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Padraig Pearse
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25-02-2011 6:58pm#1
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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
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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.0 -
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He did have a girlfriend Eveleen Nicholls who drowned off the Blaskets and this affected him. They talked of marriage.
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.0 -
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" 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, "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
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:0 -
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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?
James 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
James 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
Plaster 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.0 -
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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 LomgfordBeautiful 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®no=13312031
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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
Will definitely have to ask the housemate! 0 -
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 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 headWould 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.html0 -
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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 RisingThe 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.
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/38730 -
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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.0 -
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Fasinating discussion lads, keep it coming!
can anyone recommend some decent reading material on the man and his life?
im a little bit apprehensive of dudley edwards...................or perhaps I can be swayed upon your recommendation
cheers!
Housemate is not home til this evening and he is the know all in this house. I will ask him later and post links for you then 0 -
wolfpawnat wrote: »Housemate is not home til this evening and he is the know all in this house. I will ask him later and post links for you then
cant wait 0 -
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Some pics from a Pearse Gallery
Pearse with a group of people, c. 1905.
(Back row, from left): William Pearse, Harry Clifton, Patrick Pearse, E. Ni Niocoil, Mr Geoghegan, (front row) Edward Sheridan, Professor Mary Hayen, [...]
I found a pic of Patrick Pearse with Eveleen Nicoll
Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Pearse c. 1921.
Margaret Pearse was the mother of Pádraig and William Pearse. A native of Co. Meath, she joined Sinn Féin after the 1916 Rising. She was elected a Sin [...]
Pádraig Pearse in his barrister's robes c. 1914.
And there are more here
http://multitext.ucc.ie/viewgallery/12690 -
Now here is a link that discribes in a page how the standard historians view Pearse
http://www.jstor.org/pss/27098010 -
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Pearses school was not a Financial Success and he was responsible for making Irish compulsory for entry into the NUI.
By extention he made Irish compulsory in Irish schools or at least influenced it,
ZSA
Prof Declan Kiberd, Professor of Anglo Irish literature and drama at UCD with Dr Brendan Walsh and Dr Gerry McNamara, Head of School of Education studies
Dr Brendan Walsh, lecturer in history of education, educational policy and teaching methodology at DCU, recently launched his book entitled ‘The Pedagogy of Protest: The Educational Thought and Work of Patrick H. Pearse’
Irish & NUI Entry - Pearses legacyHowever, Pearse’s final triumph, in this regard, was in leading the campaign to have Irish made obligatory for entry to the NUI.
He argued with lots of peopleThe omission is remarkable given that Pearse devoted his adult life to education and the campaign to revive the Irish language, which often led him into bitter disputes with education commissioners, civil servants, bishops and the Gaelic League. Pearse’s belief that successive British administrations were prepared to allow the language to slip into oblivion appears justified, according to Walsh, with an unwillingness by the Treasury to continue funding the language at a time when it was among the most popular school subjects
Many former St Enda's pupils joined him in the rising.
Pearse’s belief that successive British administrations were prepared to allow the language to slip into oblivion appears justified, according to Walsh, with an unwillingness by the Treasury to continue funding the language at a time when it was among the most popular school subjects. However, Pearse’s final triumph, in this regard, was in leading the campaign to have Irish made obligatory for entry to the NUI. The book looks in detail at a host of issues from the history of the language at university level in Ireland, British thinking on the supremacy of English and the role of the vernacular, and provides a thorough study of Pearse’s theory of bilingual teaching as a means of reviving Irish. In addition, the first complete account of Pearse’s sound educational work at St Enda’s – while at Cullenswood House, Ranelagh and the Hermitage, Rathfarnham – is provided at length. In light of primary source material and taped interviews with past pupils and colleagues, Pearse emerges as a humane, energetic and inspirational teacher, not least in the school’s theatrical presentations and outstanding sporting achievements. The riskier side of life at St Enda’s is not glossed over by Walsh, from the financial difficulties Pearse experienced and falling enrolments to the role of nationalism and his advocacy of physical force separatism. Clearly, the latter two impacted heavily on his pupils, many of whom fought alongside him in the GPO during the Easter Rising.
