PART FOUR OF TEN SPECIAL MAGAZINES IN PARTNERSHIP WITH 1916 AND COLLECTION Thursday 26 November 2015 www.independent.ie/1916 SEÁN MAC DIARMADA AND THE LEADERS OF THE RISING 12 November 2015 I Irish Independent+ The influence of the Gaelic League and GAA INTRODUCTION Contents Rising art helps 4 BAND OF BROTHERS Brian Murphy on how the seven signatories came together to plan and execute the Rising paint a picture 6 FIELDS OF FIRE The GAA claimed a role in the rebellion which doesn’t quite NORMAN TEELING is tally, writes Paul Rouse painting beside the O’Connell 8 SEAN MAC DIARMADA Monument in Dublin when I speak with him. Donal Fallon profiles the skilled The 71-year-old open air and committed organiser enthusiast works in his 10 LEAGUE OF NATION hometown, as well as Arles in Richard McElligott on the hugely France, Spain and California. influential Gaelic League But it was a visit to Gettysburg in Pennsylvania that inspired 12 REBEL LEGACY his ten-piece painting series Kim Bielenberg talks to author on the Easter Rising. Helen Litton, descendant of two “I had seen these wonderful of the men executed in 1916 paintings representing the American Civil War,” he says. approximately ten years, “historical representational”, 15 THE ELEVENTH HOUR “I thought it looked very according to Mr Teeling, Mr Teeling says the exhibition Colm O’Flaherty on the wild dramatic and wouldn’t it be before they were moved into is his “interpretation” of rumours and atmosphere in great to try it with the Irish storage. He finds it strange what happened during the Dublin on the eve of the Rising rebellion.” they “are too big for the walls Rising, which “should be He had four paintings now” but “seemed to be the commemorated every year”. 16 TIMELINE OF EVENTS on 1916 done when he was right size”. “I think the 1916 Rising A peek beyond the Rising with commissioned by An Post Following queries about is very hush-hush and it the UCD Decade of Centenaries to do six more in 1996. “I the collection, owned by the shouldn’t be,” he says. “We got only had six weeks. I did as GPO, he says: “I thought, why our freedom through what much research as I could,” he not do them again? The new these guys did. This was our explains. variations are better paintings Alamo where they all died for PART FOUR OF TEN There was no photographic because I have been working a cause but the cause itself was Artist Norman Teeling SPECIAL MAGAZINES reference of what happened on them for the past couple of not a failure.” IN PARTNERSHIP WITH at work on his new inside the GPO so the artist years.” They will be exhibited For details on Teeling’s paintings of the 1916 Rising 1916 AND was led by research. The at the Oriel Gallery in Clare plein air Painting In Oils DVD, leaders (inset above). paintings, each 36in by Street, Dublin next year. see normanteeling.com. COLLECTION MARK CONDREN Thursday 26 November 2015 www.independent.ie/1916 50in, were hanging for Describing his style as Alison Martin FROM THE UCD ARCHIVES It changed Irish history but controversy over Castle Document still rages on SEÁN MAC DIARMADA AND THE LEADERS OF THE RISING 12 November 2015 I Irish Independent+ The influence of the Gaelic League and GAA FIVE days before the Rising the invented to propel momentum Evening Mail carried a story toward an uprising? And by who? that would have a bearing on Was an existing plan altered Published by Independent Newspapers, the course of events and create or doctored to enhance the 27–32 Talbot Street, Dublin 1, Ireland a controversy which still burns. possibility of a rising, which the Editor: Gerard Siggins Addressing a meeting of Dublin Volunteers had deemed necessary different general order was Smyth, a telegraphist”, who “had [email protected] Corporation, Thomas Kelly of before the First World War drafted by me and accepted the opportunity of obtaining full Design: Joe Coyle Sinn Féin read into the record the ended? by Pearse as satisfactory. It and direct information of the text of a secret document he had Eoin MacNeill, the Volunteers’ ordered the Volunteers to prepare substance of the plans contained For Irish Independent been given. chief of staff, said that the themselves against suppression”. in the document”. Head of Features: Known as the Castle “document served the purpose MacNeill then changed his The letter contained a solemn Fionnuala McCarthy Document, it contained details of creating great excitement and mind about the authenticity of statement from Smyth which Education Editor: of contingency plans for Martial apprehension of the Volunteers the Castle Document: “...a fact included: “I can