The First World War as an opportunity for Rebellion
Some of the Irish republicans viewed the First World War, as a great opportunity to end British rule in Ireland and the Easter Rising was to be their greatest effort to achieve that. Sir Roger Casement even went as far as trying to secure German funds and supplies for his Irish National Volunteers although they did not think the prospects of success were great (Warner, 1995, p.92). The majority of the Irish population supported the British war effort with moderate nationalists volunteering in many thousands to fight in the war.
By 1915 79,511 Irish Catholics were serving in the British Army (Carver, 1998, p.137). The First World War put the debates over Home Rule on hold until its end. Republican groups such as Sinn Fein and the Gaelic League seemed almost insignificant and not capable of threatening British rule with the Irish public heartily supporting the war.
The launch of the Easter Rising
The motives for launching the Easter Rising are obvious even if other aspects of it are not; to end British rule in Ireland by launching a rebellion that would turn into a revolution and create a free Irish republic. It would be the methods and tactics employed to bring about such ends that have caused the debates. The Irish Republican Brotherhood leadership was inspired by the myths of previous rebellions especially that of 1798. They would have also known that the chances of military victory were remote whilst the chances of being crushed by the British Army were high. They could hope that the British Army would not intervene in time or refuse to mobilise as they had done when ordered to move against the Ulster Volunteer Force in Ulster during the Home Rule crisis in Ulster (Foy & Barton, 1999, p.1). Ironically enough the inspiration for the paramilitary nature of the IRB and the Citizens Army was the Ulster Volunteer Force that had demonstrated en masse against Home Rule (Moody & Martin, 2001, pp.255-56).
Thomas Clarke, Sean McDermott and Patrick Pearse were the main organisers of the Easter Rising, which took 18 months of planning. They brought themselves public supports for campaigning against the Irish fighting in a war being fought by Britain yet was claiming thousands of Irish lives. These leaders of the Easter Rising prided themselves in being a small zealous minority, a vanguard of a free Ireland (Foy & Barton, 1999, pp.10-11).
Failed Rising and misguided British Retribution
Two elements would make those that died during and after the Easter Rising into the posthumous vanguard of the Irish revolution and cause historiographical debate ever since. In all the death toll, from the Easter Rising was 450 with a further 2614 injured. Of the dead, 318 were rebels or civilians caught in the crossfire with the remainder being from the British security forces. Rebel losses were high partly because they had decided to fight to keep the positions they had won such as the Post Office, partly due to the firepower the British were able to deploy (Comfort, 1993, p.173).
The first element in making the Easter Rising significant at the time and in historiographical debate was inadvertent. The British Army court marshalled 90 of the leading survivors and had 15 of them executed, making them potent martyrs for the Irish republican cause. The British government did not have the sense to stop the executions and made them even less popular by considering conscription to be introduced to Ireland. Whether tried before a civil or military court the rebels would have undoubtedly being convicted. However having them court marshalled which needed less evidence to secure a conviction and denied them the right to defend themselves in public seemed unfair to many Irish people (Carver, 1998, p.138).
There was also some concern that the British Army was covering up the deaths of Irish civilians that had no part in the fighting, although the British Army managed to avoid any of its men being put on trial (Foy and Barton, 1999 p. 191).
One man who was reprieved from the firing squad by virtue of his American citizenship was Eamon De Valera (Pearce, 1992, pp.24-25). De Valera was to play the key role in the second element that ensured that the Easter Rising was not a meaningless sacrifice of lives, coming up with effective republican propaganda to increase support for a greater uprising. As De Valera spent much of the subsequent couple of years in jail he entrusted the task of finding a military strategy to defeat the British to Michael Collins whilst making Sinn Fein the most popular party in Southern Ireland. Collins learnt the lessons of the military failure of the Easter Rising well. Instead of gaining and attempting to hold onto symbolic or strategic targets the IRA used bombings, ambushes and kidnappings to tie down the British forces (Kennedy-Pipe 1998 p. 16).
Bibliography
Carver, Field Marshall (1998) Britain’s Army in the 20th Century, Pan strategy guides, London
Comfort, N (1993) Brewer’s Politics – A Phase and Fable Dictionary, Cassell, London
Fitzpatrick, D (1998) The Two Irelands 1912-1939, Oxford University Press, Oxford
Foy M and Barton B (1999) The Easter Rising, Sutton Publishing, Stroud
Kennedy-Pipe C (1998) The Origins of the Present troubles in Northern Ireland, Longman, London and New York
O’Carroll J P and Murphy JA (1983) De Valera and his times, Cork University Press, University College, Cork
Pearce R (1992) Britain - Domestic Politics 1918-39, Hodder & Stoughton, London
Warner P (1995) World War One – a narrative, Cassell, London
