A commemorative concert was held in the Gaiety Theatre on Easter Monday 11 April 1966 as part of a series of events organised by Radio Éireann (now RTÉ) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising. The evening began with the playing of National Anthem and Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, […]
Estelle Gittins
The centenary commemorations have fuelled a deeper scholarly interest in the material culture, objects and ephemera associated with the 1916 Rising, and the role of the public in collecting such items. In fact, much of the 1916-related objects in public collections, and which make up the exhibits in most of […]
The minute book of the Carlow Workman’s Club 1889-1925 (TCD MS 11523) has recently been donated to the Library of Trinity College Dublin. The minute book has a significant connection with Micheál Ó hAnnrachain /Michael O’Hanrahan, who was executed following his part in the 1916 Easter Rising. His brother Henry, […]
In August 1916 two large silver cups were presented to the College in recognition of the services rendered by the Officers’ Training Corps (OTC) during the Easter Rebellion. Speaking at the ceremony Provost Mahaffy expressed his regret that the College had to be defended from ‘the dangers of home rebellion’. […]
Alfred Fannin’s diary of the Rising is written as a long letter – with daily, or twice daily entries, addressed to his brother, Edward, a doctor with the Royal Army Medical Corps in Malta; it began on Tuesday 25 April and ended on Monday 1 May, and was posted on […]
Mary Ellen ‘Nell’ Humphreys (1871-1939) was the daughter of Richard Rahilly and Ellen Mangan from Ballylongford, Co. Kerry. She was the sister of Michael Rahilly, who called himself The O’Rahilly, and who was shot during the Easter Rising. In 1895 Nell married eye surgeon David Humphreys. According her daughter Sighle, […]
Many of us are currently enjoying RTÉ’s Rebellion, the flagship drama from the national broadcaster to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising. In 1966 the 50th anniversary commemorative offering was very different. When planning for the golden jubilee schedules started in the summer of 1965, the view of the […]
Artist Estella Frances Solomons, (1882–1968), was the second among four children of Maurice E. Solomons, and Rosa Jane Solomons (née Jacobs) of Hull. Rosa was a gifted musician and published volumes of verse. Estella trained in Dublin and London, being taught by, among others, Walter Osborne and William Orpen. She […]
Poet Dora Sigerson Shorter (1866-1918) was recently the subject of a post based on the Library’s holdings in the Department of Early Printed Books & Special Collections. She is also well represented among the collections in the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library. Shorter’s nationalism, expressed in the poetry she wrote, […]
The Easter Rising of 1916 took the British army by surprise. The troops already in Ireland consisted mostly of reserve forces, and although they were mobilised immediately, much of their military hardware was then deployed in the War in Europe. As a result, improvised armoured personnel carriers were hastily constructed […]
Richard J. Hoskin’s account of the Rising opens with the words: ‘Monday 24th April. At Ballycorus – Insurrection begun’. It continues until 1 May 1916. The total length is 8 folios. Hoskin uses plain language. His sentences are generally short and filled with abbreviations. He probably wrote in haste. There […]
TCD MS 3560/1 is the personal narrative of Peadar Ó Cearnaigh (1883-1942), detailing his experiences as a Volunteer in the 1916 Rising. During Easter week Ó Cearnaigh fought at Jacob’s biscuit factory, but escaped arrest when British troops took over the building. The account held in M&ARL is an eloquent […]
Elsie Mahaffy’s handwritten book The Irish Rebellion of 1916 is one of the longest, most detailed and most valuable accounts of the Easter Rising. It is valuable because much of it was written in real time, day by day between 24 April and 30 May 1916; because it was written […]
On 11 May 1916, John Dillon MP declared in an impassioned speech to the British House of Commons that by the execution of the leaders of the recently suppressed rebellion, the government were ‘washing out our whole life-work in a sea of blood’. When the Easter Rising broke out on […]
Despite his derogatory epithet Denis Johnston’s play The Scythe and the Sunset is an interesting adjunct to the canon of literary works relating to the Easter Rising, informed by personal experience of the Insurrection: Denis and his family (and a parrot), were held hostage in their home at 61 Lansdowne […]
In the aftermath of the Rising Major G A Harris, Adjutant of the Dublin University Officers’ Training Corps (OTC), was tasked with writing a report for the military authorities on the defence of Trinity College during the period 24 April to 6 May 1916. As […]
