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See, for example, several references to the riot, and its consequences for the planned parade, in the Sunday Independent , 26 February and 5 March, in Fintan O’Toole’s column in the Irish Times , 28 February, and in the Belfast Telegraph on the same day. Details of the security operation undertaken to protect the parade from any untoward incidents can be found in most national newspapers over the Easter weekend.
A marked disagreement between Fintan O’Toole and the Minister for Defence, Willie O’Dea, over the reasons for the suspension of the parade at this time was a central feature of an extended panel discussion on the Rising on the popular Late, Late Show, broadcast by RTÉ on 3 March.
This dealt with the mis-handling by members of the Catholic hierarchy of allegations of sexual abuse levelled against certain clergymen in the Ferns diocese.
The speech also warranted less extensive coverage in the Independent and Examiner on the same day, with immediate reaction from public representatives aired on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics and Questions and Answers shows over the following days.
Advance notification of the President’s appearance at the conference appeared in various newspapers, including the Sunday Independent , Irish Examiner , Irish Times and Cork’s Evening Echo , during the week prior to her address, with local and national radio reports on the day. See also the reference to the conference by Taoiseach Ahern during a Dáil discussion in December 2005 on arrangements to mark the Rising; Dáil Debates , vol. dcxi, 7 December 2005, col. 1446.
See Mark Brennock’s report in the Irish Times , 24 February 2006.
These quotations are but a selection of the favourable and critical comments contained in the national press in the weeks and months following the speech.
See, for example, the swift, negative response from Senator David Norris, Seanad Debates , vol. clxxxii, 1 February 2006, col. 900.
Sunday Independent , 26 February 2006. See also his insightful article in the Irish Times 15 April 2006, wherein he cited Gustave de Beaumont’s recently re-published and highly influential study of mid-nineteenth century Ireland, Ireland: social, political and religious , HUP, Cambridge, 2006, (most especially from the ‘Preface’ to the 1863 edition; Ibid ., p. 402).
Irish Examiner 14 April 2006. The same article appeared in History Ireland , vol. xiv, no. 2, March – April 2006, pp. 37–39.
The worst afflicted was Kevin Myers, long-time columnist for the Irish Times (who rather suddenly transferred his allegiances to the Irish Independent in the middle of the commemoration debate). See his ‘Irishman’s diary’ columns in the Irish Times , 31 January and 1 February 2006. For the response by the editors of this volume see the same newspaper, Saturday 4 February.
An interesting response to the charges contained in the letter came from Professor John A. Murphy, who, in the same newspaper on 20 February, referred to Mr Bury’s ‘sensational assertion’ regarding the alleged campaign of intimidation and persecution of southern Protestants, and requested that ‘the detailed evidence and the documented statistics’ relating to same be furnished forthwith.
Sunday Independent , 5 February 2006.
Tullamore Tribune , 8 February 2006.
See also the praise for the President’s ‘pre-emptive success’ in delivering the speech in a letter from Peter Kennedy, Dublin, published in the Village , 30 March–5 April 2006. The magazine was one of the principal forums for debate on the commemoration.
See the national press on 22 October, and the local press over the following week, for immediate reaction to the announcement.
Irish Independent , 17 April 2006.
Irish Examiner , 15 April 2006.
Dáil debates , vol. dcix, 3 November 2005, cols. 594–96.
Irish Independent , 17 April 2006. A discordant note was struck by the Belfast Telegraph , 19 April 2006, which described the event as ‘Kremlinesque’. For a more positive view from the other side of the Atlantic see the New York Times , 17 April 2006.
Irish Independent , 25 October 2005; also Martin Kettle in the Guardian , 29 October 2005.
Letter from Patrick Goggin, Dun Laoghaire, Irish Times , 27 February 2006.
Irish Times , 20 December 2005.
Sunday Independent , 12 February 2006.
Irish Times , 25 October 2006.
Ibid ., 15 April 2006.
See the comments of Labour leader, Pat Rabbitte, in the Dáil on 28 February 2006 (Dail debates, vol. dcxv, col. 1170) and Gerry Adams, president of Provisional Sinn Féin, in his speech to the party’s árd fheis, as reported in the Sunday Independent , 19 February 2006.
