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Padraig Pearse

  • 25-02-2011 6:58pm
    #1
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,138 ✭✭✭


    I was just looking at Padraig Pearses court matial address on the National Libray of Ireland's 1916 exhibit. Its quite an address, he comes across as a great orator but what I wanted to know was Pearse as influential in person as he was in writing?
    Alot of stuff I briefly read about Pearse is that he was a romantic and a weak individual. Is this true?


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Comments

  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    paky wrote: »
    I was just looking at Padraig Pearses court matial address on the National Libray of Ireland's 1916 exhibit. Its quite an address, he comes across as a great orator but what I wanted to know was Pearse as influential in person as he was in writing?
    Alot of stuff I briefly read about Pearse is that he was a romantic and a weak individual. Is this true?

    A man of his time for sure. His oration at the graveside of O'Donovan Rossa must have been a sight to behold. Looking back at it now, managing to romanticise the admittedly dreadful and boorish Rossa (Reading Rossa's memoirs is a difficult and traumatic experience) is a feat in itself.

    Pearse was a slight oddball, most people couldn't relate to him, he kept very much to himself and only spoke when he thought there was something useful to say (Perhaps not such a bad trait)

    I despise his politics, but he was a truly remarkable person.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,124 ✭✭✭wolfpawnat


    Denerick puts it well.

    He was a bit quiet and was a bit of an idealist. He did not believe in the "blood sacrifice" idea he wrote of in his poetry. That was just romantic writing. And I believe the O'Donovan Rossa eulogy would have been a great moment in history to have been present for!

    Many try to tar his name with ridiculous accusations of paedophilia towards the boys of St. Endas. These are unfounded accusations to attempt to tarnish the name of a good man who believed in education and justice.

    He was an honest man. On the morning of the rising he went to Cleary's department store and settled his accounts, but was apparently never too well off as he never really believed in giving himself too much!

    Though he was not a man of battle and war, he ordered that any looters would be shot as it was not right to rob from others, but once looters were found, he did not have the heart to allow them to be shot.

    When the garrison had moved to Moore Street and they held out against the British there, it was the witnessing of the murders of a barkeeper, his wife and 2 children by British Army machine gun fire as they waved a white flag to attempt to leave their home that caused Pearse to finally call for surrender, showing he was a compassionate man, who did not want to see innocent civilians die!

    Also many today call him Padraig Pearse, he always signed his name in 3 ways, but none were ever Padraig Pearse. It was either;

    P.H. Pearse.
    Patrick Pearse.
    Phaidraig MacPiarais.

    He is a national hero, he was not weak, how can anyone who would do everything for their country and then accept their faith when it failed be weak? It is just sad that so many try to tarnish this good mans name. My son's father is somewhat a fan of him (he insisted Pearse was our sons middle name and he has a quote of his tattooed on him), I will find out what books are a good, honest read about him and post the titles here for you to read if you would like :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 19,986 ✭✭✭✭mikemac


    wolfpawnat wrote: »
    Also many today call him Padraig Pearse, he always signed his name in 3 ways, but none were ever Padraig Pearse. It was either;

    P.H. Pearse.
    Patrick Pearse.
    Phaidraig MacPiarais.

    Ah I was going to post that

    There was a radio show, possibly Talking History on Newstalk and people on the Kilmainham tour were complaining about the guides saying Patrick Pearse.
    Until it was pointed out to them that Pearse would never mix and match the two languages, it was one of the three options above

    Nothing wrong with saying Padraig Pearse, just the man himself would never have used it


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    paky wrote: »
    I was just looking at Padraig Pearses court matial address on the National Libray of Ireland's 1916 exhibit. Its quite an address, he comes across as a great orator but what I wanted to know was Pearse as influential in person as he was in writing?
    Alot of stuff I briefly read about Pearse is that he was a romantic and a weak individual. Is this true?
    TG4 had an excellent series on the 1916 leaders called 1916 Seachtar na Cásca, it was to come out on DVD. One ofcourse featured Pearse. From what I remember he was an extremely shy, intense individual. This may have been because he was born with an eye defect or something causing a noticeable eye squint. The programme suggested he may have been extremely consious of this and have suffered bullying etc in his youth, which would obviously have shaped his extremely shy character.

    1916 Seachtar na Cásca http://www.tg4.com/bearla/clar/1916/prog7.asp


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭R.Dub.Fusilier


    wolfpawnat wrote: »
    Denerick puts it well.

    He was a bit quiet and was a bit of an idealist. He did not believe in the "blood sacrifice" idea he wrote of in his poetry. That was just romantic writing. And I believe the O'Donovan Rossa eulogy would have been a great moment in history to have been present for!

    Many try to tar his name with ridiculous accusations of paedophilia towards the boys of St. Endas. These are unfounded accusations to attempt to tarnish the name of a good man who believed in education and justice.

    He was an honest man. On the morning of the rising he went to Cleary's department store and settled his accounts, but was apparently never too well off as he never really believed in giving himself too much!

    Though he was not a man of battle and war, he ordered that any looters would be shot as it was not right to rob from others, but once looters were found, he did not have the heart to allow them to be shot.

    When the garrison had moved to Moore Street and they held out against the British there, it was the witnessing of the murders of a barkeeper, his wife and 2 children by British Army machine gun fire as they waved a white flag to attempt to leave their home that caused Pearse to finally call for surrender, showing he was a compassionate man, who did not want to see innocent civilians die!

    Also many today call him Padraig Pearse, he always signed his name in 3 ways, but none were ever Padraig Pearse. It was either;

    P.H. Pearse.
    Patrick Pearse.
    Phaidraig MacPiarais.

    He is a national hero, he was not weak, how can anyone who would do everything for their country and then accept their faith when it failed be weak? It is just sad that so many try to tarnish this good mans name. My son's father is somewhat a fan of him (he insisted Pearse was our sons middle name and he has a quote of his tattooed on him), I will find out what books are a good, honest read about him and post the titles here for you to read if you would like :)

    good points well put . well said.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,124 ✭✭✭wolfpawnat


    TG4 had an excellent series on the 1916 leaders called 1916 Seachtar na Cásca, it was to come out on DVD. One ofcourse featured Pearse. From what I remember he was an extremely shy, intense individual. This may have been because he was born with an eye defect or something causing a noticeable eye squint. The programme suggested he may have been extremely consious of this and have suffered bullying etc in his youth, which would obviously have shaped his extremely shy character.