‘Such excitement! Dublin is in the hands of the Sinn Feiners’. So opens Lillian Stokes’ account of the 1916 Easter Rising, and it continues in much the same lively vein. Lillian (Lil) Stokes (1878-1955) came from a prominent Dublin family with links to the Jellett, Purser and O’Brien dynasties. She […]
James Hanratty was 32 years of age when he was arrested by British Forces and lodged in Richmond Barracks in Dublin, prior to being shipped (literally) to England. His young wife had died at the beginning of 1915, and their little daughter was being raised by her grandmother, with the […]
John Joly (1857-1933) was one of Ireland’s most distinguished scientists of the early twentieth century. Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at Trinity College Dublin, Joly, a native of Offaly, was well-known and respected amongst the scientific elites of Ireland, Britain, and Europe, and published on disparate subjects, most notably the […]
A large section of the papers of the Wynne family of Avoca, Co. Wicklow, were presented to the Library in 1987. The great strength of the collection – apart from the evidence it contains of the family’s business entrepreneurship and estate responsibilities in Ireland and Germany – lies in its […]
The Ashbourne 1916 Memorial pictured here commemorates the battle of Ashbourne, one of the most significant events to take place outside Dublin. The Memorial is a fusion of Irish nationalism and religion, resonant of the Easter Rising itself. On the Friday of Easter Week, 28 April, men from the 5th […]
Eva Gore-Booth (1870-1926) and her sister Constance (later Markievicz, 1868-1927) were the daughters of baronet and Arctic explorer Sir Henry Gore-Booth and his wife Georgina (née Hill). They were brought up in Lissadell, Co. Sligo; the Gore-Booths were considered good landlords and opened their house to poets and artists. The […]
Thomas Johnson Westropp (1860-1922) was a Limerick-born scholar and a graduate of TCD. He was an antiquarian and a member of the Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Society of Antiquaries in Ireland; he published widely and spent his life researching and recording the archaeological sites of Ireland. Westropp is especially […]
The Manuscripts & Archives Research Library continues to add to its research materials. Sometimes these can be substantial and we may know a lot about the donor or subject, and sometimes we receive a small amount of material, with little knowledge about its provenance or author. One such item is […]
That Trinity College took a side in the 1916 Rising should be of surprise to no one. Her links with the British establishment began with the foundation by Royal Charter of ‘the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin’ in 1592, and continued throughout the […]
There is one hint in the family background of Nancy Maude (b. 23 May 1886) that might explain her transformation from British society debutant into avid Irish nationalist. Although she was the daughter of Colonel Aubrey Maude, Cameronian Highlanders and the granddaughter of Colonel Sir George Maude (Crown Equerry to […]
A single sheet of notepaper in the Thomas Bodkin papers, MS 7013/7, gives a concise impression of the atmosphere in Dublin during the 1916 Rising. Thomas was a young barrister at the time, the eldest son of a prominent middle-class nationalist family living at 52 Upper Mount Street. For the […]
Dr Frederick William Kidd (1857-1917), a professor of midwifery and gynaecology at the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, spent Easter 1916 attending Rugby fixtures at Lansdowne Road and entertaining visitors at home at 17 Lower Fitzwilliam Street. Three of his four sons were then serving in the Great War, and […]
Henry Hanna (1871-1946), barrister and later High Court judge, was an engaged observer of events in Ballsbridge over the course of the Easter Rising. His diary (TCD MS 10066/192), a photocopied typescript, is now part of the papers of playwright Denis Johnston (1901-1984). The Hanna and Johnston families lived within […]
The 1916 Junior Sophister term examinations were due to be held in Trinity College on Tuesday and Wednesday 25 and 26 April. Eileen Corrigan, a student from Belfast, travelled to Dublin by train on Easter Monday to attend them, and an account of her experiences appeared in the ‘Belfast Evening […]
In the early hours of Easter Tuesday 1916, 61 Lansdowne Road, the Ballsbridge home of Judge William Johnston, his wife Kathleen, and their only son, the future playwright Denis, was occupied, under ‘amiable circumstances’, by four armed and apologetic Irish republicans. Denis, then a 14-year-old schoolboy home for the holidays […]
The organisation of arms for the 1916 Easter Rising was a complicated affair with arrangements to obtain the necessary weapons taking place years in advance. Shortly after the formation of the Ulster Volunteers and the Irish Volunteers in 1913, the British Parliament banned the importation of weapons into Ireland. In […]