Irish Examiner , 18 April 2006.
In its final form the parade commemorated two distinct elements of the tradition of the defence forces: the spirit of 1916, and the sacrifice of those who had died in the service of the United Nations.
Dáil debates , vol. dcxi, 7 December 2005, col. 1444.
Ibid ., vol. dcxv, 23 February 2006, col. 971. The membership of the committee was as follows: Willie O’Dea (Fianna Fáil), Billy Timmins (Fine Gael), Liz MacManus (Labour), Éamonn Ryan (Greens), Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Sinn Féin) and Tony Gregory (Independent, representing the Dáil’s ‘technical group’).
I am grateful to Mr Jerry Kelleher of the Department of the Taoiseach for this information. See also the statement made by the Taoiseach, Dáil debates , vol. dcxviii, 25 April 2006, col. 9.
For more details of the route see the daily press on Saturday and Sunday 16–17 April 2006.
The guest list was divided between leading state functionaries and members of the diplomatic corps, relatives of Volunteers killed during the Rising, and members of the defence forces and gardai who had died while on duty with the United Nations.
Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP member of parliament, spoke of the Rising as ‘an act of terrorism directed against the British state’, Irish Times 17 March 2006. Michael Copeland, a spokesman for the UUP, spoke of the event in similar terms: ‘It heralded the end of the long and honourable tradition of constitutional Irish nationalism and brought to the fore the blood-sacrifice ethos of armed republicanism which led directly to the partition of this island and the Irish civil war.’ The irony of such a comment, bearing in mind the vituperative contemporary criticism of the Irish party by northern unionists, the formation of the UVF from within their ranks, and their support for partition during the debate over home rule, was apparent to many south of the border. See also the Irish News , 7 March 2006.
Interview with Anna Pas, of the Polish Express magazine, quoted in the Irish Times , 15 April 2006.
It noted that the ‘British fought for the independence of other small European countries but did not recognise the needs of a nation, just across the Irish sea, which had fought for its independence for years already’, and ‘When the first executions started, when hundreds went to detention camps in Wales and prisons in England, Irish people woke up from the malaise that had lasted for years. The Rising was a spark, which started a fire known later as the War of Independence.’ Polish Express , April 2006. I am indebted to Ms Bozena Cierlik, of the Department of History, UCC, for her help in translating this piece.
Dáil Debates , vol. dcxv, 23 February 2006, cols. 970–71. See also the favourable response given by Minister O’Dea at that time, Ibid .
Dáil debates , vol. dcxviii, 25 April 2006, cols. 15–16.
Such criticisms had been aired intermittently ever since the original árd fheis announcement. Gay Mitchel, the Fine Gael MEP, equated Ahern’s action with the statement by Louis XIV, ‘l’état c’est moi’ ( Irish Times , 31 October 2005), while his party colleague Billy Timmins TD denounced the nature of the announcement as amounting to ‘bread and circuses’ (Dáil Debates, vol. dcix, 3 November 2005, col. 614). Liz McManus TD, deputy leader of the Labour party, was also critical, and suggested that the arrangements amounted to Fianna Fáil ‘trying to claim Irish history as their own’. Irish Times , 18 February 2006.
See the Irish Times and Irish Independent 14 April 2006.
Evening Echo , 13 April 2004. The series of articles in the Echo during the week prior to the parade are particularly interesting.
See, for example, his speech on 6 April at the unveiling at the Curragh camp of a granite stone honouring the signatories of the Proclamation. Therein he re-iterated one of the principal motifs of the commemoration, that is, the role of defence forces, through the United Nations, in assisting other small war-torn nations ‘to achieve the peace and freedom which we ourselves long sought’. See the ‘Speeches’ section of the Department of Defence website, www.defence.ie.
See the Village , 13–19 April 2006, for an article by Vincent Browne on O’Dea’s role.
Irish Times , 30 March 2006.