    1916 Seachtar na Cásca http://www.tg4.com/bearla/clar/1916/prog7.asp

    A trait still is in his family today. I recently have the honour of meeting his great great grand nephew who, in when he turned his head sideways to talk to a friend gave myself and my partner chills down our spines. He is the picture of the man and he too has the eye defect! Amazing moment.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    He did have a girlfriend Eveleen Nicholls who drowned off the Blaskets and this affected him. They talked of marriage.

    images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTQEyzIf-x97PhCFggUvdqDZhPT3xWD0dv_5rLBC4Ojy1j9qchliw

    Pearse & Sons - set up by his father James - was the biggest firm of monumental masons in Ireland. He described his occupation as Sculptor during this time.

    Under Patrick's management the company went into decline and in 1910 it was dissolved and the funds went into St Enda's College.

    So he wasn't always destined to be a poet and patriot.

    I wonder are there any sculptures or stone works known to be attributed to him.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,273 ✭✭✭Morlar


    The brother Willie Pearse (who was also executed) was a sculptor too, one of his pieces the Roisin Dubh in white marble still stands in Stephens Green (beneath the Mangan bust).

    Here it is in photo's from the web:

    mangan1.jpg

    1899384532_8431c7aa4e.jpg


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    wolfpawnat wrote: »
    Denerick puts it well.

    He was a bit quiet and was a bit of an idealist. He did not believe in the "blood sacrifice" idea he wrote of in his poetry. That was just romantic writing. And I believe the O'Donovan Rossa eulogy would have been a great moment in history to have been present for!

    Many try to tar his name with ridiculous accusations of paedophilia towards the boys of St. Endas. These are unfounded accusations to attempt to tarnish the name of a good man who believed in education and justice.

    He was an honest man. On the morning of the rising he went to Cleary's department store and settled his accounts, but was apparently never too well off as he never really believed in giving himself too much!

    Though he was not a man of battle and war, he ordered that any looters would be shot as it was not right to rob from others, but once looters were found, he did not have the heart to allow them to be shot.

    When the garrison had moved to Moore Street and they held out against the British there, it was the witnessing of the murders of a barkeeper, his wife and 2 children by British Army machine gun fire as they waved a white flag to attempt to leave their home that caused Pearse to finally call for surrender, showing he was a compassionate man, who did not want to see innocent civilians die!

    Also many today call him Padraig Pearse, he always signed his name in 3 ways, but none were ever Padraig Pearse. It was either;

    P.H. Pearse.
    Patrick Pearse.
    Phaidraig MacPiarais.

    He is a national hero, he was not weak, how can anyone who would do everything for their country and then accept their faith when it failed be weak? It is just sad that so many try to tarnish this good mans name. My son's father is somewhat a fan of him (he insisted Pearse was our sons middle name and he has a quote of his tattooed on him), I will find out what books are a good, honest read about him and post the titles here for you to read if you would like :)
    " it was the witnessing of the murders of a barkeeper, his wife and 2 children by British Army machine gun fire as they waved a white flag to attempt to leave their home that caused Pearse to finally call for surrender, "

    Didn't know that interesting. Showed Pearse to be a courageous man of principle. It sickens me how we get wannabe intellectuals slagging off Pearse, O'Donovan Rossa etc and then lecturing us how those of empty cliches and patronising comments such as Uncle Tom Hume ( John Hume), Daniel O'Connell etc were the real heros of Irish nationalism :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,124 ✭✭✭wolfpawnat


    " it was the witnessing of the murders of a barkeeper, his wife and 2 children by British Army machine gun fire as they waved a white flag to attempt to leave their home that caused Pearse to finally call for surrender, "

    Didn't know that interesting. Showed Pearse to be a courageous man of principle. It sickens me how we get wannabe intellectuals slagging off Pearse, O'Donovan Rossa etc and then lecturing us how those of empty cliches and patronising comments such as Uncle Tom Hume ( John Hume), Daniel O'Connell etc were the real heros of Irish nationalism :rolleyes:

    Yes, it was no doubt a terrible thing to witness for Pearse and the others, I am sure it shocked them all to their core. A lot of this information is only available through family members of those involved in the rising, I really wish someone would collect all these great facts before those with an interest die out completely!

    There are 2 types of Irish Patriots, those who times of diplomacy were able to achieve some freedom for Ireland, for example O'Connell, Parnell and Hume (I love how they forget Adams, because to the best of my knowledge, he was involved in those talks too, along with Paisley and Robinson, but anyway). And they have contributed greatly to our country and where we are today.

    But there have been times that diplomacy has not gotten us anywhere and while it has stalemated, we have had to remind the British of the treatment of Irish people under their rule. Yes those in 1798, 1803, 1916 cost the lives of others, but hoe many lives had they seen destroyed around them. What people tend to brush over is these were not unprovoked attacks, but retaliations!


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,488 ✭✭✭Denerick


    Yes, it was no doubt a terrible thing to witness for Pearse and the others, I am sure it shocked them all to their core. A lot of this information is only available through family members of those involved in the rising, I really wish someone would collect all these great facts before those with an interest die out completely!

    Emm... This fact is mentioned in pretty much every historical commentary about the Easter Rising. Its very common knowledge. Besides, I don't think its particularly noteworthy. Pearse et all dragged the rising out by a couple of days as it was. Ordinary people died in a hopeless cause. Many of those who died were completely innocent civilians. There is a tendancy to romantice these things, but Pearse was directly responsible for the death of many that week. One moment of conscience hardly absolves him.
    wolfpawnat wrote: »
    But there have been times that diplomacy has not gotten us anywhere and while it has stalemated, we have had to remind the British of the treatment of Irish people under their rule. Yes those in 1798, 1803, 1916 cost the lives of others, but hoe many lives had they seen destroyed around them. What people tend to brush over is these were not unprovoked attacks, but retaliations!

    You need to open up a new thread for when propounding an article of faith from the Republican missal. Unfortunately Irish history has been simplified by those with a violent agenda, aimed at justifying quaint yet dangerous 19th century style nationalism.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Along with Eamonn DeValera's mothers second marriage (?) James Pearses first marriage is something that is airbrushed from history .

