By James J. Lamb

President, Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh

Honorary Consul of Ireland, Pittsburgh

Every year, August 1^st comes and goes in Pittsburgh without hardly a thought. But August 1^st is a big day in the history of Ireland, and there is a reason worth knowing this. If you are of Irish heritage, or if you plan on traveling to Ireland and want to see more than a quaint Irish village, and take in some of the nation’s rich and deep history, it would be good to know something about August 1^st.

English rule over Ireland traces back as far as the 12^th Century, but to better understand present-day Ireland, it may be best to start with the Irish Rebellion of 1798. This was not long after North America won its own independence from Britain, and just after the people of France revolted against their own nobility in the French Revolution.

A group called the Society of United Irishmen sought to create an Irish Republic independent of British rule. After three months of fighting, the British put down the rebellion. Thousands had died, atrocities were committed and the balance of power shifted. Some societal wounds never healed.

This prompted British Prime Minister William Pitt to institute the Act of Union 1800 that abolished the Irish Parliament and created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. For the next 100 years, there were skirmishes, sometimes violent, often political, that centered on the Irish people’s desire for independence.

By the turn of the 20^th Century, new movements emerged that once again inspired a collective longing for national independence. A political party named Sinn Fein fostered by Arthur Griffith advocated for Irish nationhood.

While Griffith and others became the public faces of Irish nationalism, another group called the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) worked in the shadows. They believed that the only way Ireland could achieve independence was the same way France and the United States had done before it, through violent revolution. Not all Sinn Fein members supported the IRB, and not all IRB members bought into the ideas of Griffith and Sinn Fein, but there was common ground.

Outside of Ireland and within, other movements were brewing as well. Throughout the industrialized world, labor and socialist movements were gaining momentum as workers demanded better economic and working conditions. A bitter Irish labor dispute in 1913 fueled the atmosphere of discontent.

By 1915, a group of IRB members were working on actionable plans for revolution. Those plans had started to coalesce when Patrick Pearse spoke at a funeral on August 1, 1915. Many Irish historians have said that speech was the match that lit the straw.

Pearse was a poet, a nationalist, an IRB member, and a revolutionary. The power of his influence is captured in his closing remarks at the funeral of fellow IRB member Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa.

He said, “Life springs from death; and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations. The defenders of this Realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but, the fools, the fools, the fools! They have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”

The speech gained true power when it was published.

Pearse’s words had captured the imaginations of countless Irish people. Over the months that followed a group called the Irish Volunteers, which Pearse led, finalized plans for battle against Great Britain. They had hoped that with Great Britain already heavily engaged in the first World War, that 1916 could be the best time to confront a lighter force in Ireland.

That calculation, however, could not compensate for their own lack of training, organization, funding and arms. They were so disorganized that they didn’t even fully inform all of their own senior leaders of the timing of the insurrection until just a few days beforehand.

Still, the Rising commenced. On April 24, 1916, the seven signatories of a freshly printed Proclamation of Independence led their battalions into war and almost certain annihilation. In about a week, roughly 500 died, and 2,500 people were wounded, mostly civilians and mostly in Dublin. The Volunteers surrendered to avoid creating any further civilian casualties.

As military battles go, the Rising was a failure. All seven signatories of the Proclamation were executed by firing squad, eight more were shot. Another was hanged. Sixteen were executed for their roles in the insurrection. But in the coming years, the Rising and the Proclamation would serve to rally the majority of Irish people to support separation from Great Britain. This in turn led to the Irish War for Independence and then the Irish Civil War.

Unlike America, Ireland never obtained complete independence from Great Britain. But at the end of the Irish Civil War in 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed and finalized on January 7, 1922, creating the Irish Republic as we know it today. And it all may have been sparked by a graveside speech given on August 1^st.

Over the next several months, the Republic of Ireland will be awash with Centenary commemoration activities. Here in Pittsburgh, Irish individuals and organizations throughout Western Pennsylvania will use the 100^th anniversary of the Easter Rising as an opportunity to learn, remember, discuss and contemplate the future of Ireland through a series of educational and cultural programs and events. You are welcome to join us for the conversation.