His finances were precarious from the very begining and he was refused a loan for the venture. So he may have been very reckless.
Also, his educational aspirations may have influenced his shift to an extremer form of nationalism. Look around and we see 30 teachers in the new Dail and 38 in the last one.
He may have personalised the issues.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/30101320
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So we know that 1909/10 was fairly tumultuos time personally for Patrick
It ws also a time in Ireland where everything changed and everything stayed the same.
1911 saw a growth in organised unions with Larkin & 1913 the general lock out and the 3rd Home Rule Bill.
To put it in context for those who know little about the period and who was who.Here is a summary from the Census Site on what Dublin was like and what was happening.
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Dublin Castle was the focal point of British rule in Ireland. Here is the Castle Yard as it was in the early 20th century.
(NLI: EAS 1703 )
And yet, in 1911, the notion of national independence seemed a distant illusion beside the reality of British rule. At the heart of the city stood the huge stone fort of Dublin Castle, constructed following a 1204 decision of King John, and the focal point of British rule in Ireland. Ireland had lost its parliament through the Act of Union in 1800 and all political power in Ireland flowed through the gates of the castle. In 1911 the Castle was presided over by the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Aberdeen, and run by the Chief Secretary, Augustine Birrell. The great administrative importance of the Castle and the government offices which stood in the most prestigious streets of the city defined the colonial nature of Dublin’s existence.
The iconic streets of Bloomsday (16 June 1904, the date on which James Joyce set Ulysses and Leopold Bloom’s epic tour of Dublin) were already being lost. The city was changing as the suburbs grew in scale and importance. Nothing transformed the physical appearance of Dublin as profoundly as the evolution in transport. Trams, horses and bicycles still dominated transport in Dublin but the private motor car was growing in importance.
Sackville Street c.1890-1910. It was here that John Redmond unveiled a monument to Charles Stewart Parnell in October 1911.
(NLI: LROY 1662 )
Dublin was also a port city, though not in the manner of Belfast, Liverpool or Glasgow. On 1 April 1911 the Titanic was launched from the Harland and Wolff Shipyards in Belfast; no project of this scale could be undertaken in Dublin. There was no major ship-building industry, no vast industrial sector, no sense of a place driven by the impulses of manufacturing entrepreneurs and their workforce.
There was, of course, industry and innovation,, like Sir Howard Grubb’s telescope-making factory at Observatory Lane in Rathmines, but never on the scale of comparable cities in other parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Administration and commerce, rather than industry, were what drove the city’s economy. Dublin port was more a transit point for British goods imported to Ireland and for the agricultural export trade of the city’s rural hinterland, not least the cattle boats that left at least seven times a day, as part of the eighty weekly sailings to England.
Urban living: A dilapidated tenement room in the Coombe area in 1913.
(RSAI, DD, No.83)
Alongside the cattle on many of those boats were emigrants leaving a country unable to offer even the possibilities of a basic existence. Some were Dubliners, many were from the Irish countryside and were merely passing through the city, certain in the knowledge that there was simply no work available to them. Behind them they left the brutal reality of daily life for tens of thousands who lived in tenement slums, starved into ill-health, begging on the fringes of society. In parts, Dublin was incredibly poor. A notoriously high death-rate was attributable, at least in part, to the fact that 33% of all families lived in one-roomed accommodation. The slums of Dublin were the worst in the United Kingdom, dark, disease-ridden and largely ignored by those who prospered in other parts of the city.
Even for those with work, life was precarious. Trade unions attempted to organise against the backdrop of low wages and chronic over-supply of labour. On 27 May 1911 James Larkin first published The Irish Worker, the paper of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, which had enlisted 18,000 men into its ranks in just two years.
