuman Naman was a women's
militia formed in response to the fact that the Irish
(09:19):
volunteers were all male. A nationalist youth organization called nafena
Aran was involved as well, along with many other smaller organizations.
In terms of the participants, the largest numbers of actual
people were from the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army,
but in terms of leadership, the people who were in
(09:39):
the most powerful positions, who did the most strategic planning
were from the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who were also known
as the Fenians. This has since then evolved into a
slur often used against Irish people. A lot of the
first pieces of the planning and organization started with IRB
members Thomas Clark and Sean mcgarmada. Essentially with the start
(10:01):
of World War One, Thomas Clark and other momentant nationalists
in the i RB saw an opportunity. Within just a
couple of weeks of Britain's entry into the war on
August five of nineteen fourteen, the IRB had decided to
pursue the idea of an open rebellion before the end
of the war. The government was focused on the war
and not on Ireland. Plus, the war had led to
(10:25):
a schism within the Irish Volunteers, with many of them
volunteering to fight following the encouragement of Irish Revolutionary Party
leader John Redmond. The ones who were left were primarily
the organization's most radical members, who were against both Irish
involvement in the war and home rule. Consequently, the IRB
(10:45):
was able to place some of its most radical members
into leadership roles within the Irish Volunteers. Soon, Padrick Pierce,
whose name is often anglicized to Patrick, Joseph Plunkett, aim
And Kant and Thomas McDonough had all been played sas
into positions that were directing the organization's military, training and
communications functions. While planning the rising, they turned to Germany
(11:07):
for support, with Roger Casement, subject of a previous podcast
that previous hosts Are and Doblina worked on trying to
secure weapons, ammunition, officers, and an army of volunteers recruited
from Irish POW's being held in Germany. Neither of these
efforts was successful, few of the POWs wanted to volunteer,
(11:28):
and the largest weapons shipment was intercepted on its way
to Ireland. A couple of side notes here. Casement ultimately
realized that the rising was not likely to succeed, and
he tried to return to Ireland to discourage it, but
he arrived too late and he was captured and charged
with treason. There's a lot more detail about that in
this episode from the archive, which will link to you
in our show notes. Also, Germany basically wound up providing
(11:51):
weapons to both the Irish Volunteers and the Ulster Volunteers,
basically opposite sides of the Home Rule versus not Home
Rule disagreement, in part because Germany was really hoping to
turn World War One into a two front war, with
Britain being distracted by fighting in Ireland and unable to
focus on what was happening on the continent. By May
(12:14):
of nineteen fifteen, the i RB had established a military
Council specifically for planning a rebellion. They conducted their planning
in total secrecy. They had to avoid being caught by
Irish authorities as well as by the more moderate members
of all the organizations that were ultimately involved in the rising.
This was difficult since one of the things they needed
to do was to prepare the Irish volunteers on the
(12:36):
Irish Citizen Army to fight in the rebellion without tipping
their hands that they were planning one. Eventually, they settled
on Easter Sunday nineteen sixteen and planned a nationwide uprising.
The date was to was chosen deliberately. The Irish Volunteers
had conducted some pretty large exercises on St. Patrick's Day
(12:56):
that year, as well as on Easter the year before,
so they were hoping that this precedent would make it
seem like this mobilization was just a recognition of the
day and not something more violent. However, about a week
before Easter, Bulver Hobson, who was the i RBS Quartermaster General,
and Owen McNeil, chief of staff of the Irish Volunteers
(13:16):
heard about the uprising that was being planned, and they
confronted Patrick Pierce about it. McNeil published an order in
the Irish Sunday Independent on Easter Sunday commanding that the
rising not go forward. Another hiccup was that the weapons
shipment promised from Germany had not arrived on Good Friday
as expected. That was the one that had been uh
(13:36):
that had been intercepted on the way. Finally, the decision
was made to go ahead with the rising. In spite
of these obstacles, but it was moved to Easter Monday
and the focus was primarily Dublin. There were some other
smaller things outside of Dublin, but Dublin became the primary focus.
On Monday A, members of the Irish Volunteers led by
Patrick Pierce and the Irish Citizen Army led by James Connolly,
(14:00):
along with members of Kumanaman met at prearranged places at
about eleven in the morning. Just afternoon, they took multiple
locations around Dublin, including the General Post Office and Boland's Mills,
as well as laying siege to Dublin Castle. The rebels
established a headquarters at the General Post Office, and the
Komen Naman set up a field hospital there as well.
(14:23):
The g p O was also the location of the
provisional Government. From the steps of the g p O,
Pierce read the Proclamation of an Irish Republic, which he
had drafted and which was signed by seven men, Aiman Kant,
Thomas James Clark, James Connolly, Sean Mcdearmada, Thomas McDonough, Patrick Pierce,
and Joseph Mary Plunkett. It began irishman and Irish women
(14:48):
in the name of God and of the dead generations,
from which she receives her old traditions of nationhood Ireland
through us some of our children's air flag and strikes
for her freedom. It goes on to declare Ireland a
sovereign nation and quote guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal
rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares
its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the
(15:11):
whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all of
the children of the nation equally and oblivious of the
differences carefully fostered by an alien government which had divided
a minority from the majority in the past. It ends
by establishing a provisional government and placing the Irish Republic
under the protection of the Most High God. We're going
(15:32):
to talk about how the rising played out and what
happened in its aftermath, but first we're going to pause
once again for a word from one of our fantastic sponsors.
