Editorial, The Revolution Papers, Issue no.1

‘REVOLUTION BREAKS OUT IN CITY’ EASTER WEEK, DAY BY DAY EASTER SUNDAY 23 APRIL 1916 EASTER MONDAY 24 APRIL 1916 TUESDAY 25 APRIL 1916 The order, cancelling the Easter Sunday mobilisation of the Irish Volunteers, appears in the Sunday Independent. Most Volunteers obey it. The IRB military council postpones the Rising until the next day. members of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army occupy certain buildings in Dublin city. Patrick Pearse reads the Proclamation of the Irish Republic outside the GPO and the Irish tricolour is hoisted on the roof. British troops, including the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, engage the rebels and begin to push them back. Lord Lieutenant Wimborne proclaims martial law in Dublin. A British gunboat ires on Boland’s Mill. Members of the Irish Citizen Army on the roof of Liberty Hall. Irish Independent News Editor’s daybook and diary for 1916. source: DCU MEDIA HISTORY A RCHIVEe REVIEW OF THE PRESS Rising to Revolution He cannot have known it at the time, but the Editor of the Irish Independent got it right when he scribbled these prophetic words across the newspaper’s diary for 24 April 1916. The Rising of Easter Monday was just the start: seven years of momentous change followed. It was the Irish Revolutionary Period, 1916-1923: a revolution that took the country along the road to independence. A rocky road Yet it was a rocky road, with bumps, diversions and collisions on the way. Although the Easter Rising was quickly suppressed, it nevertheless unleashed the force for change, a force which gathered unstoppable momentum as the second decade of the twentieth century drew to a close. All points of view The Revolution Papers is a new weekly publication that will cover these turbulent years of Irish history, from 1916 to 1923. Every week, for the next 52 weeks, The Revolution Papers will bring you the most important newspapers covering the most signiicant stories as the Irish Revolutionary Period unfolded. National and local newspapers; newspapers from south and north, republican, nationalist and unionist newspapers, banned newspapers, even Irish newspapers from America: The Revolution Papers will give you a comprehensive selection of sources. You will be able to read for yourself, from all points of view, about these historic events as they were making the news. But it’s not just the big stories you will read in these historic newspapers. You will also ind the curious, the quirky and the down-right bizarre. Expert commentary The newspapers from the revolutionary years are invaluable sources, but they are not objective history. They were susceptible to the biases of the Editors, newspaper-owners and politicians of the day. And, of course, they didn’t have the luxury of historical hindsight. It is for this reason that each edition of The Revolution Papers is accompanied by analysis and commentary from today’s leading experts on contemporary Irish history. Their articles will give you background and context when read alongside the historic newspapers. These are the newspapers that our grandparents and great-grandparents were reading. In this centenary year of the Rising, the beginning of the Irish Revolutionary Period, The Revolution Papers will give you a glimpse of what it was really like. The Irish Revolution: pivotal events April 1916: The Easter Rising. July 1916: post-Rising Home Rule talks collapse. April 1918: plan to conscript Irishmen into the British army faces combined opposition from Sinn Féin, Home Rulers, the Church and trade unions. December 1918: Sinn Féin wins majority of Irish seats in the UK general election. January 1919: Sinn Féin calls irst meeting of Dáil Éireann. January 1920: Royal Irish Constabulary enrols the irst ‘Black and Tans’. April 1920: IRA destroys 350 public buildings. November 1920: Bloody Sunday at Croke Park. June 1921: George V opens Northern Ireland parliament. July 1921: British Army and IRA agree a truce. December 1921: Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed. January 1922: Dáil Éireann approves Anglo-Irish Treaty, 64 to 57. June 1922: Attack on the Four Courts – Irish Civil War begins. August 1922: Michael Collins killed in County Cork. May 1923: IRA calls cease-ire – end of the Civil War. September 1923: Irish Free State joins the League of Nations. The Revolution Papers start your collection today AS THE CHAOS BEGINS TO CLEAR, THE JOUNALISTS TAKE TO THEIR TYPEWRITERS WHAT THE PAPERS SAY It was the biggest story of the year, but when the Rising broke out the newspaper business was thrown into turmoil. Cut telegraph lines, damaged premises and disrupted transport made life diicult for the journalist reporting on the historic events of Easter Week 1916. ‘I reland, in arms, ighting for freedom’. So ran the headline in the Gaelic American of Saturday, 29 April 1916. In fact, news of the Easter Rising in this New York-based weekly was well out of date by Saturday, as the paper had gone to press, as usual, on Wednesday. Litle could the Editor have known that by Saturday the rebels in Dublin would have surrendered and that the Rising in much of the rest of the country would have failed to materialise. A lot had changed in the space of a week. It