On 27 May 1911 Jim Larkin, pictured here, first published The Irish Worker, the paper of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (NLI)
Labour was growing increasingly militant, but its opponents were powerful and equally determined to resist change. William Martin Murphy founded the Dublin Employers’ Federation on 30 June. Murphy owned railways, tramways, Clery’s Department Store and, critically, the Irish Independent. The power of the employers was obvious as two major strikes during 1911, one by bakers, the other by railway workers, ended in abject defeat. As the Dublin economy continued to stagnate, strikes followed one after the next, and the greatest labour dispute in Irish history, the 1913 Lockout, was just around the corner.
A well-dressed crowd attend the Great Exhibition, Herbert Park, 1907.
(NLI: Clar 66)
Dublin politics were not often about poverty, however. Of increasing political importance were the expanding Catholic middle classes, gaining steady prominence in the city’s professional and administrative ranks. Throughout the nineteenth century, power in Dublin slowly shifted from the Protestant ascendancy to an emerging Catholic elite, who were apparently nationalist in aspect. This nationalism, however, was ambiguous in its politics and in its culture.
As the centre for British rule in Ireland for eight centuries, Dublin was the focal point of the substance and symbols of British culture. This culture – its literature, its newspapers, its sports, its music, its entertainment – was adopted with little modification by many amongst the middle classes, eager for advancement, unashamed by pursuit of prosperity.
Dublin was home to Patrick Pearse, whose work as a writer and educationalist was central to the Gaelic revival of the early 20th century.
(NLI, 'Political and Famous Figures,' Box VI)
In opposition to this, a resurgent nationalist culture was asserting itself uncertainly. Based on the premises (or perceived premises) of peasant life and traditions, revival of the Irish language, Irish dress, Irish music and Irish games, this was a resurgence which did not play easily with urban life. Dublin could not be easily accommodated in any vision which idealised rural life. And yet, Dublin lay at the heart of this Gaelic revival, home to Patrick Pearse and many of the writers, educationalists and intellectuals who recast the idea of Ireland as a sovereign Gaelic nation, free from the control of its imperial master.
Their vision was often rural, but it was not provincial. The revivalists were acutely aware of what was happening beyond Irish shores, in Europe and in North America. All told, culture in the city was profoundly modern, even an inspiration for modernism. This was the city where James Joyce and William Butler Yeats had lived and worked, and where Samuel Beckett, 5 years old in 1911, would later study. Yeats, indeed, would continue to spend a great deal of time in Dublin in the following decades. And it was also the city of Sean O’Casey and the site for the endeavours of Lady Gregory. The Abbey Theatre had been established by Gregory and Yeats in 1904. The culture of Dublin was diverse, not narrow.
The contested nature of culture in the capital was replicated in its politics. 1911 brought events which illustrated the breadth of its divisions. In July King George V spent six days in Dublin on a royal visit to the city. The King and the royal party, led by the 8th Royal Hussars on horseback, travelled from the harbour in Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) to Dublin Castle, as thousands lined the streets to view his procession.
But, also in 1911, a Wicklow-born Protestant who was originally a strong supporter of the British Empire, Robert Erskine Childers, published his treatise, The Framework of Home Rule, which advocated the restoration of a parliament to Dublin. Childers would later be shot by firing squad by Government forces during the civil war, fought over a treaty which he was unwilling to support.
By contrast, in September 1911, the unionist leader, Sir Edward Carson, born in Dublin and still an MP elected to the House of Commons by Trinity College, told an Orange Order meeting at Craigavon House: “We must be prepared … the morning Home Rule passes, ourselves to become responsible for the government of the Protestant province of Ulster.”
And finally, in October 1911, a large crowd turned up in Sackville Street (now O’Connell St.) to see a monument unveiled to the great nationalist politician, Charles Stewart Parnell. The monument was unveiled by John Redmond, leader of the Irish national party, and its inscription was plain in its independent intent:
John Redmond addressing a home rule meeting at Parnell Monument, 1912.
(NLI: INDH 1)
“No man has a right to fix the
Boundary to the march of a nation.
No man has a right
To say to his country
Thus far shalt thou
Go and no further.”
