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| Irish General History |
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An historical footnote ... When I started At Swim, early in the 1990s, the story of the Easter Rising was a forgotten back-alley of history. Now there are organised walking tours in Dublin commemorating it. Any number of books have been published on the subject in the last ten years, both fiction and history (as though the latter weren't the former). There are websites galore: just try googling "1916 easter rising dublin ireland" and you'll come up with more matches than you could reasonably wish for. Read more ...
Names ... Doyle, Mack, MacMurrough.
Eva’s Garden Fête ... Who are the strange guests?
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Introducing Irish History: A Web-Text ... an introduction to Irish history using images, audio, maps, even interactive quizzes. The best intro I’ve come across on the web. From the Irish Literary Studies Department at Washington and Lee University.
Ireland’s History in Maps ... a surprisingly informative site.
The A to Z of Ancient Ireland ... Everything you could wish to know about Celtic Ireland, from Airbe Druad (the druid’s hedge) to the use of Yew Sticks and the Irish Zodiac.
The Irish Race in the Past and the Present by Rev. Aug. J. Thebaud, S.J. A Victorian history book by a good Jesuit, but indicative of the triumphalist history that was taught in Ireland, or rather preached, up until my own schooldays. And all the while the world was knocking at the gate ... Download it here from Project Gutenberg, or read it online at ManyBooks.net.
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| 1916, The Easter Rising |
The Events of Easter Week ... as summarised by the Irish Times “Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook”. Published 1916.
Dublin Flames Kindled A Nation’s Spirit ... fifty years on, from the Irish Independent 1966 anniversary supplement.
The Insurrection in Dublin ... a contemporary eye-witness account from the Irish poet and novelist James Stephens. Published 1916.
The Proclamation ... Text of the Proclamation of an Irish Republic, as delivered by Pearse on the steps of the GPO.
Easter 1916 ... The “Terrible Beauty” poem by WB Yeats.
Chronology: Ireland 1915–1923
A note on terminology ... Rising is the usual term in Ireland, though it seems Uprising is more common abroad. At the time, many considered it a Rebellion, and it was frequently called that, both officially by the authorities and familiarly by Dubliners. But Rebellions, of their nature, are unlawful: they are seen to have failed. Thus we have Rising, or even Revolution. For a time, indeed, it seemed those young men and women might have worked a Revolution in Ireland. For a time. But that, truly, is another story ...
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The Easter Rising from the BBC. Here you can “explore the events leading up to 1916, the Insurrection itself and its aftermath, through essays, photographs, sound archive, music and newspapers from the period.” A very good introduction.
The Easter Rising, Dublin 1916 – a feature article from FirstWorldWar.com
1916 The Rising ... a more traditional viewpoint from the Fianna site at Rootsweb.com.
Contemporary postcards of the Easter Rising, ex IslandIreland.com.
A Photo Tour of Easter Rising locations, again from the Fianna site.
And here's the real thing, The 1916 Historical Walking Tour of Dublin Next time you’re in Dublin you can treat yourself to this tour. In the meantime, check out the website for a brief outline of people, organizations and events surrounding the Rising – often shady and always confusing. Shady and confusing, it should be remembered, as much to people at the time as to interested readers now.
Eye-witness and Participant Accounts of the Easter Rising from Kevin Finlay’s wonderful site on all things Dublin. |
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| Ireland and the Great War |
The “Dublins” in the Dardanelles ... from the Kildare Observer, November 27, 1915. A contemporary account of the landings at Gallipoli, from a letter home written by “A Tough” of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. The “7th Battalion”, mentioned in the text, was Gordie’s battalion – Gordie, in At Swim, being Mr Mack’s son and Jim’s older brother. I have laced the text with recruiting posters of the period.
John Condon ... The youngest soldier on the Allied side to die in WWI. He was just coming up to his 14th birthday when a gas attack at Ypres killed him. He was from County Waterford, in south-east Ireland. This recent newspaper report, by the interesting Irish journalist, Kevin Myers, tells something of John Condon, but far more of the neglect in Ireland of those Irish people – men and boys and women – who served in the Great War, and of the cruel disregard of their memory.
An Irish Airman foresees his Death ... Yeats’s poem in memoriam to Lady Gregory’s son, who died in the Great War. |
Remembering the Great War ... A site from the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association on Ireland and the Great War, with remembrances, stories, and notes on Irish Battalions in the British Army. (The Royal Dublin Fusiliers was Mr Mack’s old regiment.)
Kildare Observer ... More contemporary articles which give a flavour of how a local Irish newspaper, in a county just outside Dublin, reported the First World War.
Islandbridge War Memorial ... Dublin’s Great War memorial, a beautiful unfrequented place, designed by Lutyens. From Architecture Éire.
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| Connolly, Larkinism and the Lock-Out |
Larkinism, to be brutally brief, was the industrial organizing of unskilled workers, still a revolutionary concept in Dublin 1913. The Lock-Out was the employers' response to this, a resolve to starve the poorest third of Dublin’s people into submission. Dublin at the time was recognized to have the worst slums in Europe. The 1912 edition of the Encylopaedia Britannica commented that Dublin’s slums were worse even than Calcutta’s. You may wonder what was the response of Dublin Corporation to this – were they shamed at long last into meaningful action? Too true they were: they took Encyclopaedia Britannica to court, and sued for libel. The Lock-Out was a seminal struggle in Dublin’s history. It militarized the workers. And it is the event which, throughout At Swim, Doyler hearkens back to, and wishes – sometimes, romantically, pretends – he took part in.
The Great Lock-Out of 1913 ... Chapter 17 of The Life and Times of James Connolly, by C. Desmond Greaves. The event in full.
Prometheus Hibernica – Chapter Twelve from Drums Under The Windows, the third volume of Sean O’Casey’s autobiographies, sadly neglected masterpieces that they are. Here, Sean hears the trumpet-tongue of Jim Larkin; and he joins the Union.
To the Masters of Dublin ... AE’s celebrated open letter, published in the Irish Times, November 7, 1913. AE was the pen-name of George Russell, poet, artist, mystic, founder of the Co-Operative Movement in Ireland.
September 1913 ... Yeats’s poem, in part a response to the rapacity of the Lock-Out employers.
James Connolly ... a memoir by William O’Brien, close friend and colleague of Connolly.
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The Lock-Out – Dublin 1913 A brief overview.
The James Connolly Society of Canada and the United States – a document archive holding many of Connolly’s articles and speeches as published in his various newspapers, chief amongst them the Workers’ Republic.
CELT – Corpus of Electronic Texts, from University College, Cork. Holds a selection of Irish historical texts, amongst them Connolly’s longer works, Labour in Irish History and Socialism Made Easy.
Glorious Dublin! – from Forward, 4 October 1913. A good introduction to Connolly’s journalistic style and his street wit.
The Dublin Lock-Out and Its Sequel – from the Workers’ Republic, 29 May 1915.
Connolly Ain’t Nothing but a Train Station in Dublin – an interesting article on “The Expropriation of James Connolly’s Revolutionary Legacy by Irish Republicanism”; written by Jacqueline Dana.
James Connolly ... a short biography, by John Horan.
"The Delphi Air"
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