Tagged with Easter rising …

Crisis in the Courts after 1916

Crisis in the Courts after 1916

After the Rising bridges the gap between May 1916 and the Truce in mid-1921.During this period the justice system appeared to be in constant crisis as the authorities struggled to deal with the growing insurrection in the years following the Easter Rebellion. Continue reading →

The Quixotic Generation of 1916

The Quixotic Generation of 1916

What is most striking to me about the pre-Rising Irish middle-class is its freewheeling bohemian character: romantic advanced nationalism provided many fora (meetings, dance-floors, remote country language camps, amateur and professional theatrical stages, communist communes) for debating and living secularism, feminism, suffragism, even vegetarianism and lesbianism. Continue reading →

The Humanism of 1916

  A Feature by Desmond Fennell I believe the best way to honour the men of 1916 is to recall periodically what they were about and to consider its continuing relevance to us. Those who were articulate—who wrote and spoke for all of them—were  by their own words humanists who directed their efforts to restoring … Continue reading →

Portrait of a patriot – Thomas Kent

Portrait of a patriot – Thomas Kent

A Book Review by Renée Huish Meda Ryan: 16 Lives: Thomas Kent, O’Brien Press, Dublin, 2016. ISBN: 9781847172655 RRP: €14.99 paperback; €10.99 ePub. In the wake of The Easter Rising in Ireland in April 1916 fourteen men were executed by firing squad at Kilmainham gaol in Dublin. Thomas Kent was executed in Cork. All the firing squad executions … Continue reading →

Commemorations and Protest Poetry

Commemorations and Protest Poetry

Many of the participating poets had been enthusiastic supporters of the Gaelic League – Irish language advocates, poets, playwrights, newspaper writers on cultural and socialist matters. Their loss must have been a severe one to the emergent Free State. Continue reading →