‘Imagining the past to remember the future’?: Easter 1916 in 2016 By Fearghal McGarry In ‘Easter, 1916’, Yeats identified the sacrifice of the insurgents with resurrection, just as Patrick Pearse had intended: ‘Life springs from death’. Many veterans also recalled the rebellion as transformative. ‘Then came like a thunderclap the 1916 Rising’, recorded Ernie O’Malley, … 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
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
MESOPOTAMIA WAS AMONGST THE HARSHEST THEATRES OF THE GREAT WAR By Mark Phelan While the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme understandably dominate the current commemorative landscape, the experiences of Irishmen under arms elsewhere in 1916 remain largely unknown. Far from the street fighting in Dublin and the killing fields of France, the … Read more
WO 35: army in Ireland, administrative and Easter Rising By Fiona Fitzsimons These are the records of the British Army in Ireland (1775 to 1923). In 1922 the British military authorities gathered these records from Dublin Castle, the Royal Military Infirmary, the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, and from army barracks across Ireland to send to England. … Read more