all began on Easter Monday 24 April, when the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army occupied key buildings in Dublin city. Meanwhile, Patrick Pearse proclaimed an Irish Republic from the steps of the General Post Oice (GPO) on Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street). From the very start, the ability of the Irish press to report the Rising was severely disrupted. All but one of the Dublin-based dailies ceased publication due to the ighting. Only the Irish Times reported the Rising until it, too, closed on Friday. The fact that the rebels occupied the GPO and cut the telegraph and telephone lines meant that the press outside Dublin was not much beter of. It took days before substantial details of the Rising iltered out. ‘There are many things more horrible than bloodshed, and slavery is one of them’ PATRICK PEARSE Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Irish Republic (in The Coming Revolution) ‘I shall not hesitate to destroy all buildings within any area occupied by rebels’ GENERAL SIR JOHN MAXWELL Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in Ireland, arrived in Dublin on Friday 28 April From the north On Friday the Belfast Evening Telegraph had suicient information to devote its entire front page to the story. As a unionist paper it was unsurprising that the Telegraph regarded the Rising as a ‘sinister situation which is adding another dark chapter to the tragic, chequered history of this island’. Under the front page headline ‘Ireland under martial law’, they reported reaction in the British parliament to events in Dublin. In a rare moment of consensus, both John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and Edward Carson, the leader of the Irish Unionists, were in agreement when Redmond expressed his party’s ‘overwhelming feelings of disdain and horror with which they regarded these proceedings’. Proiling Ireland’s new military governor, the Telegraph noted approvingly that General Sir John Maxwell’s birthday coincided ‘with the historic date of July 12’ and that he was ‘an oicer of considerable military experience’. The Telegraph also reproduced an article from the London Times which argued that the advent of the Rising demonstrated the incompetence of Augustine Birrell, the Chief Secretary of the British administration in Ireland. They questioned whether it was safe that Birrell should remain in oice, a concern which was also voiced by other newspapers. Across the pond The following day the Gaelic American gave its view of the Rising. This paper was in a unique position since its Editor, the veteran Fenian organiser John Devoy, had known of the impending Rising. He had acted as a go-between in the Irish Republican Brotherhood’s negotiations with Germany to secure arms. On the front page, Devoy, who had long advocated rebellion as the only means of achieving Irish independence from Britain, praised the ‘gallantry’ of the insurgents and castigated the ‘treachery’ of their opponents. Written in highly emotive language, the article then accused the American government WEDNESDAY 26 APRIL 1916 THURSDAY 27 APRIL 1916 FRIDAY 28 APRIL 1916 SATURDAY 29 APRIL 1916 Liberty Hall is shelled and captured by the British. A rebel ambush of the Sherwood Foresters at Mount Street Bridge results in heavy British casualties. Dublin begins to experience a food shortage. British artillery bombards the GPO and Sackville Street. Rebel leader, James Connolly, is wounded. Rebels on O’Connell Bridge and Henry Street retreat to the GPO. In County Wexford the rebels occupy Enniscorthy. Under intense bombardment, part of the GPO’s roof collapses and the rebels establish a new headquarters in Moore Street. Rebels still holding on at Boland’s Mill, the South Dublin Union, Jacob’s factory, the College of Surgeons and the Four Courts. Patrick Pearse orders rebel forces to surrender. Some besieged rebel garrisons in outlying districts do not receive the order until Sunday, and reluctantly lay down their arms. British soldiers behind improvised barricade, Talbot Street The press: to each his own At the time of the Rising, Ireland was already a divided country, as attitudes to British rule and what to do about it split the country into three broad groups. Each group was supported by different newspapers which relected and ampliied its views. In The Revolution Papers you will read newspapers from all sides. IRISH PARLIAMENTARY PARTY (IPP) STOP PRESS NEWS FROM THE GPO Each number of The Revolution Papers comes with a selection of original newspapers, reprinted exactly as they appeared at the time. of providing information to Britain which led to the destruction of the German ship Aud which was carrying arms to the rebels. Given the fact that the United States was still neutral regarding the Great War, this was a serious accusation, which provoked vehement denials from Washington. The Gaelic American also illustrated the continuing importance of Irish America as a source of funds and political support for Irish nationalists. On pages one and two the paper reported the meeting in Boston on 21 April of 1,500 delegates of the Friends of Irish Freedom. The purpose of this organisation was to ‘secure the complete freedom of Ireland’ and to oppose ‘English propaganda’ which