    Here is a nugget

    Madam, - I would like to draw your readers' attention to inaccurate references to the first family of James Pearse, father of Patrick Pearse, in an otherwise interesting and informative piece by James Fitzgerald on the new exhibition in the Pearse Museum, formerly St Enda's, Rathfarnham (The Irish Times, December 30th).
    James Pearse had in fact two surviving children from his first marriage, Emily and James Vincent and not "two extra daughters by his first wife".
    James Vincent was my grandfather. I was a frequent visitor to St Enda's and spent my holidays there in the 1940s with Patrick Pearse's sister Senator Margaret Pearse, my godmother. Both Emily's and …



    http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-24775963.html


    I read about it before and how he converted to Catholicism and very much impressed his priest. Once the truth was explained to him etc he got it first time. .

    He was from Birmingham and was a unitarian. That amuses me because Robert Emmet was rumoured to be buried in what is now the Unitarian church on Stephens Green.
    Monumental sculpture workshop, of 27 Great Brunswick Street, Dublin. After the death of JAMES PEARSE his business was carried on for a few years under the name James Pearse & Sons by his younger son, the sculptor William Pearse (1881-1916), with some assistance from his more famous elder son, the lawyer, teacher and patriot Patrick Pearse (1879-1916). The business was still extant in 1908 but probably came to an end soon afterwards, as William began to become involved in teaching art at his brother's schools. Both Patrick and William were executed for their part in the Easter Rising of 1916.

    It would seem that Willie was a talented artist



    James was aspirational for his family and moved the family to Sandymount when business was going well.

    Patrick went was privatelly tutored and went to college to do his degree and tacked the Kings Inn and became a Barrister. A gentlemens proffession

    I think Willie and James are very interesting men in their own right.

    Sort by date | Sort alphabetically

    Building: CO. MAYO, BALLINA, CATHEDRAL OF ST MUIREDACH (RC) Date: 1892;1893;1894; Nature: Lady altar, 1892; communion rails, 1893; font, 1894; Holy Family altar, 1900. Refs: Designs formerly in office archives of W.H. Byrne & Son
    Building: CO. MEATH, TRIM, PATRICK STREET, CHURCH OF ST PATRICK (RC) Date: 1901 Nature: Reredos. Refs: Christine Casey & Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (1993), 518
    Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, WILLIAM STREET NORTH, CHURCH OF ST AGATHA (RC) Date: 1907;1908 Nature: William Malone and Pearse & Sons sign agreements to carry out high altar design (by W.H.Byrne?), 1907, altar rails and side altar, 1908. Refs: IAA, W.H. Byrne & Son drawings collection, Acc. 2006/142
    Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, WILLIAM STREET NORTH, CHURCH OF ST AGATHA (RC) Date: 1908 Nature: Design for side altar by Pearse & Sons and William Malone. Refs: Drawing in W.H. Byrne & Son collection
    Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, WESTLAND ROW, ST ANDREW'S CHURCH (RC) Date: 1912p Nature: Statue of Mater Dolorosa in mortuary chapel by William Pearse. Refs: Catholic Dublin: a guide (1932); Theo Snoddy, Dictionary of Irish Artists: 20th Century (1996), 389
    Building: CO. DONEGAL, LETTERKENNY, CATHEDRAL OF ST EUNAN (RC) Date: ? Nature: Pulpit and altar rail by 'Pearse & Co'. Refs: Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster (1979), 343
    Building: CO. LIMERICK, LIMERICK, CATHEDRAL PLACE, CATHEDRAL OF ST JOHN (RC) Date: ? Nature: Reredos by William Pearse. Refs: Theo Snoddy, Dictionary of Irish Artists: 20th Century (1996), 389
    Building: CO. MEATH, KILMESSAN, CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY OF MARY (RC) Date: ? Nature: Altar furniture. Refs: Christine Casey & Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster (1993), 364


    Thats not all - James work seems to be dotted around the country
    The present High Altar in Youghal was erected in 1886 and was made by Pearse of Dublin. An account oft he event is to be found in the quondam Cork Examiner for 14 November 1886. The Telford organ was first played for High Mass celebrated by Bishop Keane on 23 May 1858.

    link - the Altar is at the back and it is very impressive

    http://www.youghalonline.com/tag/st-marys-parish-church-youghal/

    I have spent a few hours looking on line for a picture of the Materdolorosa /Pieta at St Andrews Church Westland Row Dublin and I definately going to go and have a look.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,124 ✭✭✭wolfpawnat


    Patrick and Willie had 2 half sisters of whom have living relatives today. Their father was a protestant, though most of his work was for Catholic Churches. The boys mother was a catholic and they were raised Catholics.

    Yes, no one seems to know they had half sisters, but as I said in an earlier post, Pearses great great grand nephew has the exact same features as Pearse himself, amazing how it has travelled to this day in the family's genes!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    A bit more on the James Pearse bio

    http://www.jstor.org/pss/30101441

    showArticleImage?image=images%2Fpages%2Fdtc.6.tif.gif&doi=10.2307%2F30101441


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Here is some more on James

    We know he was self self educated and his books formed the nucleus of St Endas Library.

    He was a bit of a radical beneath it all.
    ‘The strange thing I am’: his father’s son?

    47_small_1246381453.jpgJames Pearse—archetypical Victorian working-class autodidact. (Pearse Museum)
    ‘For the present I have said enough to indicate that when my father and mother married there came together two very widely remote traditions—English and Puritan and mechanic on the one hand, Gaelic and Catholic and peasant on the other: freedom loving both, and neither without its strain of poetry and its experience of spiritual and other adventure. And these two traditions worked in me and fused together by a certain fire proper to myself . . . made me the strange thing I am.’
    —Patrick Pearse (Autobiography)

    James Pearse was born on 8 December 1839 into a poor London family. When he was between the ages of seven and eight, the family moved to Birmingham. He had limited formal education and his brief experience of the local Sunday school was not a success—the clergyman who ran it labelled him an atheist, which, according to his son’s autobiography, ‘he duly became’. He passed through a series of unsatisfactory jobs until he eventually found his niche as a sculptor’s apprentice. Patrick describes his father as

    ‘. . . working in the daytime and in the Art School every evening, he read books by night and came to know most of English literature well and some of it better than most men who have lived in universities.’