In the ferment of its politics, the vibrancy of its culture, the vertical divide of its religions, and the extraordinary disparity in its wealth, Dublin bore all the hallmarks of a city on the edge of enormous change. And the dynamic behind that change was the 477,196 people who lived in the city of Dublin and its county hinterland.
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/exhibition/dublin/main.html
So we can see that there was a lot of change in the offing but not all of it good for Pearse.
For a kick-off . He just cannot get the school of the ground financially. Lots has gone wrong in life. The timing of opening the school was bad and things were taking a turn for the worse.
So what I am going to look at after this is the people Pearse was hanging with pre-1910 and post 1910 to see who influenced his views.
He essentially moved from cultural revivalist to educational maverick and from Parnellite to Revoloutionary, and I think his efforts to keep the school open broadened his circle of friends.
Thats just a hunch by the way.0 -
So who was Patrick Pearse hanging around with in those days.
Post 1908 it wasThomas McDonagh, Con Colbert , Arthur Griffith & Bulmer HobsonAfter graduation from Royal University of Ireland he was called to the Bar, but he never practiced. He joined the Gaelic Leaguein 1895. In 1908, along with friends Thomas MacDonagh, Con Colbert, and his brother William, Pearse founded an Irish language school called St. Enda's at Cullenwood House in Rathmines, outside Dublin. Their school prospered, and in 1910 they moved it to The Hermitage, Rathfarnham, where Robert Emmet had courted Sarah Curran. The school operated until 1935, run eventually by Pearse's mother and sister, but none of the four founders of the school would see that day all four would be executed within five days of each other in May 1916.
Easter Monday was one of the most critical days in the history of Ireland. On that day, Irish Volunteer units and the Irish Citizen Army, led by Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, began their famous Easter Rising, seizing the General Post Office and other key locations around Dublin. Commemorate the men and woman who took on the British Empire against all odds with one of our "Heroes of the Easter Rising" items. Through these years Pearse was writing a great deal of prose and poetry, some in Irish and some in English, much of which was published after his death, and contributing articles to Arthur Griffith'snewspaper, The United Irishman. He was becoming more and more radical in his outlook on Irish nationalism, evolving from a supporter of Home Rule to a republican. In 1913, he was one of the founders of the Irish Volunteers, a native Irish militia that would evolve into the Irish Republican Army. Later the same year Pearse joined the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood
.
In February 1914, Pearse traveled to the United States seeking money from the Irish-American community for his school and for the Irish Volunteers. He made contact with Joseph McGarrity and former Fenian John Devoy, who helped him on both counts. In July 1914, in the famous Howth gun-running incident, the Irish Volunteers obtained weapons and ammunition. The organization now had the weapons and financial support it needed to consider the military action that many of them, including Pearse, believed necessary to end British rule in Ireland. "There are many things more horrible than bloodshed," Pearse had once written, "and slavery is one of them." In the militants' view, the circumstances were now rife for action, with the republicans possessing organization and weapons. Pearse felt ready to strike for his dream.
http://www.thewildgeese.com/pages/pearse.html
An important guy for Pearse in this period was Bulmer Hobson who was part of the Republican Revival in Belfast and who had also established the Dungannon Clubs and a School.
He helped Pearse with his US fundraising
More about him is here.
http://www.nli.ie/1916/pdf/3.2.1.pdf
So it seems to me that Pearses primary motivation at this time in his life was his school and Irish culture.
He does not seem to have had an interest in social issues as a motivator
I have found an on-line history of Conragh na Gaelige - now dont forget Pearse joined this when he was 16.
His mentors would have been the likes of Dr Douglas Hyde , Eoin McNeill & Arthur Griffith..
