The ‘Sixteen Dead Men’ about whom Yeats wrote his poem in the aftermath of the Easter Rising were a diverse group. Ranging in age from twenty-five to fifty-eight, their occupations included headmaster, tobacconist, poet, railway clerk, university lecturer, printer, humanitarian, water bailiff, art teacher, silk weaver, corporation clerk, farmer, trade union leader, bookkeeper, chemist’s clerk and newspaper manager. Two of the leaders were born outside Ireland: Thomas Clarke in the unlikely location of a British Army barracks on the Isle of Wight, James Connolly in the Irish ghetto of Edinburgh. Some had complicated national and religious identities: Patrick and Willie Pearse were the sons of an English stone carver, Thomas MacDonagh’s mother was the daughter of English parents, Roger Casement was raised a Protestant but secretly baptised a Catholic by his mother, and John MacBride was the son of an Ulster-Scots Protestant from Co. Antrim. Others had close links with the institutions of British imperialism that they would later fight against: Michael Mallin and James Connolly were former soldiers in the British Army, Éamonn Ceannt was the son of a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) constable and Roger Casement had been knighted for his services as a British consul exposing the dark side of the rubber trade in the Congo and Peru.
This group of men, who participated in an armed rebellion against British rule in Ireland in April 1916, came to the point of insurrection by a variety of pathways. For many of them, their revolutionary instinct had developed at a young age. Thomas Kent was in his early twenties when he was imprisoned for his activities with the Land League in Co. Cork in the late nineteenth century, Michael O’Hanrahan grew up hearing stories of his ancestors’ involvement in the 1798 rebellion in Co. Wexford, Edward Daly was born into a Limerick family prominent in the Fenian movement, Con Colbert and Seán Heuston were members of the nationalist youth organisation Na Fianna Éireann, and Seán Mac Diarmada’s republican politics were nurtured by his national schoolteacher, who provided him with books on Irish history.
For some, the declaration of an Irish Republic on 24 April 1916 was the culmination of a lifetime’s struggle. Thomas Clarke had become active in the secret revolutionary organisation the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) as a young man and had served fifteen years’ imprisonment for his involvement in the preparations for a Fenian bombing campaign in Britain; James Connolly had devoted his adult life to improving conditions for working-class people in Scotland, Ireland and America, and was a long-standing advocate of the establishment of a socialist Irish republic. But for others, the conversion to radical nationalism came late. Patrick Pearse was a speaker at a pro-Home Rule rally as late as March 1912, Éamonn Ceannt’s nationalist activities were mostly confined to the Irish language movement until he was elected to the Provisional Committee of the Irish Volunteers in November 1913, while Thomas MacDonagh was not co-opted onto the Supreme Council of the IRB until shortly before the Easter Rising.
Seven of the executed leaders of the rebellion sealed their fate by signing the Proclamation of the Irish Republic shortly before the outbreak of the Rising. The document, which declared ‘the right of the Irish people to the ownership of Ireland’ and which guaranteed ‘religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens’, was read aloud by Patrick Pearse outside the General Post Office (GPO) on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) shortly after noon on Easter Monday. Pearse was president of the provisional government and commander-in-chief of the army of the Irish Republic. He was accompanied by Thomas Clarke, the mastermind of the rebellion, who was invited to be the first signatory of the Proclamation in deference to his contribution to the Fenian movement since the late 1870s. Also present was James Connolly, a fellow signatory and commandant-general of the forces of the Irish Republic in Dublin. Two other signatories were also stationed in the GPO, the headquarters of the rebel forces: Joseph Plunkett, the military strategist of the rebellion, who was dying from tuberculosis, and Seán Mac Diarmada, Clarke’s right-hand man, whose involvement in the action was restricted by lameness in his right leg caused by a bout of polio. The remaining two signatories were in command of outposts in the south-west of Dublin city. Thomas MacDonagh, commandant of the 2nd Battalion, Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, saw relatively little action at his position at Jacob’s biscuit factory on Bishop Street. By contrast, Éamonn Ceannt, commandant of the 4th Battalion, was involved in intense fighting during Easter Week at the South Dublin Union, a workhouse and hospital complex in the Rialto area of the city.
For the other executed men, the extent of their involvement in the planning of the uprising and their participation in it varied greatly. Edward Daly, like MacDonagh and Ceannt, held the position of commandant of a Volunteer battalion, but he did not learn of the plans for the Easter Rising until the Wednesday before it was due to take place. His rank as commandant of the 1st Battalion, positioned in the area surrounding the Four Courts, ensured that his death sentence was carried out. Likewise Michael Mallin, who held the rank of commandant in Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army (ICA), faced the firing squad for his role in leading the rebel forces who seized the Royal College of Surgeons on St Stephen’s Green during Easter Week.
