Easter 1916 question?

Are you thinkinking of this guyt Arthur Shields had a supporting role as Rev Playfair who was Barry's (fitzgeralds) real life brother fought in the 1916 Rising and was imprisoned in Frongoch.

Biography for
Arthur Shields More at IMDbPro »


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Date of Birth

15 February 1896, Dublin, Ireland

Date of Death

27 April 1970, Santa Barbara, California, USA (emphysema)

Mini Biography

Though not as well known as his nearly decade-older brother Barry Fitzgerald, Shields was a talented actor with well over twice the film roles in his career. Fitzgerald was already a well established player at the renowned Dublin Abbey Theater when Shields, also bitten by the acting bug, joined in 1914. He performed but was also out front directing plays. Already he had dabbled in the new medium of Irish film (1910) with two notable examples (1918). There was more to the seemingly mild-mannered Shields than met the eye. His family was Protestant Nationalist and he himself fought in the Easter Uprising of 1916. And he was in fact captured and imprisoned in a camp in North Wales. Late in 1918 he came to America and first helped bring Irish comedy and drama to Broadway. He would continue to appear on Broadway for some 24 plays until 1941, especially reviving two Abbey Theater favorites from the hand of Sean O'Casey, "The Plow and the Stars" and "Juno and the Peacock", the latter being produced and staged by him in 1940. Still not settled, Shields was back in Dublin through most of the 1920s but returned to Broadway almost full time in 1932 moving through the repertory of Irish plays. When John Ford finally convinced his brother - and some other Abbey players -- to come to Hollywood to do the 1935 film version of Juno and the Peacock, Broadway veteran Shields was asked to take the pivotal part of Padraic (Patrick) Pearse, perhaps the most important leader of the Easter Rising.

By early 1939 he was finished with his concentration on Broadway and found Ford eager to offer him a part in his Revolutionary period adventure Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) as the matter-of-fact pioneer minister with a good shooting eye-Reverence Rosenkrantz. Ministers, reverends, priests, and other assorted clerics would be a Shields staple throughout his career - and he always managed to breath an individual humanity into each and every one. From then on through the 1940s he was in demand as character actor - and not just Irish roles as Fitzgerald with his gravelly, prominent brogue, found himself. Along with the aforementioned men of the cloth, Shields was provided a steady offering of the gamut of Hollywood's character storehouse-Irish and otherwise. And among them were parts for some of Ford's most memorable films: How Green Was My Valley (1941) and especially The Quiet Man (1952). Here again, he was a cleric but a uniquely sympathetic one-the lone Protestant Reverend Dr. Playford-who John Wayne affectionately calls "Padre" in the vastly Catholic village of the film. He alone knows the former identity of Wayne and convinces the latter of his final struggle to go on with his new life in Ireland. Enough said - with a wonderful cast of Ford stalwarts and native Irish (including Fizgerald), this was Ford's long awaited crowning achievement.

Though Shields was taking on the occasional film through the 1950s, most of his time was going to television. Along with TV playhouse roles he became a most familiar face of episodic TV with a variety of roles (even the old Mickey Mouse Club Hardy Boy Adventures), especially in the ever-popular TV Western genera. Aside from his numerous appearances in plays throughout his career, all told Arthur Shields screen appearances approached nearly 100 memorable acting endeavors.


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0793168/bio

Book Review: 50 things you didn't know about the 1916 uprising by Mick Farrell
by Bridget Haggerty

The Easter Rebellion saw several names go down in history, but it also threw up some strange and interesting facts. Did you know for example that the Germans bombarded the coast of England in an effort to distract the British from what was happening in Ireland? Or that exams continued to be held in Trinity College even while firing went on outside its windows? Or that both sides issued receipts: the Rebels for food, the British for handcuffs!

The Rising of 1916 began 93 years ago on April 24th, and it has been the subject of intense study ever since. From the moment the firing started, people wanted to know what it was all about – why did it start, who was behind it all, what was happening and where? Even as the firing continued, many people were so eager to find out what was going on that they put themselves in harm’s way, sometimes with fatal results. After the Rising, publishers of newspapers, books and souvenir booklets were quick to meet the demand for answers. Newspapers were back on the streets of Dublin as soon as the rebellion was suppressed, with some early copies being rented instead of sold.

