Easter Rising - when it was first called this?

Yeats's poem Easter, 1916 had been written, at the latest, by September 1916. I don't known when the phrase "Easter Rising" or "Easter Rebellion" first appears in print, but the association between the event and the date was immediate. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't know as the Easter Rising/Rebellion pretty much from the get-go.

Reaction in the streets at the time of the Rising itself was mixed - some hostility, some bewilderment, some admiration for the rebels' courage and/or strategy, but very little sympathy or active support.

The Victory Parade in Dublin wasn't actually held until well in 1919, from memory - maybe round about July? By then the world had moved on a lot - the Volunteers now had a much higher degree of respect and support than they had had in 1916, we had been through the Conscription Crisis, the 1918 election, the collapse of the Irish Party, the first meeting of Dail Eireann, the outbreak of the War of Independence. So far as I know there was no protest at the victory parade, but nor was it treated by most as an occasion for a display of empire loyalism - for the majority it was a welcoming home, and an event to mark thankfully the end of a dreadful episode.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yeats's poem Easter, 1916 had been written, at the latest, by September 1916. I don't known when the phrase "Easter Rising" or "Easter Rebellion" first appears in print, but the association between the event and the date was immediate. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't know as the Easter Rising/Rebellion pretty much from the get-go.

Reaction in the streets at the time of the Rising itself was mixed - some hostility, some bewilderment, some admiration for the rebels' courage and/or strategy, but very little sympathy or active support.

The Victory Parade in Dublin wasn't actually held until well in 1919, from memory - maybe round about July? By then the world had moved on a lot - the Volunteers now had a much higher degree of respect and support than they had had in 1916, we had been through the Conscription Crisis, the 1918 election, the collapse of the Irish Party, the first meeting of Dail Eireann, the outbreak of the War of Independence. So far as I know there was no protest at the victory parade, but nor was it treated by most as an occasion for a display of empire loyalism - for the majority it was a welcoming home, and an event to mark thankfully the end of a dreadful episode.

Admiration of strategy? The Easter Rising fell in on itself before it hapenned, with the Aud being sank by the British. Nothing strategically brilliant about taking the GPO and other major buildings in Dublin, when they were all impossible to defend as they were far apart from each other, cutting what little men the IRB had, away from each other.

buyer95 wrote: »

Admiration of strategy? The Easter Rising fell in on itself before it hapenned, with the Aud being sank by the British. Nothing strategically brilliant about taking the GPO and other major buildings in Dublin, when they were all impossible to defend as they were far apart from each other, cutting what little men the IRB had, away from each other.

The rebels' military strategy was hopeless but, then, their military position was hopeless, and no strategy was going to change that. Their political strategy, we can now see, succeeded brilliantly - possibly more by luck than by design, but there you are.

Be that as it may, contemporary accounts record that among the sentiments voiced by Dubliners at the time was admiration for the rebels' strategy. You may think that the admiration was misplaced (and you may be right) but the correct answer to the OP is that admiration of strategy was one of the immediate reactions to the Rising.

Coburger wrote: »

Hi,



Coincidentally, does anyone know of a place to read up on the victory parade that was held down College Green for Irish soldiers who returned from fighting for the British Army in France. Were there any protests against this by people in Dublin?

Coburg

http://johnny-doyle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/victory-parade-dublin-1919.html

There were protests by some ex-service personnel (and protests in the UK by ex-service personnel for the parades held there - with riots in Luton and Swindon).

Qualitymark wrote: »

20,000 professional soldiers armed with 18-pounder guns, incendiary shells, machine guns and bombs.

the use of incendiary shells during the Rising is a myth unfortunately.

There were no high explosive or incendiary shells available to the gunners from Athlone and the Royal Navy ships brought into action were anti-submarine vessels which had no stocks of incendiary shells.

The British army experienced a shell scandal in 1915 which had a wide reaching effect on how and where munitions were manufactured. Supplies of high explosive (HE) shells for example were scarce until March 1916. HE shells were needed in huge numbers to destroy bunkers and earthworks as the trench systems became more established.

Large amounts of incendiary shells were not required and they certainly weren't needed in Ireland. That's not to say there weren't attempts with incendiary shells. The first use of Thermite by the British Army during WW1 was on 2nd July 1916 on the Somme. The 500 shells fired failed to set alight the woods they were fired into. A few trees caught fire but more work was required to make the shells more effective.


Shrapnel shells from 18 pounder artillery pieces deliver 375 "bullets" each and are capable of causing fires when used in an urban setting with combustible material available.


Much of the re-organisation of munition factories and processes was directed by American K B Quinan. Amongst those who helped Quinan was Irish scientist Frederick George Donnan.

johnny_doyle wrote: »

if you were born in Ireland before 1st January 1949 you were entitled to consider yourself British . . .

