Interesting Site - The Rising Dead

CDfm

http://therisingdead.com/index.htm

Its homepage says

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Easter 1916

Over 500 people were killed during the Easter Rising. These are some of their stories.
In the same thoroughfare an old man was murdered. He was coming up to the Shelbourne Hotel to submit some theatrical scenery to actors who are staying in the hotel when he was stopped and ordered to get down off the vehicle on which he was seated. His response to the order was apparently not quick enough to satisfy the rebels and he was shot dead
While crossing the drawbridge at Ringsend with two loaves for her children a woman had her two eyes blown out and died in Vincents Hospital.
While sitting in her room in Grattan Street, a woman was struck by three bullets one of which pierced her lungs and she succumbed to her injuries.
A man was shot dead in Cole’s Lane on his way to fetch a doctor for his wife.
One of Sir Joseph Downes’s vanmen when coming into work was shot dead in Earl Street.
A man fell dead on O’Connell Bridge on Wednesday 27th April and the body lay there until Sunday 30th April.
Sixty seven bodies were buried in the garden of Dublin Castle during the revolt.
A naval officer was killed by a stray shot in Amiens Street.
A rifle spat at him, and in two undulating movements the man sank on himself and sagged to the ground.

On Thursday 27th April at Annesley Terrace, Fairview a man who had been on a visit from Belfast on opening the hall door was struck by a bullet. He was taken by an ambulance to hospital where he died shortly afterwards.
A woman was lifted out. The stretcher dripped with her blood A glance showed that death was not far from her.
In Wellington Street off Dorset Street on Thursday a little girl who had been sent out on a message was shot dead as she was entering the door on her return.
One man fell off his horse, killed by a bullet.
Among the civilians was a tall man, dressed in black, at the foot of the Fr Matthew statue. He stood for what seemed a few minutes and then dropped dead. WS 358 Geraldine Dillon
... this man was shot and bayoneted, I believe fatally.
An officer in this part had his brains blown into the roadway. A young girl ran into the road picked up his cap and scraped the brains into it. She covered this poor debris with a little straw, and carried the hat piously to the nearest hospital in order that the brains might be buried with their owner.
"There is not," said she, "a cat or a dog left alive in Camden Street. They are lying stiff out in the road and up on the roofs. There's lots of women will be sorry for this war," said she, "and their pets killed on them."
In Cathedral Street on Friday an old man waving a white cloth was shot by the military snipers. See also WS of soldier in this area who claimed it was a volunteer
... where I prepared for death a poor bedridden man whose house soon became his funeral pyre
A woman, residing in James's Street opposite, was killed.'

and

Civilians

Home
Richard Waters
J J Carroll
J Hogan
Margaret McGuinness
George Synnot
John Doyle
Thomas Joze
William Rice
William Leahy


It is not possible to give an accurate figure at present. The Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook reported that 250 bodies were buried at Glasnevin Cemetery, 24 at Mount Jerome and 49 at Deansgrange. Some of these however were Volunteers and it does not record those who were buried in other cemeteries.
Over 100, civilians were buried in poor ground in St Paul's, Glasnevin. This area is covered by the 1916 monument. Of the 100 or so buried here at least 20 are considered to belong to the Volunteers. The majority of the remainder of the civilians buried in Glasnevin, Mount Jerome and Deansgrange have no gravestone. Just over a dozen civilians have their graves marked in these cemeteries.
The only civilians to have their graves marked in these cemeteries are:
Richard Waters, George Synott, James Carroll, Jeremiah Hogan, Margaret McGuinness, Thomas Joze, William Rice, William Leahy, Joseph Donohoe, Jane Costello, Robert Dillon, James McCartney, William Heavey, Thomas Dickson, Charles Hyland.

An overdue work .

P. Breathnach

It will be interesting to see how it develops.

Terrible name for the site, though: it makes one think of zombies.

CDfm

P. Breathnach wrote: »

it makes one think of zombies.