had the aim of ‘ensnaring [America] into the war on the side of England’. The speeches by respected judges and congressmen revealed, firstly, the extent to which Irish America had become alienated from constitutional nationalists by John Redmond’s support for the British war effort and secondly, that there was significant Irish-American support for the republican cause. No to violence In contrast, the Irish Independent condemned the Rising as ‘criminal madness’ and regarded the rebels as the ‘willing dupes of Prussian intrigue’. The paper was published on 4 May, after a seven-day disruption. By this point the rebels had already surrendered. On page three the paper carried a day-by-day account of the Rising in Dublin and reported the executions of Patrick Pearse, Thomas Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh. Relecting the views of its predominantly middleclass, Catholic readership, the Irish Independent favoured the achievement of Home Rule by constitutional means and rejected the republican ideal of complete separation from Britain by violent revolution. The Independent’s editorial surmised that the insurgents had ‘not a shred of public sympathy’ and that their actions had only resulted in numerous deaths, inancial losses to businesses and the devastation of Dublin’s main thoroughfares. In assigning blame, the editorial reminded readers that the rebel leaders were inspired by the example of Edward Carson, who had organised the Ulster Volunteers, imported arms and threatened violence if the government tried to introduce Home Rule in Ireland. The editorial argued that it was the British government’s toleration of ‘the Ulster parade of deiance’ which started the spiral of events leading to the Rising.  STEVEN O’CONNOR Editor The Revolution Papers The Irish War News was one of the few oficial documents produced by the Provisional Irish Government in the midst of the rebellion. On Easter Monday James Connolly, Patrick Pearse and printer Joe Stanley planned a news sheet that would allow the Provisional Government to communicate its activities to the Volunteers and the general public. Stanley, a committed republican, was Editor of The Gael and a printer of radical newspapers. On Tuesday morning he printed 12,000 copies of the irst and only edition of Irish War News. The most important article is on the last page under the heading ‘Stop Press’. Written by Pearse, it announced that the ‘Army of the Republic’ had seized Dublin city and introduced the leaders of the Provisional Government. The article was clearly intended for propaganda purposes, asserting that the people of Dublin were supporting the Republic and that the rest of the country was also rising. The remainder of the paper is composed of articles pre-planned by Stanley. A piece of satire from the New Statesman is reproduced on the front page. Under the title ‘If the Germans Conquered England’, it perfectly describes Ireland’s plight under the British, according to the writer. Readers will also be amused to read ‘Things they ought to tax’ on page 3. Also known as the ‘Irish Party’, the ‘Nationalist Party’ and the ‘constitutional nationalists’, the IPP was a political party led by John Redmond which held seats in the British parliament. The IPP’s goal was to persuade the British government to grant Home Rule to Ireland. This entailed seting up an Irish parliament in Dublin which could make laws and govern the island. However, a Home Rule government would not have responsibility for certain key areas, such as foreign policy and defence, which would remain within the remit of the British parliament in London. Amongst Nationalist newspapers are Freeman’s Journal, Irish Independent, Evening Herald, Evening Telegraph, Cork Examiner, Irish News. IRISH REPUBLICANS This was an umbrella term for those also known as ‘physical force nationalists’, ‘advanced nationalists’ or ‘separatists’ who aimed to established an independent Irish republic by rebelling against British rule in Ireland. Although Republicans were prominent in the Irish Volunteers, Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association, republicanism did not become pervasive in Irish society until after the 1916 Rising. Republican newspapers include Nationality, Gaelic American, Irish World, Clare Champion, The Echo and South Leinster Advertiser. IRISH UNIONISTS This term denoted those who opposed Home Rule, preferring Ireland to be governed directly by the British parliament. In the years before the 1916 Rising, there were about 20 Irish Unionist MPs in the House of Commons, led by Edward Carson. The heartland of unionism was in Ulster, where Carson mobilised the resistance to Home Rule through mass meetings and rallies, the Ulster Covenant and the Ulster Volunteer Force. Examples of Unionist newspapers are Irish Times, Daily Express, Dublin Evening Mail, Belfast Evening Telegraph, Northern Whig, Cork Constitution. Not a Sinn Féin rising Many newspapers of the time referred to the Easter Rising as a Sinn Féin rising. This was not the case. The Easter Rising was the result of the planning, leadership and action of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army. Sinn Féin was a separate and distinct organisation which played no major part in the events of April 1916.