![]() ![]() Who remembers, for example, that the rebels had to club (and sometimes shoot) their way through irate Dublin civilians during the first days of the Rising to take up their positions? Yet these less-than-inspiring details are also part of the Rebellion’s story as re-told here by McGarry. If its symbols are well known, however, some of the less heroic aspects of the Rising are less well remembered. Even now, the idea of heroic but failed struggle in 1916 touches something powerful in the Irish nationalist psyche. These images helped to build a revolutionary separatist movement in the years after the Rising and to propel nationalist Ireland into armed confrontation with the British state in 1919-1921. ![]() The gruesome execution of James Connolly, tied to a chair to face the firing squad. The battle at Mount Street, where 12 Volunteers held off a regiment. The green-uniformed Volunteers, huddled inside the burning GPO, fighting off the massed forces of Empire outside. Part of this may be down to the potent imagery it left us. But as a symbol – a resurrection of the idea of a defiant “Ireland”, fighting “England”, the historical oppressor – it was, and remains, stunningly successful. As an attempt to seize power it was woefully unsuccessful, incompetent even. Historian Peter Hart, quoted in Fearghal McGarry’s new book on the Easter Rising, describes the insurrection as, “performance art”. You can listen to Fearghal talk about his book here. ![]()
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