There were some fatalities in the first few hours of
the Easter Rising, but the uprising had caught the British
(15:53):
mostly by surprise. That changed, however, once Britain actually had
time to react to what was going on, Britain laired
martial law, and because Republican forces hadn't been able to
take control of the railroad stations with the docks, British
troops were able to make their way to Dublin really easily.
British troops who were already in Ireland were in Dublin
by Monday afternoon, and more troops arrived from England on Tuesday.
(16:17):
Soon about six hundred rebels were facing off against about
twenty thousand British soldiers. Street fighting was extensive, and the
rebel held locations that didn't fall right away wound up
mostly being besieged for the remainder of the week. Britain
had greater numbers and better weapons, and didn't really hesitate
to use heavy artillery. This led to extensive damage and
(16:40):
a number of fires. On Friday night, a fire forced
the rebels who were in the g p O to
have to flee. Patrick Pierce unconditionally surrendered the next day
with the hope of preventing more loss of life. With
his surrender, reading quote in order to prevent further slaughter
of the civil population, and in the hope of saving
the lives of our followers. The members of the Provisional
(17:00):
Government present at headquarters have decided on an unconditional surrender,
and commandants or officers commanding districts will order their commands
to lay down arms. By that point, though the death
toll was already significant, sixty two rebels died and from
the British troops, one hundred and six were killed and
three hundred and thirty four were wounded. Hardest hit were
(17:21):
civilians caught in the crossfire, with two hundred and fifty
six deaths and thousands of injuries. At first and the
immediate aftermath of the rising, both Republicans and Unionists were
outraged at the risings, leaders not at Britain. A lot
of people felt like this was a violent uprising that
had attempted to overthrow a democratically elected government and replace
(17:43):
it with people who had basically appointed themselves to the
job rather than being elected. When Irish Parliamentary Party MP
John Dylan expressed his disapproval of the rebels, but then
followed it with a statement that they had quote fought
a clean fight, and they fought with super bravery and
skill and no active savagery or act of the usual
customs of war end quote in the House of Commons,
(18:03):
people yelled shame at him so like, even though he
said pretty directly that he disapproved of what they had done,
but that they had fought bravely, people were angry enough
about it that they yelled shame at him on the
h on the floor of Parliament. Perception shifted, however, after
Britain began court martialing and executing the leaders of the rising,
including some whose roles had really been quite minor, and
(18:26):
imprisoning more people than had even participated. Between May three
and May twelve, all seven people who had signed the
Proclamation of the Irish Republic were executed, along with nine others,
for a total of sixteen. These included Roger Casement and
William Pierce, who was Patrick Pierce's younger brother, and all
of those executed were buried in a quick line with
(18:46):
no funeral. Only one woman was court martialed, although there
were many others who were involved, and that one woman
was Constance Marketiche. She was known as the larka nite
rebel countess, and when she surrendered, she was reported to
have kissed her revolver before handing it over. She was
one of the people who had helped found Nafina Aaron,
and during the rising, she was second in command to
(19:07):
Michael Mallin, who was one of the leaders who was executed.
She was sentenced to death as well, although it was
commuted to life in prison because of her sex, and
she was later released under age and a general amnesty.
From there, she became the first woman elected to the
British Parliament, although she and other members of Chanfine refused
to take her seat. After she had been elected, I
(19:27):
realized how awesome she was very late in the process
of this, and the kind of wish the whole episode
had been about her, because she's fascinating and maybe we
will do that later. I also coincidentally, like I emailed
you the outline for this episode, and then I checked
the inbox and we had an email from a listener
(19:50):
saying that exact thing. You could do something about the
Easter Rising, but this is really who you should focus on.
Maybe next year for Easter Rising anniversary that will not
be a hundred. Executing the rebellions leaders and imprisoning many
others had the opposite effect of Britain's intentions. It did
not discourage further rebellion or nationalist sentiment instead. This was
(20:12):
when republican sentiment, which had existed in Ireland for as
long as Britain had been present there to really start
to pick up steam. Thanks to the Irby secrecy and
planning the rising, for a time, authorities actually thought it
had been the work of sin Feign, even though this
was not correct. Sin Fain benefited really enormously from the
error it wreck. It reorganized in the wake up the
(20:33):
rising and became much more powerful, ultimately replacing the more
moderate Irish Parliamentary Party in Parliament in the next general election.
