Nick Maxwell My first memory of 1916 is of being beaten for not being able to name the signatories of the Proclamation, a less effective method of inculcating patriotism than our elderly schoolteacher assumed. Growing up in Bray, Co. Wicklow, the meaning of 1916 was absorbed through other, not particularly ideological, perspectives. Playing with my cousin in … Read more
By Lar Joye The GPO was the headquarters of the Rising and from Wednesday 26 April was to become the main focus of attention for the British Army, as they realised its importance. The four artillery guns that the British Army had were focused first on bombarding Liberty Hall—which they mistakenly believed to be the … Read more
‘IS IT STILL HELD THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT MAKING IT A PARTY DEMONSTRATION?’—RICHARD MULCAHY, EASTER 1935 By Allison Martin Over the years, Easter Rising commemorations have taken on many different guises and have been used to further different agendas, depending on contemporary circumstances. The 1920s and the restoration of the GPO In common with … Read more
Francis Vane was born in 1861 at 10 North Great George’s Street, the only son of an English cavalry officer and an Irish-American mother, and raised in Sidmouth, Devon. He was commissioned into the British army in 1878, and from 1900 served in the Boer War as a column commander and a military judge. His … Read more
ONE OF THE FEW BRITISH OFFICERS TO DISTINGUISH HIMSELF ON AND OFF THE BATTLEFIELD IN IRELAND IN 1916 By James Quinn The events of Easter Week 1916 saw heroism in many different forms. Not least was the moral heroism shown by a Dublin-born British army officer, Sir Francis Patrick Fletcher Vane, whose dogged attempts to … Read more