    James Pearse thus became an archetypical Victorian working-class autodidact. His books, many of which survive in the Pearse Museum collection, reflect a man with wide interests. He read books on art and architecture, history, theology, philosophy and current affairs. He had many books on religion, but this seems to have been the result of his interest in the ‘secularist’ or ‘free thought’ movement, which disputed the central tenets of Judaeo-Christianity. He was a follower of the freethinker Charles Bradlaugh MP. Bradlaugh was a confirmed republican and a champion of universal suffrage, votes for women, birth control, land reform, workers’ rights and the rights of subject peoples in the British Empire. Although he was not a revolutionary and did not support the separation of Ireland and Britain, his republicanism led to contacts with several leading Fenians.
    James Pearse would have had to be most discreet about his atheist views when he finally settled in Ireland in the 1860s with his English wife, Emily Suzanna Fox. Both they and their children converted to Catholicism, probably for business reasons. Emily died in 1876, leaving him a widower with two young children. He married his second wife, Margaret Brady, the following year and set up home over his premises in 27 Great Brunswick (now Pearse) Street. Patrick was born in November 1879, the second of their four children.
    James Pearse’s business success excited jealousy amongst some of the Irish stone-carvers. A rival began a campaign against him on religious and racial grounds. James 47_small_1246381485.jpgJames and his second wife, Margaret, with their children (from left to right) Margaret, Willie, Mary Brigid and Patrick. (Pearse Museum)mounted a stout defence of his position and attested to the sincerity of his conversion in a letter to Archdeacon Kinnane of Fethard in 1883. However, the following year he invested £50 in a debenture with the Freethought Publishing Company headed by Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant. Even a cursory look at the publications of this organisation, which challenged and ridiculed religious faith, would suggest that James Pearse was not a believer. There is also evidence to suggest that he may have published anti-religious free-thought pamphlets under the pseudonym ‘Humanitas’.
    Ironically, the only pamphlet James Pearse published under his own name is supportive of the Catholic Church. A reply to Professor Maguire’s pamphlet ‘England’s duty to Ireland’ as it appears to an Englishman was written in 1886 in response to a pamphlet by Dr Thomas Maguire, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Trinity College. Maguire’s is an extreme piece of anti-home rule polemic. In his reply (which is four times as long) James Pearse shows himself to be an ardent Parnellite. While at times he seems overly anxious to display his own learning, one cannot help admiring the bravery and confidence of this self-educated working man taking on a member of the academic élite.
    James Pearse died on 5 September 1900, while staying in his brother’s home in Birmingham. He left an estate valued at £1,470–17s–6d. Pearse and Sons was wound up in 1910 and the capital was used to fund Patrick’s school, St Enda’s, which had recently moved to new premises in Rathfarnham. James Pearse’s legacy to the school was not simply financial. His books formed the nucleus of the library, while his engravings and sculptures joined the school’s art collection, and there are echoes of his father’s educational experience in Pearse’s insistence that, in his school, boys would develop independent minds and a genuine love of learning. He completely rejected the exam-focused rote learning that characterised his own educational experience, despite the fact that he himself was a successful product of that system.
    It is also possible to see Patrick as being influenced by his father’s unorthodox religious beliefs. While Patrick Pearse was a deeply spiritual person, a regular communicant with a strong faith in God (at times betraying an almost messianic self-identification with Christ), he was by no means a conventional Catholic. He openly criticised the Catholic hierarchy as editor of An Claidheamh Soluis in 1903 and as editor-proprietor of An Barr Buadh in 1912. The setting up of St Enda’s as a school for Catholic boys outside the control of the church was a brave move and can hardly have been popular with the hierarchy, who jealously guarded their control of the education of their flock. In his literary works characters have religious and spiritual crises that are resolved outside of the structures of the institutional church. By the time of the Rising Pearse had, to quote Ruth Dudley Edwards, ‘abandoned the doctrines (if not the practices) of conservative Irish Catholicism and adapted his deeply felt religion to his own needs’.
    However much Pearse may have loved and admired his father, he was also uncomfortable at times with his mixed heritage. He saw it as responsible for making him ‘the strange thing I am’. In 1912 he wrote an uncharacteristically revealing self-critique in his short-lived newspaper An Barr Buadh:

    ‘I don’t know if I like you or not, Pearse. I don’t know if anyone does like you. I know full many who hate you . . . Pearse you are too dark in yourself. You don’t make friends 47_small_1246381516.jpgPlaster maquette for a statue of Erin Go Breagh commissioned from Pearse and Sons for 34 College Green. (Pearse Museum)with Gaels. You avoid their company. When you come among them you bring a dark cloud with you that lies heavily on them . . . Is it your English blood that is the cause of this I wonder . . . I suppose there are two Pearses, the sombre and taciturn Pearse and the gay and sunny Pearse.’

    In this piece, he associates his Englishness with the negative aspects of his personality, his melancholia and emotional distance from others. Significantly, in his autobiography Pearse describes his father as having exactly these negative traits. Was it this negativity about his English background that led to Pearse’s own zealous embrace of all things Irish?
    The ‘Pearse myth’ created in the early years of the new Irish state had no place for Pearse’s freethinking English father. The conservative Irish Catholic establishment portrayed Pearse as a respectable, church-going schoolteacher and ignored most of his more radical and innovative views. The revisionists leading the radical reassessment of Pearse’s reputation during the 1970s and ’80s were often equally uninterested in a more complex understanding of Pearse’s identity. But if we look at him as the child of both his parents, as both a traditionalist and a modernist, a religious believer unafraid to question his faith, we may find Pearse to be a founder of the Irish nation who is in tune with many of the complexities of modern Ireland today.

    Brian Crowley is Assistant Curator at the Pearse Museum, Dublin.

    http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume14/issue2/news/?id=114021

    If James was around today he probably would be a mod on the Humanities Forum ;)

    Willie was probably more like James.

    I saw a programme on the History Channel about a guy who set up a boarding school circa 1880 that was something like St Enda's for the sons of tradesmen made good.

    Pearse had also sucessfully ran " An Claidheamh Soluis" which was a considerable acheivement .

    These guys were quite able especially when their father was alive.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    And the family dynamic and squables following their deaths
    The diaries that split Padraig Pearse's family apart
    The publication of Pearse's diaries by his sister Mary Bridget in 1934 led to a life-long rift with her older sister Margaret, writes Harry McGee
    A BITTER dispute over the personal diaries of Patrick Pearse led to a lifelong estrangement between the two sisters of the executed Easter Rising leader.

    Pearse's youngest sister, Mary Bridget, published The Home Life of Patrick Pearse in 1934 which was based on Patrick's personal diaries about his childhood. However, her decision to publish the book outraged her sister Margaret, who claimed that his diary belonged to both of them. It led to a protracted legal dispute between the sisters which, at one stage, necessitated the intervention of Eamon de Valera who suggested arbitration. The dispute deteriorated the already hostile relationship between the two women and neither were reconciled at the time of Mary Bridget's death 13 years later.

