Easter Rising

9 posts

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’. […]

Frank Browning – a casualty of the 1916 Easter Rising

Francis Henry Browning was from Glenageary, Co. Dublin, and was educated at Marlborough College. He studied at Trinity from 1886 to 1890, and went on to become a barrister. He subsequently joined the Land Registry, where he was Examiner of Titles. As an undergraduate, he excelled in sport, playing on […]

The Capuchin Annual and 1916

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 […]

Excerpt from 'Sixteen dead men'

Sixteen dead men

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, […]

‘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 […]

The Golden Jubilee in 1966

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 […]

Exit Stage Left

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]