BRIONA NIC DHIARMADA
FOREWORD BY MARY MCALEESE
Cork University Press, 2016
pp 216 200 col & b/w ills h/b
€29.95 ISBN: 9781782051916
The 1916 Irish Rebellion includes a historical narrative; a spread of contemporary images and photographs; and a selection of quotations from contemporary documents, prisoners’ statements, and other eyewitness accounts to capture the experiences of nationalists and Unionists, Irish rebels and British soldiers, and Irish Americans during the turbulent events of Easter Week, 1916. In the first part of the book, Nic Dhiarmada surveys Ireland’s place as part of the British Empire in the decades leading up to 1916, with special emphasis on earlier Irish movements to achieve independence or at least some measure of self-governance. Following this Nic Dhiarmada outlines the events leading to the Easter Rebellion of 1916, including the crucial events of Thursday through to Saturday prior to Easter. The second part details the events of the Easter Rising and the week of violent fighting, ending in the failure of the armed insurrection in Dublin. The third and final section discusses the fate of the leaders of the Rising, many of whom were immediately court-marshaled and executed. Nic Dhiarmada suggests the Irish Rising, its ideals, and the subsequent election of members of the national movement to prominent government offices were instrumental to the later creation of the sovereign republic of Ireland, as well as an inspiration to anit-colonialist insurrections elsewhere in the world.