    The two sisters and their mother, Margaret, are the subjects of a Léargas documentary for RTE which traces the lives of the three women and their relationships with Patrick and his brother Willie, both executed in the wake of the 1916 rising.

    The programme ? which features contributions from Pearse biographer Ruth Dudley Edwards as well as historians Séamus Ó Buachalla, Pádraig Ó Snodaigh and Pat Cooke, curator of St Enda's, the Pearse museum in Rathfarnham, Dublin ? examines the myth that surrounded his mother Margaret, especially, after his death.

    Contributors contend that the popular image of Pearse's mother after 1916 ? an almost classical vision of pious suffering ? was one that was not of her making but rather of her son's. Awaiting his execution, Pearse wrote poetry and letters, purporting to be in her voice. Cooke says that the words of the mother grieving her two dead sons ? evoking a vision of Cáitlín Ní hUallacháin grieving for Ireland ? belonged directly to Patrick and not to her.

    Contemporary accounts say that she spent the week following the execution wandering the streets of Dublin looking for her two sons. However, the letters enabled her to cope after the execution with their admonition to be proud and not sad. Thereafter, Margaret became a living symbol of her dead sons, becoming a member of the Senate and travelling to the US to raise funds for St Enda's school.

    The Pearse family was a classic Victorian family, upwardly mobile in Dublin at the turn of the century. Margaret was 18 when she became the second wife of James Pearse, a stone sculptor from Liverpool. Margaret was not an intellectual but she had a warm and loving personality. From an early age it was clear that Patrick, born in 1879, was the most gifted member of the family and the roles of his mother and siblings became supportive ones for his endeavours.

    Mary Bridget, who suffered from depression, did not endear herself to nationalists after she reportedly told Patrick to come home and not be foolish during the siege in the GPO.

    After his death, his mother effectively changed from being housekeeper to manager of St Enda's, a role later taken on by Margaret Jnr. The school closed in 1935 but Margaret remained living alone in the enormous tumbledown house for many years. She died in 1968.

    The extent of the rift between the sisters can be seen in correspondence during the dispute in the 1930s when Mary Bridget wrote to Margaret saying: "Your case is not worrying me. It is yourself who is worrying me. Why don't you leave me alone and stop harrying me."
    February 3, 2002

    http://www.tribune.ie/article/2002/feb/03/the-diaries-that-split-padraig-pearses-family-apar/



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    wolfpawnat wrote: »
    A trait still is in his family today. I recently have the honour of meeting his great great grand nephew who, in when he turned his head sideways to talk to a friend gave myself and my partner chills down our spines. He is the picture of the man and he too has the eye defect! Amazing moment.

    Was that this guy
    ames Connolly Heron is the Great Grand son of James Connolly. Noel Scarlett is the Great nephew of Padraig Pearse. Helen Litton is the Great Niece of Thomas Clarke. Pat McDermott is the Great Nephew of Sean McDermott. Mary Gallagher is the Great niece of Eamon Ceannt. Lucille Redmond is Great Granddaughter of Thomas MacDonagh and Honor O'Broilcain is Great Niece of Joseph Plunkett.

    http://www.rte.ie/about/pressreleases/2009/0304/040309proclamation.html


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,260 ✭✭✭PatsytheNazi


    CDfm wrote: »
    Was that this guy
    Maybe CDfm or wolfpawnat could tell me since you seem to know quite a lot about Pearse. Longford's county ground Pearse Park is named in honour of him. Now I know their are many GAA clubs around the country named after him, but did he have a specific link to Longford ?

    Which just goes to show how he, Wolfe Tone, Collins, O'Donovan Rossa etc were and still are regarded as the hero's who selflessly gave all for the freedom of the country rather than the windbags who enjoyed the perks of office and just went to Westminister to make empty speeches to empty benches.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    I know very little about him but his mother was a Brady from Co Meath.

    I suspect (and I got this from the radio on Friday during the election talk moratorium) that in 1966 things like railway stations were renamed in honour of the 1916 signatories - so it is likely that that was the reason.

    EDIT - list of GAA Stadia and who they are named for " In the name of the forefathers"

    http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/in-the-name-of-the-forefathers-2510998.html

    The Pearses did do a lot of Church Work- altars and the like so there may be a loose connection thru that or his mothers family.

    I am just looking up stuff that will give me an idea what he was like as a man as opposed to the wishy washy guy we got brought up with.

    EDIT St Bridgets Church Ardagh Co Lomgford
    Beautiful carvings in Irish and Italian marble are incorporated in the interior, in particular the high altar and altar rail, which were designed by William Hague and apparently carved by James Pearse (1839 - 1900), father the sculptor Willie Pearse and the more famous political figure Patrick Pearse (1879 - 1916)

    http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/niah/search.jsp?type=record&county=LF&regno=13312031

    13312031_1.jpg


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    I did a bit of digging and found a reference to James Vincent Pearse on a Geneology Site -from who appears to be a grandson of James Vincent and grand nephew of Patrick & Willie


    To what has been handed down to the family, Patriag,(Patrick) William(Willie )Margaret Anne, and Mary Bridget - by James and Margaret of a second Marriage. The first marriage was to Emily Fox, she had two children to James, James Vincent and Mary Emily., after the birth of Mary Emily she died, thus causing James to seek a new wife...I am not sure of this but it was said that she died in childbirth, leaving the question wide open to wonder whether Mary Emily & Mary Bridget are one and the same , relatives dispute this, however it is one part of the family history I have put aside and left and I do not ever mention it when others bring it up because it has caused too many problems in the past when my father and his brothers were alive,and again, it has done so again in the descending generations. I have been working on this family history for 20 years, and I just cannot believe people think the way they do, so best to leave well enough alone.

    The younger James Vincent returned to England after the uprising, leaving father to carry many works in Ireland in memory of his sons. He had his favourite,young Willie. It is said that he never forgave himself for what happened. I suppose he thought that he could have done more, as we all do even today, you have to admit many of us think the same way when put in a similar situation of something that has happened in our lives.

