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Authors: Marie Coleman
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279–80).
The final death toll from judicial executions reached the iconic figure of 16, when Roger Casement was hanged for high treason in London on 3 August. Efforts to seek clemency on his behalf were damaged by a smear campaign highlighting his homosexual activities, including the alleged use of rent boys. Two high-profile commutations took place in the cases of Markievicz, because of her sex, and de Valera, possibly as a result of his American birth but also because his trial and court martial took place later than those of the other commanders and by that time public and political outrage and theensuing political fall-out had forced their cessation; de Valera himself was adamant that the latter reason was the true explanation for his reprieve (Ferriter, 2007: 28–9).
By the time the last executions took place, the severity of the British response to the Rising was beginning to have an effect on turning public opinion towards sympathy with the rebels. In the House of Commons on 11 May John Dillon delivered a scathing attack on the British actions. Although no supporter of the rebels, he commended the actions of ‘three thousand men’ in facing ‘twenty thousand with machine guns and artillery’ and contrasting their bravery with that of the British Army at the front: ‘it would be a damned good thing for you if your soldiers were able to put up as good a fight as did those men in Dublin’ [Doc. 7] . Dillon realised the effect that these repressive measures would have in generating support for republicanism at the expense of constitutional nationalism.
By late May and early June it was clear that the tide of public opinion had turned in favour of the rebels. Memorabilia commemorating the executed leaders were on sale in Dublin and masses were held to pray for them (Wills, 2009: 105–8). The details of some of the executions added to the sense of martyrdom and romance surrounding the rebels, such as the badly injured James Connolly having to be propped up in a siting position to face the firing squad and the marriage of Joseph Plunkett to his fiancée, Grace Gifford, on the eve of his execution.
By early 1917 the tragedy of the Rising was becoming established in Irish literature, with the composition of W. B. Yeats's elegiac poem Easter 1916 (not published widely until 1920). The resonant conclusion that all had ‘changed, changed utterly’ and a ‘terrible beauty’ had been born, has become an iconic statement of how Irish public opinion was transformed by the British response to the Rising. While the Rising inspired many other literary celebrations and commemorations, it has also been criticised in literature, most notably in Seán O’Casey's The Plough and the Stars . As a former member of the ICA, O’Casey's plays focused on how the political events of the decade impacted on the mundane lives of Dublin city's poorest class of tenement dwellers. In The Plough and the Stars , the juxtaposition of prostitution, poverty and drunkenness with the Rising, the illustration of its detrimental impact on local tenement dwellers and the clearly satirical commentary on the ideals of its leaders provoked nationalist fury leading to angry protests during its first run in the Abbey Theatre in 1926 (Wills, 2009: 146–51).
The British Government tried to moderate the adverse impact of its harsh repression of the Rising by introducing home rule in the summer of 1916. The task was delegated to David Lloyd George, the Minister of Munitions. John Redmond secured the agreement of the majority of his supporters to the deal, which would have excluded the six Ulster counties with the largestProtestant populations. However, the talks failed due to Lloyd George’s duplicity in giving contradictory promises to each side as to whether or not the exclusion of the Ulster counties would be permanent and because of the opposition of southern unionists ( Jackson, 2003: 166–72). This episode is important for representing the point
The final death toll from judicial executions reached the iconic figure of 16, when Roger Casement was hanged for high treason in London on 3 August. Efforts to seek clemency on his behalf were damaged by a smear campaign highlighting his homosexual activities, including the alleged use of rent boys. Two high-profile commutations took place in the cases of Markievicz, because of her sex, and de Valera, possibly as a result of his American birth but also because his trial and court martial took place later than those of the other commanders and by that time public and political outrage and theensuing political fall-out had forced their cessation; de Valera himself was adamant that the latter reason was the true explanation for his reprieve (Ferriter, 2007: 28–9).
By the time the last executions took place, the severity of the British response to the Rising was beginning to have an effect on turning public opinion towards sympathy with the rebels. In the House of Commons on 11 May John Dillon delivered a scathing attack on the British actions. Although no supporter of the rebels, he commended the actions of ‘three thousand men’ in facing ‘twenty thousand with machine guns and artillery’ and contrasting their bravery with that of the British Army at the front: ‘it would be a damned good thing for you if your soldiers were able to put up as good a fight as did those men in Dublin’ [Doc. 7] . Dillon realised the effect that these repressive measures would have in generating support for republicanism at the expense of constitutional nationalism.
By late May and early June it was clear that the tide of public opinion had turned in favour of the rebels. Memorabilia commemorating the executed leaders were on sale in Dublin and masses were held to pray for them (Wills, 2009: 105–8). The details of some of the executions added to the sense of martyrdom and romance surrounding the rebels, such as the badly injured James Connolly having to be propped up in a siting position to face the firing squad and the marriage of Joseph Plunkett to his fiancée, Grace Gifford, on the eve of his execution.
By early 1917 the tragedy of the Rising was becoming established in Irish literature, with the composition of W. B. Yeats's elegiac poem Easter 1916 (not published widely until 1920). The resonant conclusion that all had ‘changed, changed utterly’ and a ‘terrible beauty’ had been born, has become an iconic statement of how Irish public opinion was transformed by the British response to the Rising. While the Rising inspired many other literary celebrations and commemorations, it has also been criticised in literature, most notably in Seán O’Casey's The Plough and the Stars . As a former member of the ICA, O’Casey's plays focused on how the political events of the decade impacted on the mundane lives of Dublin city's poorest class of tenement dwellers. In The Plough and the Stars , the juxtaposition of prostitution, poverty and drunkenness with the Rising, the illustration of its detrimental impact on local tenement dwellers and the clearly satirical commentary on the ideals of its leaders provoked nationalist fury leading to angry protests during its first run in the Abbey Theatre in 1926 (Wills, 2009: 146–51).
The British Government tried to moderate the adverse impact of its harsh repression of the Rising by introducing home rule in the summer of 1916. The task was delegated to David Lloyd George, the Minister of Munitions. John Redmond secured the agreement of the majority of his supporters to the deal, which would have excluded the six Ulster counties with the largestProtestant populations. However, the talks failed due to Lloyd George’s duplicity in giving contradictory promises to each side as to whether or not the exclusion of the Ulster counties would be permanent and because of the opposition of southern unionists ( Jackson, 2003: 166–72). This episode is important for representing the point
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