John MacBride was a veteran Fenian, but his alcoholism and humiliating divorce from Maud Gonne made him an outcast in republican circles and he was not involved in the planning of the Rising. His chance encounter with Irish Volunteers as they assembled at St Stephen’s Green on Easter Monday, while he was on his way to his brother’s wedding, led to his appointment by Thomas MacDonagh as second-in-command at Jacob’s. MacBride’s accidental participation in the rebellion, along with the British authorities’ longstanding resentment of his organisation of the Irish Brigade that fought against the British during the Boer War in South Africa, led to his execution in the Stonebreakers’ Yard of Kilmainham Gaol. Michael O’Hanrahan, who fought alongside MacBride in Jacob’s, held only the rank of quartermaster of the 2nd Battalion. His execution may have owed much to the fact that he was known to the police as a clerk working in the offices of the Irish Volunteers, but it is equally likely that it was due to the fact he was sentenced to death early on in the period of executions, before the tide of public opinion turned against the authorities. Similarly Con Colbert and Seán Heuston – who commanded smaller outposts at Jameson’s Distillery in Marrowbone Lane and the Mendicity Institution – were both executed on 8 May 1916, three days before John Dillon addressed the House of Commons and accused the British authorities of ‘letting loose a river of blood’ in their response to the uprising.
Willie Pearse’s participation in the Easter Rising came about entirely through his close relationship with his brother, Patrick. He was involved in the planning of it only insofar as he accompanied his brother to meetings, and throughout the rebellion he mostly acted as aide-de-camp to the newly appointed president of the Irish Republic in the GPO. Unique among the executed rebels, he pleaded guilty to the charge that he ‘did an act to wit take part in an armed rebellion and in the waging of war against His Majesty the King’. His guilty plea may have bolstered the case for his execution, but he certainly did not play a significant leadership role in the Rising, and his execution can be linked to the fact that he was the brother of the commandant of the rebels.
All fourteen rebels who were executed as a result of their participation in the Easter Rising in Dublin were shot in the Stonebreakers’ Yard at Kilmainham Gaol. Elsewhere, Thomas Kent faced a firing squad at Cork Detention Barracks and Roger Casement was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London. Although Kent faced the same charge as the Dublin men – participating in an armed rebellion – he was not a leader of the Easter Rising and there was little or no rebel activity in Co. Cork in April 1916. His execution was the result of a military raid on the Kent family home at Bawnard, during which a member of the RIC was fatally wounded. Roger Casement’s involvement in the Easter Rising was over before the rebellion had even started. Casement had been working in Germany to raise support for a rebellion in Ireland and was arrested on Banna Strand, Co. Kerry on Good Friday 1916, after an attempt to land arms for the rebellion failed. His hanging at Pentonville on 3 August 1916 brought to an end the executions of those involved in the Easter Rising.
The rebellion, which started in Dublin on 24 April 1916, was the outcome of a series of events that had begun with the introduction of a Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons on 11 April 1912 by the British prime minister, Herbert Asquith. This was the third attempt to legislate for self-government for Ireland since 1886. However, this time it appeared the efforts of the Liberal Party and their allies in government, the Irish Parliamentary Party, would be successful. The House of Lords had lost its power of veto on bills from the House of Commons in August 1911, and now the way was clear for the enactment of the Home Rule Bill within two years of its passing. The proposed introduction of Home Rule prompted strong opposition in parts of Ulster, with protests concentrated in the four counties in the north-east of the province. The majority unionist, Protestant population there was outraged by what they perceived as a threat to the union of Great Britain and Ireland. On 28 September 1912, Ulster Day, half a million people signed the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant, pledging to oppose the introduction of Home Rule. By the end of the year a volunteer militia, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), had formed to oppose Home Rule, by force if necessary.
The formation of the UVF prompted nationalists in the south of Ireland to imitate the Ulster unionists by setting up their own military force. The Irish Volunteers were founded at a meeting at the Rotunda Rink in Dublin on 25 November 1913. Unlike the UVF, however, their aim was to defend the introduction of Home Rule in Ireland.
The year 1913 had been an eventful one, particularly in Dublin. In August 1913 William Martin Murphy, a major Dublin employer, instigated an industrial dispute when he ‘locked out’ from their jobs employees who were members of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU). The subsequent strike, led by James Larkin and James Connolly, lasted until early 1914, during which time another volunteer militia, the ICA, was formed to protect the interests of workers.
Tensions were heightened in 1914 as the deadline for implementing Home Rule approached. In April 1914 the UVF landed arms at Larne, an event largely ignored by the authorities. The Irish Volunteers staged their own gun-runnings in July and August 1914 at Howth in Co. Dublin and Kilcoole in Co. Wicklow. Soldiers of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, returning to Dublin city centre after their efforts to prevent the landing of arms at Howth had failed, opened fire when a crowd on Bachelor’s Walk began to jeer them. They killed four civilians.
But the event that changed the course of history, and which made the Easter Rising possible, was the outbreak of war in Europe in August 1914. The immediate consequence for Ireland was the suspension of the implementation of Home Rule until after the war. On 20 September 1914 John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, made a speech at Woodenbridge in Co. Wicklow in which he encouraged members of the Irish Volunteers to join the British Army, in anticipation that Ireland would be rewarded with Home Rule at the end of the war. This prompted a split in the Irish Volunteers and the vast majority of the estimated 188,000 members followed Redmond and joined a new organisation, the National Volunteers. The remaining men, at most 13,500, stayed with the Irish Volunteers and were led by Eoin MacNeill.