Eight months after the Rising had ended, there were at least 15 “complete” accounts and souvenir pictorials available, not to mention numerous in-depth articles and analyses in various periodicals, magazines and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, even with nine decades’ worth of published books and articles to consult, it would appear that people are still hungry for information and books such as Mr. Farrell's are bound to help satisfy that hunger, especially as the event is fast approaching its centenary. No matter what your level of knowledge of the Rising, within its pages readers will discover interesting things they might not have known about the rebellion of 1916. Here are a few:

1. From Dublin to Hollywood
Did you know that one of the British officers who took the surrender of Padraig Pearse went on to become a famous Hollywood actor, who numbered among his five wives the even more famous Hedy Lamarr?
Maj John Lowe is present in one of the most famous and commonly reproduced photographs taken during the Rising – the moment of Pearse’s surrender as captured on Saturday April 29th. The picture shows Commander of Dublin Forces in Ireland, Brig Gen WHM Lowe, (Maj Lowe’s father) facing a clearly un-humbled Pearse, who is offering his surrender. On Pearse’s right is Elizabeth O’Farrell (a nurse with Cumann na mBan), who carried the subsequent surrender dispatches to rebel commandants. On the left of the photo, to Brig Gen Lowe’s right, is his aide-de-camp and son, Maj John Lowe.
Pearse subsequently surrendered unconditionally, and Maj Lowe escorted him to Kilmainham Jail. John Lowe’s army service didn’t end in Ireland; he served in Gallipoli, Egypt and the Somme before being taken prisoner by the Germans in 1918. When the war ended, Lowe tried his hand at acting in the German film industry – thereby starting down a career path which would eventually lead him to change his name in order to keep his acting career quiet from his disapproving father. So John Lowe became John Loder, eventually moving to Hollywood, California, where he gained fame in movies and on stage and TV.

2.The World's First Radio Broadcast
Did you know that the rebels were responsible for the world’s first-ever radio broadcast?
In 1916 wireless communication was in its infancy and, in general, signals were targeted to particular receiving stations. The idea that a signal might be just broadcast into the atmosphere in the hopes that someone might pick it up was a fairly radical one. On Easter Monday, however, rebel leader Joseph Mary Plunkett sent seven men from the GPO across O’Connell Street to occupy the Dublin Wireless School of Telegraphy. The school had been shut down and sealed by the authorities at the start of the war, and the equipment was dismantled. By Tuesday morning, however, the rebels managed to get a damaged transmitter working, and they began to send out messages in morse code:
“Irish Republic declared in Dublin today. Irish troops have captured city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole country rising.” From then until the building had to be abandoned under machine-gun and sniper fire the next day, the message was broadcast at regular intervals. This is widely accepted as being the world’s first radio broadcast and, although it was indeed intercepted by several receivers, the rebels never knew if their message was being picked up because they couldn’t get any receiving equipment to work.

3. Dublin Mean Time vs Greenwich Mean Time
Did you know that Dublin and London were in different time zones in 1916?
From 1880 until 1916, Ireland and Britain maintained different time zones – Britain of course followed Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), but Ireland followed Dublin Mean Time (DMT), which was precisely 25 minutes behind GMT. The Statutes (Definition of Time) Act, 1880, which legally defined the difference between GMT and DMT, was superseded by the Time (Ireland) Act, 1916, which was “An Act to assimilate the time adopted for use in Ireland to that adopted for use in Great Britain”. In other words, DMT was abolished. This change came into effect on October 1st, 1916. However, the Rising began four months earlier on April 24th, at approximately 12 o’clock – Dublin Mean Time. Therefore, when modern commemorations of 1916 begin at midday outside the GPO, they’re actually 25 minutes early.