Maybe the truth will out ????

The civilian's are very much forgotten.

P. Breathnach

CDfm wrote: »

...
The civilian's are very much forgotten.

I think that is true.

I suspect also that the action at Mount Street Bridge is less well remembered than it deserves to be (but I might be wrong about that): http://theirishwar.com/2011/03/1916-rising-dublin-sherwood-foresters/

Judgement Day

Thanks for posting that link for the Battle of Mount Street Bridge - such a quiet beautiful area still today. I've previously had lunch in the schoolhouse restaurant but it will never be quite the same for me again.

P. Breathnach

It's not often that I get thanked for spoiling somebody's lunch.

CDfm

It puts it in a lot of context.I often point out to people that there were no real democracies anywhere in the world in 1900. The assumption that everyone were democrats is misleading too .

So that a "centralist" and force model might have existed in some of the rebel's minds is not at all far fetched.

MarchDub

CDfm wrote: »

It puts it in a lot of context.I often point out to people that there were no real democracies anywhere in the world in 1900. The assumption that everyone were democrats is misleading too .

So that a "centralist" and force model might have existed in some of the rebel's minds is not at all far fetched.

And are you seriously suggesting that there are "real democracies" in existence today? I'd love to know where ....

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

And are you seriously suggesting that there are "real democracies" in existence today? I'd love to know where ....

I mean by way of universal suffrage back then.

Today's discussion is different and would relate's to the quality of our democracy as variously raised by Diarmuid Ferriter and John Bruton over the last year or so.

In 1900 worldwide you had kingdom's, empires and colonies as the main form of government.

So to expect Ireland's independence movement to consider non democratic options is not off the way.

By way of example, when Naploleon took over in France you had the "Code Napoleon" and it was a centralist regime with citizenship rights in the code. Immediately preceding that you had the Frst French Republic.

Arthur Griffith's Sinn Fein proposed a "Dual Monarchy" model and it is up in the air what system others proposed but there was no real agreement.

So the rebellion was based on force of arm's as opposed to an electoral mandate.

MarchDub

CDfm wrote: »

.

So the rebellion was based on force of arm's as opposed to an electoral mandate.

In the 1918 election came the mandate for Independence.

But - to take your point - has any war since universal suffrage been based on a direct electoral mandate?

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

In the 1918 election came the mandate for Independence.

But - to take your point - has any war since universal suffrage been based on a direct electoral mandate?

Ah but, the number of civilian dead exceeded the rebel and crown forces dead. They hadn't signed up to anything.

The point of the site seems to be to list the forgotten dead who they were and the circumstances in which they died.

So if anyone's being airbrushed out of 1916 its these guys.

MarchDub

CDfm wrote: »

Ah but, the number of civilian dead exceeded the rebel and crown forces dead. They hadn't signed up to anything.

The point of the site seems to be to list the forgotten dead who they were and the circumstances in which they died.

So if anyone's being airbrushed out of 1916 its these guys.

I think airbrushing is a strong word [implies intent which I don't think is accurate] - anyone who has studied that period has access to the numbers where possible.

And the same can be said for many other conflicts - think recently of Iraq or WWI and WWII as regards civilian deaths: USSR, Poland, Japan. The numbers of civilian deaths frequently outnumber troops.

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

I think airbrushing is a strong word [implies intent which I don't think is accurate] - anyone who has studied that period has access to the numbers where possible.

I dunno MD.

Numbers yes, details no.

To me the Sheehy-Skeffington execution and Bowen-Colthurst conviction for his and other's murder were defining moment's in the change of public opinion to the rising i.e. the treatment of civilians by the crown forces gave the rebel's a bit of moral authority.

Eulegising 1916 sort of deflected from the Civil War and other stuff and we can see from the reaction to the late Peter Hart's writings that passions still run deep.

This was hardly the type of event where you would expect large numbers of civilian deaths i.e. it was small and localised.

So who killed the civilians is a big deal.