Planning the Rebellion

KEYNOTE Left: Special Section of Old ‘A’ Company, 4th Battalion, Dublin Brigade, Irish Volunteers, top row: Sean Treacy, Padraig O Broinn, Gabriel Murray, Brian McCormack, Seán O Broinn and Henry S Murray. Bottom Row: Gerald Murray, Fred Schweppe, Pat Mason, Ed McNamara, Louis McDermott and Denis R Dunne. IRISH MILITARY ARCHIVES Planning the Rebellion was Dublin the planned centrepiece of a Just what the overall aims of the IRB’s national insurrection? Like so much else about the Irish revolutionary period, the answers are never Military Council were are not clear, straightforward. The genesis of the 1916 Rising can be but their mistakes in the planning traced to a conference organised among NDREN Irish separatists which took place on CO 9 September 1914 in Dublin. Thomas meant the 1916 Rising was unlikely to Clarke chaired the proceedings which decided to use the opportunity the Great MARK War presented to mount a rebellion BY succeed, writes Dr Richard McElligott against British rule. When the Volunteers acrimoniously split later that month, the IRB looked to the faction that remained HE 1916 Rising was the an epic blood-sacrifice given on the altar loyal to MacNeill to provide the army for GRAPHED most serious revolt to of Irish nationalism which would one day this rebellion. British rule in Ireland inspire the next generation to wage a full However there was intense disagreement TO in over a century. blown national war of liberation. Yet this among the Irish Volunteers’ leaders as to It represented an perception of 1916 is coloured by how events how the force should be utilised. Pearse, its unprecedented explosion subsequently transpired rather than what Director of Military Organisation, argued T of violence for a society may have initially been planned or desired. that this smaller body would be much more that had been remarkably What were the original intentions of militarily valuable than the large, unwieldly peaceful since the bloodletting of the 1798 the Rising’s leaders before Eoin MacNeill’s and loosely held together organisation it rebellion. fateful intervention on the eve of the had split from. He believed that 150 Dublin- Militarily, the Rising was an utter rebellion? Was 1916 meant to be a simple based companies; ‘small, compact, perfectly failure. Considering what transpired, the blood-sacrifice or a viable hammer disciplined, and determinedly separatist events of Easter week seemed to be the blow to British control in Ireland? Was would be ready to act with tremendous consummation of Patrick Pearse’s rhetoric: it orchestrated as a localised revolt or effect if war brings us the moment’ and if RICHARD McELLIGOTT PHO 4 | Irish Independent 1916 Collection Irish Independent I 12 November 2015 KEYNOTE Left and far right: A membership card for The Irish Volunteers (Oglaigh na hÉireann) from 1915. IRISH MILITARY ARCHIVES Inset: Patrick Pearse identified the vital strategic importance of Dublin as the epicentre for any new armed action. Irish Volunteers officers at a training camp in summer, 1915. Left to right: Terence MacSwiney, Richard Mulcahy, Michael O’Buachalla, John Brennan, JJ O’Connell, Peter Paul Galligan, Mick Spillane, Dick Fitzgerald, Gardner and Mick Cremen. IRISH MILITARY ARCHIVES supplied with adequate weapons the Dublin committee which asked Joseph Plunkett the Council left no written record of their maintained, had to be the epicentre for any men ‘would rise tomorrow if we gave the to draft an embryonic plan for a potential deliberations and historians have therefore new armed action. word’. insurrection in Dublin. Quite why Plunkett been forced to conjecture the objectives of In this view they were both heavily For MacNeill and JJ O’Connell (its was given this responsibility is hard to their strategy. Similarly, although we know influenced by their study of Robert Chief of Inspection), the Irish Volunteers ascertain. He had a lifelong fascination that a small number of copies of the physical Emmet’s failed uprising of 1803 and at odds were essentially a defensive rather than a with military tactics and history. But was battle plan for the original Easter Sunday with the successful, and largely rural, war revolutionary force which should only be this qualification enough to justify the faith rebellion existed, they were subsequently the IRA would fight from 1919. Yet it was utilised to resist the possible introduction placed in him? It seems to have been when lost. However we know the Military Council only natural that the leaders of 1916 looked of conscription in Ireland by means of one considers that the usually dispassionate sought to work from Plunkett’s plan. This to Dublin, given that the Volunteers there engaging in a guerrilla campaign against James Connolly would later hail Plunkett ‘a entailed seizing a ring of fortified positions were the strongest and most organised. British forces there. If it then proved brilliant military man’. in Dublin city which could be defended They drew