4. The First Shot of the Rising - in Laois!
Did you know that the first shot of the rebellion was fired in Laois? Unsurprisingly, the first shot of the Rising has more than one claimant. One claim that has many supporters is that the first shots came from the Volunteers of Laois, who destroyed a section of railway track at a place called Colt Wood on the night of April 23rd – the day before the Rising began in Dublin. A monument to the event was erected near Colt Wood in 1996, in an area called Clonadadoran on the N8 between Portlaoise and Abbeyleix. The monument bears three plaques: a copy of the proclamation; a picture of a derailed train; and a dedication which names the Volunteers and reads: “On Easter Sunday night, 23rd April, 1916, acting under the direct orders of Patrick Pearse, the Laois Volunteers participated in the demolition of a section of the Abbeyleix-Portlaoise railway line at a location near here. The purpose of this exercise was to prevent British military reinforcements from reaching Dublin via Waterford after the Rising had started. This demolition was followed by the firing of the first shot of the 1916 Rising.” Other activities engaged in by the Laois Volunteers included an attempted similar demolition of the Carlow-Kildare railway line and a raid on the Wolfhill RIC Barracks.

5. Today's Rebels - Yesterday's Olympians
Did you know that two of the rebels were Olympic cyclists?
Bicycles featured largely as a means of transport on both sides during the rebellion. On the rebel side, however, two cyclists who took part in skirmishing were of more than average ability. The ironically-named Walker brothers, Michael and John, had both competed for Ireland on the Olympic cycling team in Stockholm in 1912 (Britain was permitted to have each “home nation” compete separately, and so teams from England, Scotland and Ireland entered). Their event was the 200-mile road race, which began at two in the morning. The Irish were the only team who not only had no spare bicycles, but didn’t even have any spare wheels. As a team, the Irish ranked 11th and, individually, Mick finished 68th and John was in 81st place. During the rebellion, Mick Walker also acted as a courier, and, being a familiar sight on his bicycle on the streets of Dublin, he successfully delivered many dispatches without challenge.

6. A Ceasefire for Ducks
Did you know that firing stopped around St Stephen’s Green to allow the park’s ducks to be fed?
One of the first acts by the Irish Citizen Army in the Rising was to occupy St Stephen’s Green. However, with so many large buildings overlooking the Green (including the Shelbourne Hotel) and not enough men to occupy a useful number of them, the rebels’ position rapidly become untenable. British forces, particularly from the Shelbourne, swept the Green with gunfire, and the rebels were forced to withdraw to the College of Surgeons. Nevertheless, things weren’t so bad for the park’s feathered inhabitants. The Times History of the War recorded that St Stephen’s Green “was well stocked with waterfowl, and the keeper, who remained inside all the time, reported that his charges were well looked after and fed by him, and were very little perturbed by the bullets flying over their heads”. The park-keeper’s name was James Kearney – every day he would enter the Green to feed the ducks, and every day the opposing sides would cease firing to allow him to do so.

In addition, the book also features excerpts from a previously unpublished diary, written by a member of the Jacob's garrison; the story of how rebel communications (being sent in a tin can from rooftop to rooftop) were interrupted by a British crackshot sniper and many other remarkable facts. "50 Things You Didn't Know About 1916" is a treasure trove of trivia and information that will appeal to both the avid student of 1916 and the casual reader.

About the author:
Mick O'Farrell was born in Dublin in 1966, the year of the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, one of the reasons for his abiding interest in the subject. He has been collecting information on the history of the event for over twenty years and this is his second book on the subject. His first was "A Walk Through Rebel Dublin, 1916" which has received high acclaim, even by Dubs - high praise, indeed.

Available in the UK now, please click Amazon UK

Available on Amazon US in June. You can pre-order it here: Amazon US

Photo Credits & Captions:
The Surrender: BBC
The President of the Provisional Government, Patrick Pearse, surrendering to General Lowe on Saturday afternoon, 29th April 1916. Also in the photograph is General Lowe’s son John (in the white breeches) who escorted Pearse to Kilmainham Gaol and hidden by Pearse is nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell who accompanied Pearse to meet General Lowe at the top of Moore Street.


http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/libr/50things1916.html

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.

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.

The photograph was used recently by the publishers of Tim Pat Coogan’s Ireland in the Twentieth Century.

However, in the picture used on the book’s cover, Elizabeth O’Farrell’s legs are gone. Someone took the notion to “clean up” the photo, and as a result, she has disappeared from history. All that remains is the outline of her coat, which makes Pearse look like he is wearing a triangle.