    Margaret apparently ended up in Politics, I have never followed it through... I have never forgotten the situation I was put in one night at a St. Patricks Day celebration by an Irish Priest. I was taking photos for the the job I was in , however he knew part of the history, and then he turned around to the people seated, mind you this was a few hundred had turned out for the occasion, and over the microphone he is a lady who is a descendant of the uprising in Ireland, I have never forgotten it , because you could have cut the air with a knife, immediately he realized he had done the wrong thing, it was plain to see I was not welcome.
    .

    http://www.belfastforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=398.0

    So there is a side to the Pearse family we did not know about -who were probably stonemasons too. Older than Patrick & Willie and who were very distressed at their deaths.

    It is likely that Willie worked with them following the sale of the family business and that may be some of the reason why it is not talked of- their desire for privacy.

    EDIT - Some more Willie Pearse works
    William (Willie)James Pearse born November 15,1881 at 27 Great Brunswick Street, Dublin, he was the younger brother of Patrick Pearse.
    William inherited his father's artistic abilities and became a sculptor. He was educated at the Christian Brothers School, Westland Row. He studied at the Metropolitan Shcool of Art in Dublin under Oliver Sheppard. He also studied art in Paris. While attending the Kensington School of Art he gained notice for several of his artworks. Some of his sculptures were to be found in:

    Limerick Cathedral, St. Eunan's, Letterkenny and several Dublin churches including Terenure His well known figure of "The Mater Dolorosa" in Mortuary Chapel, St. Andrews Westland row appears a tragic and prophetic masterpiece. Throughout the countryside you may find his sculptures of the Dead Christ and the Immaculate Conception. The O'Mulrennan Memorial in Glasnevin and a memorial to Father Murphy in Wexford are also his works.

    http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=a2k87cstlstg6v3attvbgpbl75&topic=65791.0


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    And this seems to be the first family of James Pearse family



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    And here seems to be James Pearse junior in the census of 1901 and he 6 children

    http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai003685126/
    Residents of a house 16 in Spencer Street (North Dock, Dublin)
    Show all information
    Surname Forename Age Sex Relation to head Religion
    Pearse Agnes 6 Female Daughter R Catholic
    Pearse Emily 12 Female Daughter R Catholic
    Pearse Margaret 4 Female Daughter R Catholic
    Pearse Florence 10 Female Daughter R Catholic
    Pearse James 34 Male Head of Family R Catholic
    Pearse Henry 1 Male Son R Catholic
    Pearse James 8 Male Son R Catholic
    Pearse Mary 35 Female Wife R Catholic

    I cant see them in the 1911 Census but in 1916 James jnr would have been 50.

    And his deceased fathers family

    http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/Pembroke_East___Donnybrook/Sandymount_Avenue__Part_of_/1285811/
    Residents of a house 363 in Sandymount Avenue (Part of) (Pembroke East & Donnybrook, Dublin)
    Show all information
    Surname Forename Age Sex Relation to head Religion
    Pearse William James 19 Male Brother Roman Catholic
    Pearse Patrick Henry 21 Male Head of Family Roman Catholic
    Pearse Margaret 44 Female Mother Roman Catholic
    Pearse Mary Brigid 16 Female Sister Roman Catholic
    Pearse Margaret Mary 22 Female Sister Roman Catholic
    Doody Honor 65 Female Visitor Roman Catholic


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    And I wonder if in Glasnevin Cemetary ???
    Pearse, James Vincent, d. 27 Feb 1949, h/o Jane, [FC]
    Pearse, James, d. 9 Feb 1952, s/o James Vincent & Jane, [FC]
    Pearse, Jane, d. 31 May 1959, w/o James Vincent, [FC]

    http://www.interment.net/data/ireland/dublin/glasnevin/p/glasn_p01.htm


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,124 ✭✭✭wolfpawnat


    James Pearse, the father of Patrick and Willie was Church of Ireland, not Roman Catholic, however, one of the brothers listed to the James Pearse mentioned above is Henry, which is the middle name of Patrick. All very confusing:confused: Will definitely have to ask the housemate!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    wolfpawnat wrote: »
    James Pearse, the father of Patrick and Willie was Church of Ireland, not Roman Catholic, however, one of the brothers listed to the James Pearse mentioned above is Henry, which is the middle name of Patrick. All very confusing:confused: Will definitely have to ask the housemate!

    James converted from C of I to RC prior to marrying Margaret Brady - more than likely at her insistence.His son equally may have converted to marry.

    Now I dont know if these are the correct people as it was what the searches threw up and they soft of fit in.

    Anyway, its not the first such hidden family we know about, Eamonn DeValera's mother married again as Mrs Catherine Wheelwright

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=67115210&postcount=86

    ( Now I am not saying hidden in a bad way as it is mentioned that one of the family used to holiday in St Enda's with Pearses sister in the 1940's )

    We are used to seeing Pearse as a sort of isolated aesthete and that may not be so true at all. There is a bit more vibrancy about his life and family.

    EDIT - I reckon this must knock some of Ruth Dudley Edwards theories on the head
    Would Pearse have had the same yearning for immortality if he had had children? Or even the nieces and nephews denied him because of the strange inwardness of the Pearse family. None of the four children went into the Church, and yet none of them married or, apparently, had any normal sexual relationships. Pearse's three siblings seem to have sublimated their sexuality by helping their big brother with his cultural and educational causes. And Willie, of course, gave his life for Patrick's last crusade.

    http://www.independent.ie/unsorted/features/the-terrible-legacy-of-patrick-pearse-348632.html


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    I have done a bit more digging and come up more about the Pearses home life and the Brady's from Nobber Co Meath.

    I have found a blog and I do not know how accurate the information is but anyway -here are a few extracts.

    http://ansionnachabu.blogspot.com/2010/05/chinn-aluinn-love-story-of-eibhlin-nic.html

    How James Pearse met and married Margaret Brady
    In 1877, James married his Irish-born second wife, Margaret Brady, a nineteen year old girl who worked in a local stationer’s shop he frequented. Her family originally hailed from an Irish-speaking district of County Meath and had been forced by the disastrous effects of the Great Famine to migrate to the Dublin in search of work. There they had become moderately successful eventually coming to hold several pieces of property in a working class area of the city, where Margaret was born. She was several years younger than her husband when he met her and despite her family’s initial reluctance to see her marry someone so recently widowed, with two children and somewhat older than her the wedding eventually went ahead.

    Pearses Blended family
    Though they seemed to have had a close relationship one would expect that there must have been some difficulties between the children of James Pearse’s first and second wives. With their mother gone at a relatively early age the two children of Emily Susanna Pearse were suddenly given a new mother and soon new half-sisters and brothers (and eventually even a new ‘Irish’ spelling for their surname). These things must have been traumatic for the children of James’s first wife.