As far as UK law was concerned you were "a British subject", as was anybody born in any of the Dominions, colonies, etc.

johnny_doyle wrote: »

. . . and would have had no problems applying for a British passport.

Actually, that wasn't quite so straightforward.

The UK position on this in 1922 was that everyone born in any of the British dominions, colonies, etc was a British subject, and that this was fully evidenced by the issue of a passport by the government of the dominion, colony etc in which you were living. So Canadians, say, were British subjects, but they didn't get passports from the British government; they got passports from the Canadian government which identified them as British subjects.

The Irish Free State was, at the time, the only Commonwealth country to have its own citizenship. The UK took the view that Irish Free State citizenship was of no consequence outside the Free State; in the rest of the world (including in the UK) citizens of the IFS were "British subjects", just like Canadians, Australians, etc. The Irish Free State wasn't entirely comfortable with this, but they issued passports describing the holder as a "Citizen of the Irish Free State and of the British Commonwealth of Nations". The UK didn't issue passports to residents of the IFS any more than they did to Canadians, Australians, etc unless they had some closer connection to the UK - i.e. they had been born in Britain, and had later moved to the IFS, or they had been born in the IFS, but were now in the UK.

In 1948 the British view on citizenship changed. As well as being a "British subject", everybody was to have a Commonwealth Citizenship - Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, UK, etc. When they were planning this they already knew that Ireland would be declaring a republic and finally leaving the Commonwealth in 1949, so they didn't treat Irish citizenship as a Commonwealth citizenship.

They did include a measure which allowed certain Irish citizens to retain British subject status, if they applied to do so. To qualify, it wasn't enough that you were an Irish citizens who was a British subject before 1948 - you had to have some further link with the UK, such as having been born there or having a parent or grandparent born there, having served in the UK armed forces, etc. If you qualified, and if you applied, you could remain a "British subject without citizenship", but (a) you would not be a UK citizen, and (b) you could not pass on your British subject status to your descendants. Someone who successfully applied would be able to get a passport from the British government identifying them as a British subject without citizenship.

The effect of this was to deprive all Irish citizens of British subject status, and at the same time to allow many, but not all, of them to recover it on application, while excluding them from the new UK citizen status. This was a cock-up of major proportions, since it deprived much of the population of Northern Ireland of UK citizenship, which of course was not the intention. Further legislation was passed in 1949 to ensure that people connected with Northern Ireland would be UK citizens regardless of whether they held Irish citizenship or not.

The net result of all this is that:

Prior to 1948, everyone born in the 26 counties was regarded in British law as a British subject, but in most cases this didn't allow them to get a passport from the British government. The only evidence of their British subject status was their Irish passport.

Since 1948, all people born in the 26 counties before 1922 and some people born in the 26 counties between 1922 and 1948 have been British subjects, and can get a passport from the British government saying so. However they are not UK citizens.

From 1948 until 1981 UK citizens (along with Canadian citizens, Australian citizens, etc) were also British Subjects; "British Subject" was an umbrella term for people holding the citizenship of any Commonwealth country, and for groups (like the Irish people we are discussing here) who had a historic connection with the UK but who didn't hold any Commonwealth citizenship. But the British changed the law again in 1981 to make "British subject" a residual term for people who have some connection but don't hold any Commonwealth Citizenship. The result is that UK citizens (now called British Citizens) are not now British subjects.

Most of the world's remaining British subjects are Irish citizens who have retained the status under the 1948 arrangement. There are also a few people who acquired British subject without citizenship status on the independence of India in 1947. Necessarily, they are all at least 65 years old. As the status is not heritable it will disappear entirely in the next couple of decades.

Peregrinus wrote: »

The Irish Free State was, at the time, the only Commonwealth country to have its own citizenship.

Didn't this only come about with the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1935?

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

My father joined the British Army during the 2nd world war and on his army documents he was (still) entered as British, so he still considered himself as British in the 40's. This is a very interesting point and never mentioned or discussed or even considered by those who fought in 1916 or 1922. Makes me wonder now if there had been a Referendum to decide whether Ireland should remain British or become independent, what would the numbers have actually looked like. I believe though that the majority vote would have been for independence but it would have been interesting to know all the same.

Thanks for that. I wasn't aware that some Irish people considered themselves as British that far along. (Assuming he was in the South & not the North.)

Even Michael Collins noted that the proclamation of the republic was "in advance of national thought" at the time, and it took two years of propaganda for the idea to catch on more widely.

A referendum *would* have been interesting. The great tragedy is that the Home Rule effort was never seen through.