The Irish Volunteers formed the nucleus of the men who would participate in the Easter Rising. At a meeting of key figures in the nationalist movement at the library of the Gaelic League on 9 September 1914, it was decided in principle to stage a rebellion against British rule while the war in Europe was ongoing. The old republican dictum ‘England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity’ became the mantra of radical Irish nationalists, including Thomas Clarke, who had long regretted the failure to have an uprising in Ireland during the Boer War, when the British Army was engaged in southern Africa. The planning of the rebellion was carried out by the secret oath-bound organisation, the IRB. Clarke and Mac Diarmada directed the course of events, rejuvenating the IRB with younger members, infiltrating other nationalist organisations such as the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), seeking financial assistance from republican figures in the United States and building a network of like-minded individuals around Ireland. An IRB military committee was formed. Its membership initially included only Pearse, Plunkett and Ceannt, but it was eventually expanded to include Clarke and Mac Diarmada.
By January 1916 preparations for a rising were under way. At this point senior IRB members became concerned that James Connolly, commander of the ICA, was planning on staging his own socialist uprising. Knowing that a small ICA rebellion would scupper plans for their larger rebellion, IRB leaders confronted Connolly. They persuaded him to hold back on his plans for an uprising, and Easter Sunday 1916 was agreed as the date for a joint ICA/Irish Volunteers rebellion.
Not everyone in the republican movement approved of a rebellion, however, not least Eoin MacNeill, president of the Irish Volunteers, and senior IRB figures Bulmer Hobson and Michael O’Rahilly. These men believed an uprising should only occur if there was a strong possibility of success or if the Volunteers were attacked first by the British. MacNeill was kept in the dark and did not learn of plans for the rebellion until the Thursday before Easter Sunday. When he heard on Holy Saturday of the sinking of a German ship carrying arms for the Volunteers off the coast of Co. Kerry, MacNeill decided he should stop the rebellion. Late that evening he issued a countermanding order, published in the Sunday Independent, cancelling all Volunteer manoeuvres for Easter Sunday. Chaos ensued, but at a meeting of the Supreme Council of the IRB at Dublin’s Liberty Hall on Easter Sunday, it was decided that the rebellion would take place the next day.
On the morning of Easter Monday, approximately 1,000 men and women seized control of important buildings across Dublin city, taking the GPO as their headquarters. The Irish Volunteers made up the largest proportion of the rebels and were reinforced by the ICA. It is estimated that 140 women were active participants in the Rising.1 Female members of the ICA were involved in the fighting, while members of Cumann na mBan, the female auxiliary force of the Irish Volunteers, participated by mostly acting as couriers, tending to the wounded and cooking meals for the rebel garrisons.
The effort to hold City Hall was over by Tuesday, but the rebels held on to most of their positions until the evacuation of the GPO on Friday. Overwhelmed by the strength of the British forces and seeking to prevent further civilian casualties, Pearse surrendered to Brigadier General W. H. M. Lowe at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday 29 April. The vast majority of the rebels were brought to Richmond Barracks, where the leaders were identified and court-martialled. Those considered to be ordinary rebels were transferred to Frongoch internment camp in Wales. In total, 186 men and one woman were tried by court martial in the aftermath of the Easter Rising.2 The death sentence was confirmed in fifteen cases and those who were spared execution were imprisoned in England.
The stories of the sixteen men executed following the Easter Rising are not, of course, the story of the entire rebellion. Other figures on the rebel side also played significant leadership roles. Éamon de Valera, commandant of the 3rd Battalion Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers at Boland’s Mills, was sentenced to death. He avoided execution, possibly because he held American citizenship but more likely because he was not court-martialled until 8 May, by which point the British authorities had decided to execute only the most prominent rebel leaders. Constance Markievicz, second-in-command at St Stephen’s Green, was also sentenced to death but spared the firing squad: the execution of a woman would have outraged public opinion. Other prominent rebels were killed in action, including Michael O’Rahilly, shot dead on Moore Street in the retreat from the GPO, Seán Connolly, who led the attack on City Hall and was killed there, and Michael Malone, who was in command at Mount Street Bridge during an attack on British reinforcements marching in from Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire).
In total, sixty-four rebels died in action during Easter Week and sixteen were executed. There were 132 casualties in the British Army and Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) and 230 civilians died as a result of the fighting. It is the stories of the men and women who participated in the rebellion, who witnessed it happening or who tried to suppress it, that make up the narrative of the Easter Rising. But the ‘Sixteen Dead Men’ who were executed for their part in the rebellion became the martyrs of Easter Week and provided the inspiration for the subsequent revolution in Ireland. Their stories did, as Yeats wrote, ‘stir the boiling pot’.