A brief report of the speech can be found in the Irish Examiner , 6 May 2006. In addition to these ministerial level interventions one should also note that numerous Fianna Fáil cumann arranged commemorative events at various locations around the country, as did constituency organisations for the other political parties.
See his article in the Irish Times , Tuesday 11 April, wherein he described as ‘self-indulgent’ attempts to ‘rubbish’ the ‘patriotism or sacrifices’ of the insurgents. ‘In a liberal democracy such as ours,’ he wrote, ‘there are no mandates from history’ – a reference, possibly, to the ‘dead generations’ cited by the Proclamation as well as the more obvious target, Provisional Sinn Féin.
See the insightful article by Pól Ó Muirí in the Irish Times 28 October 2005, which noted the discomfiture of the opposition parties in the wake of Ahern’s árd fheis speech, and the fact that there existed ‘a constituency who are far more comfortable wearing the green than respectable newspapers might have us believe’. Also the article on the same theme by Eoin Ó Murchu in the Village , 13–19 April 2006.
The speech can be accessed in the ‘News’ section of the party’s website, www.finegael.ie.
Evening Echo ¸ 14 April 2006. Note should also be made here of the party’s decision to mark the centenary of the foundation of Sinn Féin in 1906, as well as the formation in October 2006 by its members of the Collins 22 society, whose function was to preserve the memory of Michael Collins. See the Irish Times , 26 November 2005.
See the ‘Foreword’ by Pat Rabbitte in the collection of essays, Liberty 1916–2006 , edited by Pádraig Yeates and jointly produced by the Labour party and SIPTU, April 2006, p. 5.
It is worth noting here that some weeks after the Easter commemoration events, SIPTU announced that it was to assist in the funding of a feature film on the life of James Connolly ( Irish Times , 13 May 2006 and Village , 1–7 June 2006). A full listing of the activities undertaken under the auspices of the Liberty project can be found in the ‘Campaigns’ section of the Labour party’s website, www.labour.ie. The SDLP was the only party with elected representatives in Northern Ireland to send a full delegation, including its party leader, to the parade. Finally, one should note the good-humoured re-enactment of the march of the Irish Citizen Army from Liberty Hall to the GPO, undertaken on Monday 17 April by the Dublin City Pavement Pageants Collective, with the willing participation of Labour TDs Liz McManus and Joe Costello, and the independent TD Tony Gregory.
Irish Times , 18 February 2006. The call was echoed by the Conservative party in Britain, Belfast Telegraph , 3 April 2006.
Irish Independent , 23 February 2006
See, for example, O’Riordan, Manus and Devine, Francis, James Connolly, Liberty Hall and the 1916 Rising , ILHS, Studies in Irish labour history no 11, Dublin, 2006, and O’Riordan, Manus, James Connolly reassessed: the Irish and European context , Aubane, Cork, 2006.
See the comments by the party’s leader, Trevor Sergeant, during his address to the party’s annual conference, that the government was a ‘disgrace to the men and women of 1916 and the principles of sovereignty and equality for which they died’. Irish Independent , 25 March 2006.
Irish Examiner , 17 April 2006.
Dáil Debates , vol. dcxv, 23 February 2006, cols. 967–68.
Ibid ., vol. dcxviii, 25 April 2006, col. 15.
During the spring of 2006 An Phoblacht , the party’s newspaper, noted the activities undertaken to mark the Rising, although more attention was devoted to the party’s commemoration of the twenty fifth anniversary of the hunger strikes of 1981.
Irish Times , 4 February 2006.
Irish Times , 9 February 2006.
Irish Independent , 17 March 2006.
Irish Times , 11 February 2006.
Sunday Independent , 26 February 2006.
Ibid ., 16 April 2004.
Evening Echo , 11 April 2006.
Sunday Independent , 16 April 2006.
The party was represented by 2 MPs, a TD and an MEP.
Sunday Independent , 19 February 2006.
Dáil Debates , vol. dcxviii, 25 April 2006, col. 12. A less sympathetic response to the predicament of the provisional movement when faced by the state’s ceremonies was articulated by Fine Gael Senator Brian Hayes, who remarked: ‘Was it not great to see, for once, the goose stepping black beret brigade put into the second division?’ Seanad Debates , vol. clxxxiii, 26 April 2006, col. 674.
