This is an amazing online resource including nearly two thousand witness statements, hundreds of photographs and many documents collected from direct participants.
Some of the ones I found particularly vivid and useful were:
Liam Tannam who was in the GPO
Séan McLoughlin – the twenty-one-year-old “boy commandant”
His sister Mary McLoughlin – a dispatch courier
Mary Mulcahy (Min Ryan) dispatch courier
Jimmy Grace who fought at Mount Street Bridge in Number 26 Northumberland Road and survived to tell the tale.
Louise Perolz
Mairin Cregan
Maire Smartt
The Sinn Féin Rebellion Handbook
https://archive.org/details/sinnfeinrebellio00dubl
This was published by the Irish Times in 1917 a year after the rebellion and is a remarkable source of contemporary interviews, documents, inventory of buildings destroyed etc.
Biographies
Kathleen Clarke, Revolutionary Woman, first-hand account by wife of Thomas Clarke, signatory to the Proclamation (O’Brien Press)
Prison Letters of Countess Markievicz (Virago Press)
Secondary Sources
These are documents that recount or analyse information recorded elsewhere, and are based on primary sources. This usually means books but could also be exhibitions, television documentaries or docu-dramas.
The Irish Times Book of the 1916 Rising by Shane Hegarty and Fintan O’Toole (Gill and Macmillan)
The Easter Rebellion by Max Caulfield published in 1964 and still the best minute-by-minute narrative of the Rising by a journalist who interviewed many of the participants (London 1964; Dublin Gill & Macmillan paperback edition 1995)
Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion
by Charles Townshend (Penguin)
Dublin 1916: The Siege of the GPO by Claire Willis (Profile Books)
The Easter Rising: A Guide to Dublin in 1916 by Conor Kostick and Lorcan Collins (O’Brien Press)
Business as Usual – GPO Staff in 1916 by Stephen Ferguson (Mercier Press)
Online Resources
There are a wealth of sites and resources available online. Some of the primary and secondary sources are listed above.
Websites
http://www.nli.ie/1916/pdfs.html
Overview online exhibition from the National Library of Ireland
http://resources.teachnet.ie/dhorgan/2004/thursday.html
Great day-by-day diary of events
http://www.easter1916.ie
Very good online resource including day-by-day events and portraits of participants
http://irishmedals.org/gpage.html
Participants in 1916 Irish medals
http://irishvolunteers.org/2012/06/dublin-1916-then-now-pictures-from-the-1916-rising/
Comparison pictures of Dublin – then and now
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/easterrising/aftermath/af06.shtml
Summary of events
http://comeheretome.com/about/
Website about history of Dublin with many fascinating and quirky pages documenting the Rising
http://www.irishtimes.com/archive
Newspapers of the time
http://multitext.ucc.ie
This is an innovative project from the Cork History Department at University College Cork and is a growing resource of written and visual information on the 1916 Rising and Irish history in general.
Biographies
Constance Markievicz – an Independent Life by Anne Haverty (Pandora Press)
Terrible Beauty – a Life of ConstanceMarkievicz by Diana Norman (Poolbeg)
Michael Collins by Tim Pat Coogan
http://www.historytoday.com/anthony-fletcher/young-nationalist-easter-rising
Account of Cesca Trench, an English born Irish Nationalist who visited the GPO during the rebellion
Audio Visual Resources
http://shop.rte.ie/Product/The-Story-of-Easter-Week-1916-CD/1273/2221.0
A CD of interviews with participants and witnesses
http://thecricketbatthatdiedforireland.com
has a list of quirky objects and photographs at the National History Museum, including a toffee hammer thrown from a confectionery shop during the looting of Sackville Street, and memorial cards of Charles Darcy, aged 15, who was killed in action at Dublin Castle
http://digital.ucd.ie/get/ivrla:30626/pdf
An old article on the members of the Fianna who were killed in action
https://www.rte.ie/radio1/liveline/generic/2013/0215/367956-special-features/
Broadcaster Joe Duffy has researched the 38 children killed during Easter Week – the forgotten children of 1916
http://www.irishlifeandlore.com/result-collection.php?collectionName=The%201916%20Rising%20Oral%20History%20Collection
This is a wonderful collection of 111 interviews associated with the 1916 Rising, many with the descendants of those who took part in the Rising.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/
Some great photos from the period, including shots of the shoe shops, and ruins of Dublin
Acknowledgements
Heartfelt thanks to Paula Campbell who asked me to write this book in the first place and to editor Gaye Shortland for her diligent work in getting it into shape. Much thanks also to David Prendergast for typesetting and layout.
I am indebted to my brother Neil Murphy for his close reading of the first draft and helpful suggestions. Thanks to Dr Elizabeth Orchard, Consultant Cardiologist at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust who gave me advice on medical matters and Alice Channon and William Murphy for reading early chapters. Thanks also to my mother for family memories and reminiscences. Also to Aoife, Patrick, Cian and Senan O’Leary, Daniel, Isabella and Alex Cassidy, Conor Murphy and Henry Murphy.
I am grateful to Aideen Ireland, Head of Readers Services at the National Archives of Ireland, who not only helped me with tracking down sources but gave me the best student summer job ever at the Public Record Office many moons ago.
Thanks to my husband Marc and daughter Rosa for their tolerance while I have been living in 1916!
For permissions:
Thanks to Rev Dr Norman E Gamble Honorable Archivist of the Irish Railway Record Society for permission to use the 1910 tram timetable.
For permission to use the ‘World’s Fair Varieties and Waxworks” advert first used on the 9th June 1913, I am grateful to Irish Newspaper Archives & Irish Independent© 2014. With special thanks to Phillip Martin for his help.
The Illustration of a First Aid tourniquet was sourced from www.publicvectorsdomain.org and published under Creative Commons licence.
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Table of Contents
About the Author
Molly's Diary
Irish Republic
Author’s Note
The Easter Rising 1916 - Molly's Diary (Hands-on History) Page 22