Estelle Gittins

32 posts
Welcome to Changed Utterly - Ireland and the Easter Rising. Over the next year we will explore the Library of Trinity College Dublin's research collections relating to the 1916 Easter Rising, through a regular series of blog posts.

Posts will focus on one extraordinary item or collection each week and will include diaries, letters, pamphlets, photographs, objects and even items of clothing. Click on any image below to read a weekly post.

We hope that you enjoy exploring these unique and distinct collections with us. If you have any comments, or are inspired to conduct your own research, please contact us.

Relics of the Rising

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 […]

Micheál Ó hAnnrachain/Michael O’Hanrahan and the Carlow Workman’s Club

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, […]

Inner Conflict

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’. […]

The making of ‘Insurrection’

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 […]

In Memoriam

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, […]

‘Necessity is the Mother of Invention’: Armoured Personnel Carriers in 1916

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 diary account of the Easter Rising

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 […]

‘The Rabble’

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 Record of the Rising

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 […]

‘it might interest you – when this miserable business is all over’: John Dillon’s Easter Rising narrative

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 […]

‘Another damned play about 1916’

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 […]

Defending the College

          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 […]

Frongoch Camp Autograph Book

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 […]

‘from the still-hot ruins of the G.P.O. Dublin’

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 […]

The Diary of Winifred Frances Wynne for 1916

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 […]

Ashbourne 1916 Memorial

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 […]

Two Girls in Silk Kimonos

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 […]

The Ruins of Dublin 1916

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 […]

Loyal and Gallant Conduct

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 […]

‘The wonder & the splendour’: Nancy Campbell’s record of the Easter Rising

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 […]

1916: a view from the Castle

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 […]

Kidd Family Letters

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 […]

‘A Citizen’s Diary’, by Henry Hanna, 1916

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 […]

Examination under Fire

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 […]

Revolution in Redbrick Suburbia

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 Howth Gun Running

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 […]