Connell, Joseph, Where’s where in Dublin: a directory of historic locations, 1913–23 , Four Courts, Dublin, 2006.
In Carlow, for example, a ceremony was held to honour the memory of Michael O’Hanrahan, one of the executed leaders of 1916 and a native of the town. It consisted of a laying of wreaths, the playing of the national anthem and the last post, and a minute’s silence. See Carlow People , 30 May 2006 and the Nationalist , 2 June 2006.
Reviews of the books mentioned here appeared in many different newspapers and journals during the period in question. Among the more noteworthy are those that appeared in the Guardian , 24 September 2005; Irish Independent , 15 April 2006, Irish Times , 13 May 2006, and History Ireland , vol. xiv, no. 2, March–April 2006, pp. 63–72.
Foy, Michael and Barton, Brian, The Easter Rising , Sutton, Stroud, 2004.
Townshend, Charles, Easter 1916: the Irish rebellion , Allen Lane, London, 2005.
Coogan, Tim Pat, 1916: the Easter Rising , Phoenix, London, 2005.
Hegarty, Shane and O’Toole, Fintan, The Irish Times book of the 1916 Rising , Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 2006. It is a pity that the newspaper did not see fit to re-issue its superb 1916 rebellion handbook, which contains enormous amounts of otherwise difficult to obtain source material, including transcripts of the royal commissions into the Rising and the shooting of Francis Sheehy Skeffington. The work initially appeared in 1916, before being re-issued by Mourne River press, with an introduction by Damien Kiberd, in 1998.
Githens-Mazer, Jonathan, Myths and memories of the Easter Rising , IAP, Dublin, 2006.
Moran, James, Staging the Easter Rising: 1916 as theatre , CUP, Cork, 2005.
Ryan, Annie, Witness: inside the Easter Rising , Liberties, Dublin, 2005.
McGee, Owen, The IRB: the Irish Republican Brotherhood, from the Land League to Sinn Féin , Four Courts, Dublin, 2005.
FitzGerald, Garret (ed.), Desmond’s Rising: memoirs 1913 to Easter 1916 , Liberties, Dublin, 2006.
Redmond-Howard, L.G., Six days of the Irish republic , Aubane, Cork, 2006. Mention might also be made here of the pamphlet, also published by Aubane, Was 1916 a crime? , which contains correspondence on many aspects of the Rising culled from the Village magazine between July and December 2005.
Cronin, Seán, Our own red blood: the story of the 1916 Rising , IFP, Dublin, 2006.
Ferguson, Stephen, GPO staff in 1916 , An Post, Dublin, 2006; Jeffery, Keith, The GPO and the Easter Rising , IAP, Dublin, 2006. See also the Irish News , 6 April 2006.
Wheatley, Michael, Nationalism and the Irish party: provincial Ireland 1910–1916 , OUP, Oxford, 2005; Campbell, Fergus, Land and revolution: nationalist politics in the west of Ireland 1891–1921 , OUP, Oxford, 1921.
Coleman, Marie, County Longford and the Irish revolution 1910–1923 , IAP, Dublin, 2003.
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White, Gerry and O’Shea, Brendan, ‘Baptised in blood’: the formation of the Cork Brigade of the Irish Volunteers 1913–1916 , Mercier, Cork, 2005.
Hegarty Thorne, Kathleen, ‘They put the flag aflyin’: the Roscommon Volunteers 1916–1923 , Generation, Oregon, 2005.
Ebenezer, Lyn, Frongoch and the birth of the IRA , Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, Llanrwst, 2006. Even though it can hardly be said to have been inspired by the anniversary of the Rising, having been many years in gestation, the utmost praise is also due here for Seán McConville’s stunning Irish political prisoners, 1848–1922: theatres of war , Routledge, London, 2003, which has four chapters (pp. 405–605) dealing with aspects of the prison experiences, in all their varied incarnations, of the Easter insurgents.
Nevin, Donal, James Connolly: ‘a full life’ , Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 2005.