The debate loomed on whether Irish was a language and did it have literature etc
So in his early 20's Pearse was heavily involved in Irish Language PromotionPádraig Mac Piarais was secretary of the Publication Committee and he reported that aside from school books, and 40,000 propagandist pamphlets, they had begun to publish original literary works in Irish. The chief of these was Cormac Ua Conaill by An tAthair Pádraig Ó Duinnín. It was hailed as the first novel in the Irish language and, at the time, highly praised. Other works included collections of Irish stories, an original drama in Irish arranged by Carl Hardebeck. Pádraig Mac Piarais said while their work in publishing was essentially spiritual and intellectual it was proving to be a success commercially. The expenses were paid a few months after the issue of most books.
It was sucessful
The two years between 1903 and 1905 were in some ways the last period of mushroom growth to power and influence of Conradh na Gaeilge. In 1904 "An Claidheamh Soluis" reached its highest ever circulation, over 3,000 copies weekly. It declined almost every year afterwards. The number of registered branches had almost reached its peak-860 in 1905, one of them in Oxford University, England. It was in 1904 that the activities of An Conradh brought down the British Government at Westminister.
It had become apolitical but sometimes said controvercial things like calling John Redmond the great Anglisiser.
The question as to where the Gaelic League stood in relation to the political parties was raised frequently as it gathered strength. About 1898 An Conradh thought it was not getting the support it deserved from Irish-American newspapers such as The Irish World. It was discovered that this newspaper, and many people in America, thought the Gaelic League was against the parliamentarians who were looking for Home Rule. To counter this impression Douglas Hyde wrote a long letter to the editor or The Irish World. He explained that Conradh na Gaeilge could not pledge allegiance to any political party. He said by remaining independent it allowed people to join a truly Irish and truly national movement without danger to themselves. According to the law, civil servants could not be members of political parties but they could join Conradh na Gaeilge. As well as this An Conradh brought people together who had fallen out as a result of the Parnell split, he said. Following this letter The Irish World co-operated by publishing news about the Gaelic League, and even passed on donation from readers.
He got to mix with Yeats, Lady Gregory etc and the literati who were all part of the " Green Scene"The founders of the Abbey Theatre were present at the inaugural meeting of the Kiltartan, Contae na Gaillimhe, Craobh of Conradh na Gaeilge. W.B. Yeats, who was accompanied by Edward Martyn and Lady Gregory, said at the meeting: "Every nation has its own duty in the world, its own message to deliver and the message is to a considerable extent bound up with the language. The nations make a part of one harmony, just as the colours of the rainbow make a part of one harmony of beautiful colour. It is our duty to keep the message, the colour which God has committed to us, clear, pure and shining."
He also looked to get original writing in Irish via An Claidhwanh Soluis
Pádraig Mac Piarais, writing in An Claidheamh Soluis in 1906 gave the following advice to anyone trying to write in Irish: "We would have our literature modern not only in the sense of freely borrowing every modern form which it does not posses and which it is capable of assimilating, but also in texture, tone and outlook. This is the 20th century; and no literature can take root in the 20th century which is not of the 20th century. We want no Gothic revival. We would have the problems of today fearlessly dealt with in Irish; the loves and hates and desires and doubts of modern men and women. The drama of the land war; the tragedy of the emigration mania; the stress and poetry and comedy of the language movement; the pathos and vulgarity of Anglo-Ireland; the abounding interest of Irish politics; the relations of priests to people; the perplexing education riddle; the drink evil; the increase in lunacy; such social problems as (say) the loveless marriage; these are matters which loom large in our daily lives, which build considerably in our daily conversations; but we find not the faintest echoes of them in the Irish books that are being written. There would seem to be an amazing conspiracy among our writers to refrain absolutely from dealing with life, the one thing which, properly considered, literature has any concern!"
So in general , life was pretty good for young Pearse.
The full story of CnG is here and it is short and laid out it short paragraphs and gives a feel for the revivalist movement Pearse was a part of.
http://irish-nationalism.net/showthread.php/846-Conradh-na-Gaeilge-History.
http://irish-nationalism.net/showthread.php/846-Conradh-na-Gaeilge-History.
As far as I can see Pearses real dream was more around culture and language and education.
His entrance into the republican movement as such cme about thru his fundraising and promotion of these issues.0 -
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