Ar lá Nollaig 1915 i Scoil Éanna, Rath Fearnáin, chuir Pádraig Mac Piarais críoch lena chéad phaimfléad– Ghosts. Ar lá breithe Íosa féin, leag sé amach stair thuiscint na saoirse mar a tháinig sé ó na glúine a d’imigh roimhe- aithreacha an náisiúin- Tone, Emmet, Davis, Lalor, Mitchel agus Parnell […]
Shane Mawe
The historian Fearghal McGarry has described the Irish Republican Brotherhood’s way of doing things as ‘ruthless duplicity’. Joseph Plunkett, who was responsible for the so-called ‘Castle Document’, was inducted into the IRB by late summer 1914 after the Kilcoole gun-running. Already a leading member of the Irish Volunteers, he followed […]
Probably the most iconic example of Irish printing, ‘The provisional government of the Irish Republic to the people of Ireland’ was read aloud by Patrick Pearse outside Dublin’s General Post Office (GPO) at the beginning of the 1916 Easter Rising. The history of the Proclamation is well documented. Drafted by […]
Stationed in France in 1916, Patrick Hone maintained a witty correspondence with his wife Mary, which began the new year with a signed card from him and his comrades. He drew a sketch on its front of him sitting on a motorbike and smoking a pipe, ‘Mudguard Hone out for […]
The twentieth, twenty-fifth and fiftieth anniversaries of the Easter Rising, 1916 were commemorated by The Capuchin Annual in volumes 1936, 1942 and 1966. The Capuchin Annual espoused a very strong Irish nationalist and Catholic identity and its interpretation of the Rising was framed within this context. It also served to […]
Canon Charles O’Neill’s ballad The foggy dew is synonymous with the events of Easter 1916. Shortly after printing this copy in 1919 the firm O’Loughlin, Murphy & Boland experienced financial trouble and insolvency. Proprietor John O’Loughlin soon found employment with his son, Colm Ó Lochlainn (1892-1972), who had earlier established […]
The Irish poet and sculptor Dora Sigerson Shorter (1866-1918) was profoundly affected by the 1916 Easter Rising and mourned those who had lost their lives in the rebellion in her verse. Dora was born in Dublin in 1866, the eldest daughter of George Sigerson, a physician, Gaelic scholar and writer, […]
1966 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising and in this week’s post we take a look back at some of the golden jubilee commemorations. In addition to official events in the Republic sponsored by the government’s commemoration committee, local ceremonies and celebrations took place in all 32 counties […]
Maps and war are inextricably linked. Long used in the planning, reconnaissance, and execution of warfare, maps have proved crucial in the sharing and co-ordination of tactical information. Why then have so few maps survived from the 1916 Rising? Among the few is a map of Dublin belonging to Thomas […]
The impact of conflict on families features as a theme regularly on Changed Utterly. We have learned of the occupation of Denis Johnston’s house in Ballsbridge and the tragic accounts of the Boyle and Kidd families. This week, the trend continues as we look at the Gifford family and in […]
Until now our weekly blog posts have concentrated on a specific collection or a particular item among the holdings of our Library. This week’s theme, however, is about items no longer available to consult as a direct consequence of events during Easter week 1916. Before our in-house bindery was established, […]
‘The Soldier’s Song’ is known to have been sung by the rebels in the GPO during the Easter Rising, and later in the internment camps. This gave it a particular status amongst nationalists, leading eventually to its adoption as the national anthem of the Irish Free State in 1926. The […]
The Catholic Bulletin was first published in 1911 as The Catholic Book Bulletin, a monthly review of Catholic literature and soon established itself as a family magazine with popular appeal and an estimated circulation of 10,00-15,000. While not overtly political in the beginning, the Bulletin was opposed to the English […]
The majority of our weekly posts relate directly to events surrounding the 1916 Rising. However, we also have the opportunity to delve deeper into the collections and realign the focus to include topics such as 20th century social and living conditions, fallout from the conflict, and significant commemorations etc. This […]
One of the earliest published accounts of the 1916 Rising written “while the ruins [were] still smouldering” is A record of the Irish rebellion of 1916 published by the magazine ‘Irish Life’. Received by Trinity College Library on the 29th of June 1916, this issue contains a history of events […]
Far away from Denis Johnston’s leafy suburbs, Dublin’s inner city was suffering a major housing crisis in the early 20th century. Although the population increased by 20% between the census of 1851 and that of 1901, Dublin had also managed in that time to go from the 2nd largest city […]
The events of Easter 1916 appear to have had little or no immediate impact on the young composer Ina Boyle (1891-1967). Living in the secluded environment of her family home, Bushey Park in Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow (where her father was Church of Ireland curate), Boyle was more closely affected by […]
The enforcement of the Defence of the Realm Act at the outbreak of WWI made it an offence to publish divisive false reports or inflammatory press articles. Up until the Easter Rising, some republican newspapers such as the ‘Irish Bulletin’, ‘Éire Ireland’, ‘The Leader’ and ‘Irish Volunteer’ all benefited from […]