I suppose this is what happens when aesthetics dictates history. Tim Pat Coogan may have set out to write an old-style nationalist history of Ireland, and as such the cover sits perfectly with his attempt. All except “the boys” are left out of Coogan’s view of the past - in some cases, as with O’Farrell, with a “pro-active” Photoshop editor as the gleeful assistant.
For a photoshop-free account of the women in the 1916 rising, however, you could do worse than check out Dr. Matthew’s article in Red Banner. Available at all good Irish communist party bookshops.
Below, contemporary footage of Dublin in the aftermath of the rising.

Posted in dublin, Irish social history, Irish History, History | 23 Comments
23 Responses to “WOMEN, PHOTOSHOP, AND THE 1916 RISING”

on 15 Jul 2007 at 12:07 pm1511kev
The photo of Pearse and nurse O’Farrell was discussed on an RTE radio documentary during the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the rising. On this documentary they stated that the Nurse O’Farrell’s head and upper body were removed by English newspapers at the time, who presumably were not using photoshop! Pearse was badly wounded and needed the help of nurse O’Farrell to stand. The newspapers removed her to make the scene appear more ‘heroic’ but they did a poor job and forgot her feet. Tim Pat Coogan seems to have completed the job.


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

Remembering the Rising - Elizabeth O'Farrell




a moment from the Rising documented by nurse Elizabeth O'Farrell (pictured left), a member of Cumann na mBan, who was one of only three women left in the GPO after Padraig Pearse had ordered the others to leave on the morning of Friday the 28th April. The following is her own account as her and other Irish Volunteers left the GPO while under fire from the British:

"On entering one of the buildings in the middle of Moore Street we were met by a little family - an old man, a young woman and her children - cowering into the corner of a room, apparently terrified. I tried to reassure these people that they were safe. The old man stated that he was very anxious to secure the safety of his children, and that, for some reason, he intended to make an effort to secure other accomodation.

"It was his intention to leave the house under a flag of truce, which, he said, he felt sure would be respected. I did my best to dissuade him from taking this action, especially during hours of darkness. He, however, appeared to be very confident and said he would make the effort.

"I appealed to his daughter not to allow her father to take this action. It appears that he eventually ignored the advice which I gave him, because when we were forming up in Moore Street, preparatory to the surrender, I saw the old man's body lying on the side of the street almost wrapped in a white sheet, which he was apparently using as a flag of truce."

http://unitedirelander.blogspot.com/2006/04/remembering-rising-elizabeth-ofarrell.html

In number 16, the leaders held a "council of war". Elizabeth O'Farrell was in the room at the time. "On the floor of the room lay three wounded volunteers and a soldier, a prisoner who was badly injured, lay on a bed on the side of the room. Winifred Carney, Julia Grenan (the other Cumann na mBan members) and I came in to attend to them. The soldier asked us would Pearse speak to him. Pearse said 'Certainly'. The soldier then asked Pearse to lift him a little in the bed. Pearse did this, the soldier putting his arms around his neck. This was all. Pearse returned to James Connolly's bedside, and the consultation continued in private."
It has been reported that, at around noon, Pearse witnessed something that convinced him to surrender. Connolly told Dr James Ryan, who was in charge of the insurgents' medical unit, that Pearse was preparing to surrender. Out the window, Ryan saw a sight "I shall never forget. Lying dead on the opposite footpath of Moore Street with white flags in their hands were three elderly men." The men were dead, killed by machine-gun fire. "Seán MacDermott came over to the window and pointed to the three dead men and said something like, 'When Pearse saw that we decided we must surrender to save the lives of the citizens'."
AT 12.45PM, ELIZABETH O'Farrell was handed a hastily made Red Cross insignia and a white flag and asked to step outside and surrender to the troops.
"I waved the small white flag which I carried and the military ceased firing and called me up the barrier which was across the top of Moore Street into Parnell Street. As I passed up Moore Street I saw, at the corner of Sackville Lane, The O'Rahilly's hat and a revolver lying on the ground - I thought he had got into some house.
"I gave my message to the officer in charge, and he asked me how many girls were down there. I said three. He said: 'Take my advice and go down again and bring the other two girls out of it.' He was about putting me back again through the barrier when he changed his mind and said: 'However, you had better wait, I suppose this will have to be reported'."
She met with a more senior officer.
O'Farrell told him, "The commandant of the Irish Republican Army wishes to treat with the commandant of the British forces in Ireland."
"The Irish Republican Army? - the Sinn Féiners, you mean," he replied.
"No, the Irish Republican Army they call themselves and I think that is a very good name too."
"Will Pearse be able to be moved on a stretcher?"
"Commandant Pearse doesn't need a stretcher," O'Farrell corrected him, at which point he turned to another officer and ordered, "Take that Red Cross off her and bring her over there and search her - she's a spy."
She was searched, and they found, she says, "Two pairs of scissors (one of which he afterwards returned to me), some sweets, bread, and cakes, etc. Being satisfied that I wasn't dangerous he then took me (of all the places in the world) to Tom Clarke's shop as a prisoner."
At 2.45pm O'Farrell was sent back in a motor car, with a note and verbal message explaining that there would be only an unconditional surrender. "As I passed Sackville Lane, the first turn on the left in Moore Street going down from Parnell Street, I looked up and saw the dead body of The O'Rahilly lying about four yards up the lane - his feet against the steps of the first door on the right and his head on the curbstone."
She went in to Pearse, gave him the message and the instruction from the military that she was to return in half an hour. She returned to the waiting Brigadier General Lowe, who was in operational control of the government forces after General Maxwell's arrival. "He was rather vexed because I was a minute over the half-hour coming, but I really wasn't, as I pointed out by my watch - then one of the officers set his watch by mine.
"It was about 3.30pm when General Lowe received Commandant Pearse at the top of Moore Street, in Parnell Street. One of the officers that had been a prisoner in the GPO was asked to identify Pearse and he could not - he said he did not see him in the GPO. He asked Commandant Pearse was he in the GPO, and he said he was - the officer said: 'I did not see you there'. Commandant Pearse then handed his sword to General Lowe."
Pearse was put in a car and taken to meet General Maxwell. As he was driven away a British officer commented, "It would be interesting to know how many marks that fellow has in his pocket'."