definitely Law, and the arrest and detention being suppressed — an event came to my knowledge showing confirm the truth of the contents Katherine Donnelly of the leaders of Sinn Féin, the which we were all bound to resist”. me that I had been deceived”. of the document”. In 1951 Smyth For University College Dublin National and Irish Volunteers, He wrote: “There was intense The identity of the official gave a witness statement to the and the Gaelic League. It also tension during these meetings [of who leaked the document was Bureau of Military History: Dr Conor Mulvagh, lecturer included a list of buildings to be the leadership]. At the exec[utive] revealed in 1971 through a letter “The contents of the document in Irish History with special secured by the military. there was some proposal for a in the Irish Press. The writer, were practically identical with responsibility for the Questions remain about its general order which I opposed as Patrick J Little, whose papers are that read out by Alderman Decade of Commemorations. provenance: Did such a plan being dangerous, and ultimately in the UCD archives, revealed Tom Kelly at the meeting of the Eilis O’Brien, Director of exist at all? Was a military plan at the end of the meeting a that it was “the late Eugene Corporation...” FC Communication and Marketing IN MEMORIAM Niamh Boyle, Marketing Manager Cover by Jon Berkeley, shows The boat that brought the guns ashore... Seán Mac Diarmada, Bulmer Hobson and Ned Daly THE most famous of the boats Mary Spring Rice sailed the ship It was used as a training vessel that ran guns into Ireland ahead laden with 900 rifles and 29,000 until 1974 when it was moved to of the Rising was the Asgard. rounds from Germany to Howth Kilmainham Jail where it was It was named after one of the in July 1914. displayed until 2001. By then in a worlds of Norse mythology, ruled After the Rising the Asgard poor state of repair, a restoration IN PARTNERSHIP WITH over by Odin and Frigg. was put in dry dock in Wales, and project brought it back to life The 16-metre yacht was owned sold in 1928. Thirty years later the and since 2012 it has been on by Erskine Childers, an English- Irish government bought the ship display in the National Museum AND born writer who was executed and brought it back to Howth in Collins Barracks. during the Civil War in 1922. He on 30 July 1961, re-enacting the A plaque in the harbour in and his wife Molly, along with landing with some of the original Howth commemorates the Roger Casement, Alice Green and personnel — and rifles. landings. LS 2 | Irish Independent 1916 Collection Irish Independent I 26 November 2015 INTRODUCTION ROYAL COLLECTION HOUSED IN LONDON MUSEUM 1916 ONLINE The banner taken from Countess Markievicz’s home as a 1916 war trophy IN a corner of the Imperial War Museum’s acclaimed new WWI exhibition in London, there is a small, emerald green banner, with Gaelic script picked out in time-tarnished gold thread. Look closer, under the words, “Na Fianna Eireann” and you will see the motif of a pike piercing a Watch more online at sunburst, over the legend “Glaine independent.ie/1916 ár gcroí, Neart ár ngéag, Agus beart de réir ár mbriathar”. AS part of the Irish And to the right, there is a Independent’s unrivalled card, informing visitors that coverage of the centenary of this artefact was; “Lent By Her the Easter Rising, a dedicated Majesty The Queen”. website is now online. The site The story of how this banner uses words, pictures and video of Na Fianna, the republican to enhance understanding youth movement founded in of a defining moment in our 1909, ended up in a south London nation’s history. museum began in the immediate The ‘Na Fianna Eireann’ Read excerpts from aftermath of the Easter Rising, banner taken from Countess important books, watch when soldiers went to a modest Markievicz’s home as a war Ryan Tubridy talk about his suburban home in Rathmines, trophy by the Royal Irish Rifles. grandfather, and marvel at Dublin. the stunning photos of Dublin A detachment of 3rd Battalion, The banner was a war trophy, in 1916. The site also carries Royal Irish Rifles had been taken by the Royal Irish Rifles, all the articles in our ongoing detailed to search Surrey House, which eventually found its way series ‘My 1916’. home of Constance Markievicz, into the royal collection. The The independent.ie/1916 site who had just commanded the Irish words under the sunburst will continue to build into a rebels fighting in St Stephen’s may have puzzled officers and brilliant resource for students Green. royals alike, it translates loosely in years to come.