Washington, DC
Four weeks ago, I stood in the General Post Office on O’Connell Street in Dublin, a guest of the Irish government, to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Rising, one of the most seminal moments in modern Irish history. It was the same location where Padraig Pearse famously read the “Proclamation of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic’ in 1916 declaring Ireland’s independence from Great Britain. The failed rebellion lasted only six days, was initially opposed by many Irish citizens, but it changed Ireland forever. And the United States of America played a significant role in the extraordinary events that led to a free and independent Irish State.
When Pearse gave his historic speech one hundred years ago this Sunday, he declared that the Rising was “supported by her exiled children in America.” Five of the seven signatories of the Proclamation spent time in America which significantly influenced their thinking and actions. And many influential figures who helped organize and raise funds for the rebellion were either born or were living in the United States. So it is no small coincidence that the United States was the only other country specifically mentioned in the Proclamation. We had already shared a rich and interwoven past.
History reminds us that America’s influence on Ireland’s quest for independence and liberty goes back long before 1916. Remember that Charles Carroll, who signed the declaration of Independence, traced his roots to County Offaly, and was an early supporter of Irish self-determination. And that John Dunlap, who was the first printer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Strabane. The Secretary of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Charles Thompson, was born in County Derry. So the seeds of the Rising were being sown on both sides of the Atlantic far earlier that the 20th Century. And in the years that followed the Revolutionary War, the unique reeditlationship between the United States and Ireland only strengthened.
There was another seismic event that brought our two great countries closer together: An Gorta Mor – The Great Hunger. Between 1845 and 1852, approximately 1.5 million Irish men, women and children died of starvation or related disease. During the Famine years, at least three million people emigrated from Ireland to North America. The United States was becoming a refuge, a safe haven, the destination for Irish people struggling with economic, social, religious and political discrimination. Many of these people had a healthy dislike for the British government combined with a genuine determination to assist in any effort that led to Irish independence. In America, the children of An Gorta Mor were creating a nation in exile.
One of their leaders was John Devoy, the head of Clan na Gael in New York, the influential Irish republican organization that was also very active in Springfield. Devoy came to America in 1871 with Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, a founding member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Along with Roger Casement, they helped raise $100,000 for weapons to be used in the Rising which equals $2.5 million by today’s standards. Padraig Pearse called Devoy “the greatest of the Fenians” and the Times of London in its 1928 obituary described him as “the most dangerous enemy of England since Wolfe Tone.” These were some of the men in the United States who were laying the foundation of an independent Irish state.
But many women were playing an important role, too. A close reading of the Proclamation suggests that the summons for freedom was to both “Irishmen and Irishwomen.” Fanny Parnell, the sister of Charles Stewart Parnell, lived in Boston and was an outspoken supporter of Irish nationalism. She was known as a rebel poet who helped raise funds for her brother’s historic and important trips to America. Mary Osgood Childers, who was born to a prominent family from Beacon Hill, was an ardent Irish republican who was married to Erskine Childers. Together, they helped smuggle a cache of guns and ammunition on their boat to Irish rebels planning the Rising outside of Dublin. Their son, Erskine Hamilton Childers, would later be elected President of Ireland.
So it is clear the cause of the Irish Republic was being discussed and nurtured on both sides of the Atlantic. Planned for years, it was over in less than a week. During the brief conflict, 64 Irish rebels were killed, 132 British troops perished, and 254 civilians, including 40 children died. And when the British government executed 14 Irishmen who helped plan the Rising in May of 1916, including the seven signatories of the Proclamation, the course of Irish history was transformed. Inspired in part by our own Declaration of Independence, it was Thomas Clarke, Sean MacDiarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, Padraig Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt, James Connolly and Joseph Plunkett who ultimately sacrificed their lives for the cause of Irish freedom. And let’s not forget Constance Gore-Booth, later Countess Markievicz, who bravely defended St. Stephen’s Green for the Irish citizens army. These brave “Irishmen and Irishwoman” will remain in our collective memory for eternity.
In his powerful poem, Easter, William Butler Yeats, reflects on Ireland’s fight for independence. Yeats, like many other prominent Irish poets, writers, political activists, labor organizers and intellectuals, also spent time in the United States before 1916. On the 100th Anniversary of the Rising, in both America and Ireland, his words still ring true today:
I write it out in verse -??
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Congressman Neal is the Co-Chairman of the friends of Ireland Caucus in the United States House of Representatives and has worked to bring peace, justice and reconciliation to Ireland for more than three decades. He will give a speech on 1916 and America this Sunday, the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Rising, at the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum, 21 Edwards Street in Springfield. It is free and open to the public.
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