inspiration from the trench opportune, an independence struggle could Desperate to preserve maximum secrecy, against a full-force British attack. warfare of the Western Front which be launched through a combined strategy Clarke disbanded the larger advisory The GPO was chosen to be the central continually demonstrated the superiority of guerrilla warfare and mass public committee and formed an headquarters. Physically of holding a defensive position. Given the resistance. O’Connell, in particular, was a IRB Military Council in the one of the most imposing military inexperience of the force asked to strong advocate of training the Volunteers spring of 1915 to confine “ buildings in the capital, take on the might of the British army, it also to be an effective guerrilla army. preparations to a small, Militarily, the Rising it seemed to provide the made practical sense for the Volunteers to Yet, the Volunteers increasingly came trusted cohort. In September was an utter failure... perfect theatrical stage for adopt a defensive posture. under the influence of its more radical Clarke formally joined the the bloody drama about to So far so apparently logical, except that IRB members. Pearse’s position allowed Military Council, after which Yet there is a perception be unleashed. Both Plunkett this original plan for the Easter Sunday him to place trusted IRB men in key it quickly become the real of 1916 which is and Pearse concluded rebellion (which assumed the rebels could positons throughout the Volunteers power within both the IRB that the reason so many rely on a far larger force then those actually leadership, bypassing MacNeill’s official and the Irish Volunteers. coloured by how events previous Irish rebellions mobilised) was inherently flawed. We know chain of command. Because of this, the By April 1916, the Council subsequently transpired had failed was that their nothing about the reasoning for selecting guerrilla tactics promoted by O’Connell would consist of all seven conspirators had never the positions which were to be occupied were increasingly spurned by the Rising’s signatories of the 1916 rather than what may comprehended the vital and they were far too isolated from one planners. Proclamation. Given the have initially been strategic importance of the another to provide mutual communication The separatist conference in September clandestine nature of the capital. As the seat of British and reinforcement. 1914 had established an advisory military Rising’s final planning, planned or desired rule in Ireland, Dublin, they CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 >>> 12 November 2015 I Irish Independent Irish Independent 1916 Collection | 5 KEYNOTE Planning the Rebellion >>> CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 While the GPO was seized, other key buildings such as Trinity College and Dublin Castle, the very centre of British rule in Ireland, were seemingly omitted from the original plans. It also appears that the ‘The Foggy Dew’ Military Council had chosen its positions with the extremely naive assumption that Canon Charles O’Neill the British would not respond by using their key advantage: artillery. Most damningly As down the glen one Easter morn to a of all, in the weeks before the Rising the city fair rode I Irish Volunteers undertook no systematic There armed lines of marching men in reconnaissance of the buildings they would squadrons passed me by garrison. The 1916 rebels therefore failed to No fife did hum nor battle drum did grasp the one advantage available to them: sound its dread tattoo local knowledge. But the Angelus bell o’er the Liffey swell Given the glaring defects outlined above, rang out through the foggy dew many have been inclined to argue that the Rising was always intended to be what it Right proudly high over Dublin town became, a bloody protest inspired by Pearse’s they hung out the flag of war martyrdom complex. Yet this reading of ’Twas better to die ’neath an Irish sky history is based on the distortion caused by than at Suvla or Sedd El Bahr the events that ensued rather than what may And from the plains of Royal Meath originally have been intended. strong men came hurrying through As detailed elsewhere in this magazine, While Britannia’s Huns, with their Pearse and the Military Council sought long-range guns sailed in through the desperately to secure large quantities foggy dew of modern military grade weapons and explosives from Germany to give the ’Twas Britannia bade our Wild Geese go Volunteers at least a fighting chance. The that small nations might be free intended rebellion would also have involved But their lonely graves are by Suvla’s at least three times as many Volunteers as waves or the shore of the Great North Sea those who were eventually mustered. Pearse Oh, had they died by Pearse’s side or may have dreamt of martyrdom, but there UCD’s Dr Lucy Collins in the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin.

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