This victory ultimately led to the Irish War of Independence
from nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty one, after which the
six northeastern counties which did not want to leave the
United Kingdom were partitioned into Northern Ireland and the rest
(20:55):
of Ireland became the Irish Free State and then the
Republic of Ireland. And this is really why people point
to the Easter Rising as being this extremely important formative
moment in the history of of the in the history
of the Republic of Ireland. Like it, it wasn't the
thing that like it wasn't quite the same as say,
(21:17):
the Revolutionary War in the America's There was a whole
other conflict that followed this one, but this was sort
of the turning point of a lot of Republican sentiment,
Like a lot of people who had been a lot
more moderate and said, well, it will be fine if
we just have home rule, if we can rule ourselves
but be part of the UK still like that, it
was really the thing that turned a lot of that
opinion to be no, we need to be completely independent
(21:39):
from the UK. Um. So it was galvanizing moment, uh
in in terms of Republican sentiment in Ireland. And then
in the years that have passed since then, the Easter
Rising has been cited as the inspiration for other a
lot of other events, including the Russian Revolution and then
the troubles in Northern Ireland, which uh for folks who
(22:01):
don't personally remember it, which I think a lot of
us do, a lot of us were alive at the
either through all of it or at the end of
the troubles. The decades long conflict between Northern Ireland's Unionist
Protestants and Republican Catholics, and extremely basic level law enforcement
in Northern Ireland have actually expressed some concerns that the
(22:22):
centennial of the Eastern Rising of the Easter Rising may
lead to violent protests in Northern Ireland from the folks
who would have preferred to have become independent with the
remainder of Ireland as well. And that's the scoop that
is the basics of the Easter Rising. I'm not kidding.
There is so much more that we could talk about,
(22:43):
Like they're the one of the books that that I
got for this is one of the ones. There there
are several books that have come out after that release
of documents that we talked about at the beginning UM
that generally have a have made a lot of use
of those particular documents UM. And one of them is
quite long. We will they will all be in the
(23:04):
show notes if you were interested in learning more. UM.
There is all curients, so much more stuff to actually
that we could actually get into. But this is a
thirty minute podcast, so when we are not do you
also have a bit of listener mail for us? I do.
It's term Abigail who writes to us about the Lost.
We got several extremely touching emails so far about the Lost.
(23:27):
We have had lots of people who have written in
and talked about UH their grandmothers having served with the WASP,
And we've talked had other people talk about UH their
mothers or grandmothers serving in the military and some other capacity,
and this one from Abigail was particularly moving. So she
writes a little bit about figuring out what her role
would be when she was in basic training, and she says,
(23:49):
the civilian woman who was assisting me looked at my
as bad scores and told me that my scores were
very similar to hers. But during her time in the
Air Force, many jobs, like jobs working on jets, were
not open to women. She asked if I would be
willing to take that career path for her, for all
of the women who could not serve in that role.
In that single moment, I felt the full weight of
(24:10):
all the women who had served before me, and the
full weight of the women who would serve after me.
And I said yes, and I took on that job.
Every day after that, I was conscious of the history
of women in the service and how I and how
I serve would impact the women who would serve after me.
Working on the flight line was a constant balancing act
of proving my worth to be there, demanding, demanding to
(24:32):
be respected as an airman, and working as hard as
my male counterparts, often having to work harder to prove
the same worth. At one point, I served under a
temporary supervisor during Desert Shield. He told me to my
face that he didn't think that women belonged on the
flight line, but I was there and we were going
to have to do the best with what we had.
This former farm boy with arms larger than my head
(24:52):
was by far my favorite sergeant during my entire career
because in the end he treated me as an airman
and didn't treat me better or worse based on my gender.
Highlighting the history of women pilots and by extension, women
in the service, and your podcast is deeply moving to me.
To hear about their stories and their experiences is so valuable.
Thank you for sharing this story and helping me understand
better my place in history as I marched with all
(25:14):
the women who have served, are serving, and will serve
in the future. Thank you from a loyal fan, Abigail.
Thank you so much, Abigail. We will We have cut
out the part where I had to start over because
I was I was tearing up. Uh Thank you so
much for this gracious and generous letter. Thank you for
everybody who has written to share stories of your your
(25:34):
mothers and your grandmother's, and your aunts and and other
family members who either served with the WASP or served
elsewhere in the armed forces. You have been really really
touching and generous to read. If you would like to
write to us, we're a history podcasts at how stuff
works dot com. We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot
com slash miss in history and on Twitter at miss
in History. Our tumbler is missed in History dot tom
(25:56):
or dot com. We're also on panterst at pentrist dot
com slash miss in history. Are Instagram is also missed History.
If you would like to learn more about the Air
Force or Ireland or anything else, you can come to
our parent company's website, which is how stuff works dot com.
You can also come to our website which is missed
in History dot com, which, as we noted in our
show notes, I will list the books that were very
(26:19):
useful and and researching this episode, as well as the
other sources that I consulted with working on it. We
also have an archive of every episode we've ever done
and some other cool stuff. So you can do all
that and a whole lot more at how stuff works
dot com or Missed than History dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how
(26:40):
stuff works dot com.
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