    Margaret was a good step-mother and Pearse was good friends with his stepsisters son Alfred McLoughlin.


    Furthermore their father blamed their late mother for the death in childhood through ‘neglect’ of one of their two deceased siblings, which cannot have helped things. Nevertheless all the evidence we have indicates that Margaret was a good mother to her two step-children and that the half-siblings remained in close contact throughout their lives even after the older two had left the family home, James Pearse to a career and marriage in Britain where he remained for the rest of his life and Emily Pearse to a marriage with Alfred McGloughlin, the son of her father’s close friend John McGloughlin and a life in Dublin. Her son, Alfred McGloughlin Jr, became a close childhood companion of Pádraig’s.

    The hanged relative of Pearses great great grandfather in 1798.
    The family had a strong Republican tradition rooted in their Irish speaking character. Pádraig’s great-great-grandfather, Uaitéar Ó Brádaigh (Walter Brady), had fought in the 1798 Rising as a member of the Irish Republican and revolutionary Society of the United Irishmen, who were led by local Presbyterian and Republican radicals. Uaitéar’s brother had been executed by British after fighting in the bloody Battle of Tara (in which Uaitéar himself had probably fought), and was buried in the famous Croppies’ Grave at Tara, while another brother was captured and hanged by the Yeomanry, a feared British and Loyalist militia in Ireland. Uaitéar’s son, also named Uaitéar (Walter Brady Junior), was forced with his large family from their home at An Obair in 1848, one of the worse years of the Great Famine and also the year of the Young Irelander Rising, another Irish Republican insurrection that sprang out in several areas of the country and lasted until 1849. It is probable that Uaitéar’s son, Pádraig Ó Brádaigh (the grandfather of Pádraig Mac Piarais, who spoke only Irish), was a member of the Irish Confederate Clubs as the Young Irelanders were officially known, in his youth



    Eveleen Nicholls is also mentioned here . Students together at UCD and both linguists they were at least friends and possibly more.

    She was also a bit of a suffragette.

    Who knows - maybe Pearse set up St Enda's because of her.




    One of the earliest biographies of Pádraig was by the renowned Breton nationalist writer and journalist Louis N. Le Roux who was in exile in Ireland during the latter part of the Irish Revolution and mixed widely in Irish Republican circles. His popular French language biography of Pádraig, ‘L'Irlande militante: la vie de Patrick Pearse, avec une introduction historique et 15 photographies’, was published in 1932 and was based on numerous personal interviews and research he carried out after returning to live in Ireland in 1930, where he lodged with Kathleen Clarke, the widow of Tom Clarke, the dominant leader of the Easter Rising ...........– tragically he was killed in London during a World War II air raid). There Pádraig and Éibhlín’s relationship is stated as a simple matter-of-fact:

    ‘It is true that before he reached his 30th year he had felt attracted towards a young girl - Éibhlín Nichols - a UCD graduate, as ardent a patriot as himself, and as true a Gael and as fair as any colleen could be. Her courage was equal to his own and, she, too, was drawn towards him. The young woman was an expert swimmer and she one day dived into the sea at the Blasket Islands to save a girl from drowning. Through her gallant act the girl was saved, but she herself perished in the stormy and treacherous waves. At her funeral some of the bystanders bore away the memory of the grief in the face of Pearse and the tears in his eyes.’

    Another witness to the romance between Pádraig and Éibhlín was Geraldine Plunkett Dillon, the sister of Seosamh Pluincéid (Joseph Plunkett).

    ...... Grace Evelyn Gifford, in a cell in Mountjoy Gaol on the eve of his execution by firing squad in 1916 while Tomás Mac Donnchadha was married to Grace’s sister Muriel Gifford in 1912, both girls coming from an Anglo-Irish family with a Catholic father and Protestant mother and raised as Protestants (Tomás was introduced to his future wife by a close suffragette friend). Geraldine Plunkett Dillon and her bother grew up in Ráth Maonais (Rathmines, Co. Dublin) not far from where Éibhlín grew up and Geraldine knew Éibhlín and the Nicolls family very well, and later stated that Éibhlín’s brother Seoirse had admitted to her that Pádraig had proposed to Éibhlín but that she had turned him down because,

    ‘she did not want to abandon her mother to the problems…in her home’.

    Though we cannot know for sure what the problems were it seems likely that there was a drink problem in the family (so Geraldine certainly presumed) and that she did not wish to leave her mother to deal with that problem alone. One possible victim of this problem may have been Éibhlín’s father, who was certainly associated with the temperance movement at the time of her death. In a statement made by Fr Paul, a member of the Capuchins of Church Street at the memorial meeting for Éibhlín held in the Mansion House on 8 September and presided over by the Lord Mayor:

    ‘He said he only knew the young lady by her successes as a scholar; but it was a satisfaction to him to know that one of his best and oldest friends was her worthy father, Mr. A. J. Nicolls, and the Fr Matthew Hall might be said to be in a large extent associated with his honoured name in his exertions to perpetuate the good work of Fr Matthew.'


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    The McGloughlin connection is true and well known apparently and there is a legitimate and understandable reason why people remained quite about it.




    Building: CO. DUBLIN, RATHFARNHAM, GRANGE ROAD, ST ENDA'S Date: ? Nature: Drawings in NLI catalogued as proposed adds. & alts. for P.H. Pearse (Pearse was the half brother of AIM's wife, but AIM had left Ireland in disgrace by 1910 when Pearse leased the Hermitage for his school, St Enda's) Refs: 4 drawings in NLI, AD 2210-2213 (numbers not fully legible)


    Soon afterwards a domestic scandal - a liaison with a servant in the house(10) - compelled him to leave Ireland for the United States. His wife, Mary Emily, a daughter of the ecclesiastical sculptor James Pearse and a half-sister of Padraic Pearse, whom he had married on 5 July 1884,(11) remained in Ireland with their children, practising as a midwife. In the United States McGloughlin worked as an architectural draughtsman. He was one of the principal assitants in the draughting department for the construction of the Ernest Flagg's Singer Building, New York (1906-08),(12) and was also employed on the design of a building at Yale University.(13) He married twice in America; by the first marriage he had a daughter and two sons. He died in the 1940s. (14)

    http://www.dia.ie/architects/view/3872/MCGLOUGHLIN,+ALFRED+ignatius#tab_biography

    Well well.

