The great myth of the Easter Rising is the claim that the decision by the British to execute the members of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic and other principal figures who had participated in the insurrection led to the turning of public opinion in Ireland in favour of the revolution. The implication is that before the retributive deaths by British firing squads the Irish people as a whole were opposed to the “Rebels” and were accepting of the need to put down the “Rebellion”. However as we have seen nothing further could be from the truth. The great failure of the British was not that they ignored the wishes of the Irish people and executed Pádraig Mac Piarais, President of the Provisional Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Irish Republic, and all the other signatories to the Proclamation. Their failure was that they did listen to the wishes of the Irish people and their demands for violent retribution. Unfortunately it was the wrong Irish people. British military commanders and politicians already convinced of the need for a public show of force through the killing of the leaders of the Rising needed simply enough public encouragement and momentum to go through with it. In Britain there was plenty with demands for blood from across the political spectrum. But they also found it in Ireland. Not from Irish Ireland: but from British Ireland. Amongst the British Unionist population who dominated the locally raised British military and paramilitary forces, the judiciary, the colonial civil service and administration, the business classes and landed aristocracy, and above all the media elite of the time: journalists, editors and newspaper owners.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:47:30 +0000
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