“You must not grieve for all this. We have preserved Ireland’s honour and our own”
Organised by a seven-man Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Rising began on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916 and lasted for six days.
Celebrating a vision
Joseph Mary Plunkett (Irish: Sesamh Máire Pluincéid) was an Irish nationalist, republican, poet, journalist, revolutionary and a leader of the 1916 Easter Rising
Thomas Clarke was born in Hampshire in the UK to Irish parents. They moved back to Dungannon when Thomas was 7 years old and the family spent the rest of his youth there. When he was 20, he joined the IRB and quickly rose to prominence, becoming head of the local IRB circle. He was […]
Thomas MacDonagh was born in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary, to Joseph MacDonagh, a schoolmaster, and Mary Parker. He grew up in a household filled with music, poetry and learning and was instilled with a love of both English and Irish culture from a young age. A member of the Gaelic League, he was a teacher and […]
Thomas Ashe trained as a teacher and worked as a school principal in Lusk, Co. Dublin. He was a poet, piper and talented singer and having being reared in the Gaeltacht in Kerry, was an avid supporter of the Irish language. This brought him to the governing body of the Gaelic League, he was also […]
Following the surrender Plunkett was held in Kilmainham Gaol, and faced a court martial.
Willie was very devoted to Pádraig and the brothers had a very close relationship.
In her biography of the 1916 proclamation signatory, Joseph Plunkett, Honor O Brolchain tells a fascinating story. A Dublin jeweller on the afternoon of May 3rd 1916 was attending to a young lady who was purchasing wedding bands. She bought two rings but seemed very upset. When he asked her what the matter was she […]
Spring and Fall bookend the season of flourishing and withering, and so it is the title of Gerard Manley Hopkins address to a young girl, who laments the passing of the multitudes of leaves in autumn. In this poem the author questions a child, Margaret, over the cause of her grief. She grieves over the […]
Thomas MacDonagh was born in Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary in 1878 to schoolteacher parents. His parents were not supporters of nationalist politics and in fact the young Thomas was not interested in the burgeoning Irish language movements of the time. Like his parents he went into teaching. He also became involved in the cultural and literal […]