    The reason for the silence -was a scandal concerning the husband of Pearses half sister -who was a midwife - as was Nurse Elizabeth O'Farrell who handled the surrender with General Lowe at the end of the Rising
    The decision to surrender was taken by the rebel leaders, and conveyed to the British forces by Elizabeth O’Farrell. General Lowe made it clear that he would accept only unconditional surrender. O’Farrell brought this message back to Pearse, who had little option but to agree. O’Farrell accompanied Pearse to the British barricade, which was at the corner of Moore Street and Parnell Street. At 2.30pm, Saturday, 29 April, General Lowe met Pearse and accepted his unconditional surrender. Amazingly, a photograph was taken of this historic moment.
    pearse.jpg
    Elizabeth O’Farrell was at Pearse’s right-hand side when he surrendered. Her feet and part of her coat can be seen in the photograph.


    http://dublinopinion.com/2007/07/14/women-photoshop-and-the-1916-rising/


    (more on the surrendrer picture and the Hollywood connection here)

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056161709

    I don't know about you guys- but Pearse certainly seemed to have a way with women if he could get a student nurse to walk thru shellfire and machine gun fire for him.

    The scandal also might explain the sudden closure of the business in ecclesiastical monuments.

    There are a lot of what if's but it would seem that Ruth Dudley Edwards left a lot out of Pearses life when arriving at her speculative conclusions.

    Alfred J McGlouglin - Pearses brother in law also was the architect of the Stags Head Dublin

    http://archiseek.com/2010/1895-the-stags-head-dame-court-dublin/

    A bit more on the McGloughlins who originated in Sligo

    http://www.dia.ie/architects/view/3873


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    A few more snippits - but this time from Patrick Pearse's own writtings - an unfinished manuscript about his childhood that he had started and not finished.

    And it verifies some of the genelogocal bits elsewhere.

    I was born in the city of Dublin on 10 November, 1879. My father was an Englishman. My grandfather and grandmother on my father's side were, I assume, born in London, but my grandfather's family was certainly of Devonshire origin. The three children of the marriage (my father and his elder and younger brothers) were born in London, my father's birthday being the 8 December, 1839. While the children were young the family removed to Birmingham. My father was a sculptor, and had, as it were, only drifted to Ireland; but Ireland was to become his home, and, through his children, his name was to become an Irish name.


    His extended family & ancestors etc

    It had long been her desire that my mother's first boy - for my mother was her favourite niece, as my grandfather was her favourite brother - should be called after that beloved brother. So it was decided that my name should be Patrick. The name of Henry was added, after my father's youngest brother..





    On my mother's side I can go back to a great-great grand-father, Walter Brady of Nobber in the county Meath, a Cavanman by origin. He fought in '98, and one of his brothers was hanged by the Yeos; another lies buried in the Croppy's Grave at Tara. His son, Walter, my great grandfather, married Margaret O'Connor, who had five sons, and three daughters - Catherine, Phil, Anne, Patrick, Larry, Christy, John and Margaret.

    His grandfather etc. He obviously got to farms etc and his family was integrated.


    I remember, my grand-uncle Phil as a patriarchal man, whom I regarded with awe on account of his mighty age. My grand-uncle Christy was the youngest of the brothers. He had beautiful horses, and drove with all the pride of a Meath yeoman's son to Baldoyle and Fairyhouse. He had wide fields, which I remember white and fragrant with hawthorn. To spend a day at Uncle Christy's was always an event in our lives. He had married a Wicklow woman - a double Keogh - and great was their generosity, and great the cheer of their table and hearth. I know many Irish words which I first learned from my Uncle Christy, his voice had a ring, and his eyes a humour that I have never known in any other man's.
    My grandfather was a very different man to my uncle Christy. He was taller and gentler, and less successful in life. His place was smaller, and his cattle and horses were fewer. The bad year of '79 - the year in which I was born - hit him hard., But his temper was so placid, his manhood so true ands fine, that far greater reverses than those which came to him could not have brought any bitterness into his life, or have affected the charitableness of his spirit. He never to my knowledge, said a hard word about anybody.
    My grandfather had married Brigid Savage, a Fingal woman, who was the best step-dancer of her day in the North County. Their children were Walter, Brigid, Catherine and Margaret. This Margaret, daughter of Patrick son of Walter, son of Walter, was my mother. Of my grandfather I shall speak again, for I spent part of my childhood in his house; and I shall have to speak too, of his youngest sister, Margaret, my fosterer and teacher.

    His half sister teaching him his letters and her wedding
    Before my half-sister had gone away she had taught my sister Maggie and me our letters., We both learned quickly; so quickly that I have no recollection of any effort on my part, or of any difficulty that beset my path through the Spelling Book. Soon I knew it all; from the alphabet in which A was the Ass, and K was the King, and Q was the Queen, and X was Xerxes, and Z was the Zebra, down to the Boy and the Wolf - a story which frightened me, and which I disliked because it was in very small print. When my half-sister sent us the great scrapbook, we were able to read the legends under all the pictures with the greatest ease, and then to learn them by name as well as by sight - Prince Greatheart and the Giant Despair and all their heroic or gigantic kin.

    His half sisters wedding


    About this time my half-sister (for my father was a widower with a son James and a daughter Emily when he married my mother) was married to Alfred MacGloughlin, an architect. Her wedding was a very magnificent affair. My sister was her little bridesmaid, and I was her little page. I held up her train as she walked from the carriage into the church.
    At the wedding breakfast we had apple pie. I thought they ought not to have put us children at a separate table;' but when Auntie Margaret came to sit with us, I was content. Willie made an outcry, during the meal, for pie, and I felt wounded when they laughed at him. I was always wounded when Willie was slighted or ill-used.

    http://pillar.ds4a.com/padraicpearse/biofrag.htm

    Interesting to see it in his own words.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,124 ✭✭✭wolfpawnat


    Wow CDfm, fair dues on the research! :)


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    wolfpawnat wrote: »
    Wow CDfm, fair dues on the research! :)


    He doesn't seem like the same guy.

    I started with the stuff that interested me on the stonework. My surprise was that I know one of the churches done by James Senior.

    His writing is stylised and magaziney in a Readers Digest or teachers way. Not to my taste. But , so what.

    I don't know if he was homosexual ( and it wouldn't bother me if he was) but latent and tortured anything isn't screaming out at me here.

    Anyway -glad you enjoyed it.Maybe others would pick up on stuff that interests them on it and maybe we can see more of the guy.


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