At 3.45pm Pearse signed a general order instructing the rebels to surrender. In the meantime, Connolly had been taken to a Red Cross hospital in Dublin Castle (he was so heavy it took seven men to carry him), and he countersigned the order, if only for his Citizen Army members in Moore Street and St Stephen's Green.







Nurse O'Farrell had been given surrender orders to be handed at the various posts. Accompanied by a priest, she went to meet Ned Daly at the Four Courts where he and his men reluctantly acceded.
'."The next morning, Elizabeth O'Farrell recommenced handing out the surrender orders. She went first to St Stephen's Green, where shooting was still ongoing. There, the tricolour flying from the College of Surgeons was replaced with a white flag.
She then made her way towards Boland's mill. There was still sniping in the area, and her army driver refused to take her through the firing line. "I started through the firing line from Butt Bridge to Boland's. I did not know whether the Volunteers were still in Boland's or not, so I had to go up Westland Row to the military to ask them to locate the Volunteers for me. This was a very difficult job and I had to take my life in my hands several times." Crossing Grand Canal Street Bridge a man walking just behind her was shot.
She finally located Eamon de Valera in a dispensary that he was using as a headquarters. It was a week during which nervous exhaustion had taken its toll as an expected assault by the military never arrived. On the Friday, de Valera had even ordered the men to leave Boland's for the nearby railway embankment, from where they watched the city burning before de Valera decided to reoccupy Boland's.
When O'Farrell arrived, de Valera at first thought that it was a hoax, but finally agreed to surrender if only accompanied by orders from Thomas MacDonagh.
MACDONAGH WAS IN Jacob's, another place that had little influence on the battle. O'Farrell travelled there next. Around that time, James Stephens noted in his diary: "It is half-past three o'clock, and from my window the Republican flag can still be seen flying over Jacob's factory. There is occasional shooting, but the city as a whole is quiet. At a quarter to five o'clock a heavy gun boomed once. Ten minutes later there was heavy machine gun firing and much rifle shooting. In another 10 minutes the flag at Jacob's was hauled down."
MacDonagh, having received a meeting with General Lowe, had then gone to inform Eamonn Ceannt at the South Dublin Union.

The rebels were marched to Richmond Barracks. "When we were almost at the Coombe Maternity Hospital, two drunken men insisted in falling in with us. They were ejected from our ranks several times on the route but eventually must have got into the ranks in my rear, for about two months later I saw those two men taking their exercise in Knutsford Prison."