Battleground E-Book

Paul O'Brien

• Herausgeber: New Island
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

On Easter Monday, 24th April 1916, members of the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers, under the command of Pádraig Pearse and James Connolly, occupied the General Post Office in Sackville Street, Dublin. From the portico of the iconic building, an independent Irish Republic was declared. For seven days, this newly proclaimed republic fought a week-long bloody engagement with British Crown Forces as part of the 1916 Rising that would see hundreds die and Dublin city reduced to rubble after an intensive military bombardment. Battleground - The Battle for the General Post Office, 1916 is a detailed account of the actions in the area of operations in and around the General Post Office. The building served as the General Headquarters of the Republican Army and witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of Easter Week as the beleaguered garrison fought against overwhelming odds. The Rising was quickly and brutally suppressed, but the memory of the heroism depicted that week and of the executions that followed changed Irish history forever. Military historian Paul O'Brien is the author of Shootout: The Battle for St. Stephen's Green, 1916, Crossfire: The Battle of the Four Courts, 1916, Field of Fire: The Battle of Ashbourne, 1916 and A Question of Duty. He lives in Dublin.

Leseprobe

BATTLEGROUND

1916 In Focus

BATTLEGROUND

The Battle for the General Post Office, 1916

Paul O’Brien

BATTLEGROUNDFirst published in 2015by New Island Books16 Priory Hall Office ParkStillorganCounty DublinRepublic of Ireland

www.newisland.ie

Copyright © Paul O’Brien, 2015

The author has asserted his moral rights.

Print ISBN: 978-1-84840-427-4Epub ISBN: 978-1-84840-448-9Mobi ISBN: 978-1-84840-449-6

All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.

British Library Cataloguing Data.A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The revolution is not a social dinner,a literary event, a drawing or an embroidery; it cannot be done with elegance and courtesy. The revolution is an act of violence.

Mao Tse-Tung

Contents

Acknowledgements

The Proclamation of the Irish Republic 1916

Foreword

1. Easter Monday, 24 April 1916: Morning

2. Easter Monday, 24 April 1916: GHQ

3. Easter Monday, 24 April 1916: Afternoon

4. Easter Monday, 24 April 1916: Defensive Posts

5. Easter Monday, 24 April 1916: Evening

6. Tuesday, 25 April 1916: FOB Trinity

7. Wednesday, 26 April 1916: Hold and Secure

8. Wednesday, 26 April 1916: No Man’s Land

9. Thursday, 27 April 1916: Morning

10. Thursday, 27 April 1916: Afternoon

11. Thursday, 27 April 1916: Evening

12. Friday, 28 April 1916: Morning

13. Friday, 28 April 1916: Afternoon

14. Friday, 28 April 1916: Evening

15. Saturday, 29 April 1916: The Last Stand

16. Trial and Error

17. Military Success and Military Failure

Conclusion

Endnotes

Select Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

Sackville Street, now known as O’Connell Street, has and still does witness some of the most momentous occasions in Irish history. During the 1916 Rising, the streetscape was devastated by artillery fire. The urban battlefield in which the Irish Volunteers and the British army found themselves fighting is still there, hidden away in the lanes and alleyways that surround the General Post Office. This work retells some of the many engagements that took place in this area of operations during Easter week, 1916.

Grateful thanks are once again due to the staff of the National Library (Dublin), the National Archives, the Military Archives (Dublin), the Kilmainham Gaol Archives and the staff of the Sherwood Forester Museum. A special word of thanks to Nuala Canny of the OPW Library, who provided expertise in finding books that proved invaluable.

I am indebted to Sue Sutton and Roger E. Nixon for their research in the British military archives at Kew in London; to Gerry Woods for cartography and to Andrew D. Hesketh and Dr Mike Briggs for material on the Sherwood Foresters.

For supporting the idea and reading the initial drafts, a special word of thanks to Dr Mary Montaut, John McGuiggan and Sgt Wayne Fitzgerald.

I would like to thank the following people for their insight, support and encouragement: Eoin Purcell, Henry Fairbrother, Ronnie Daly, David Kilmartin, the staff at An Cosantóir, Joe Kinnear, Joe Malone, Irish Regiments, Eamon Bohan, Kieran Delany, Dave and Jimmy Smith and Jason Nolan.

I am indebted to Liz Gillis, Las Fallon, Micheál O Doibhlín, James Langton and Ray Bateson, extraordinary historians who were most generous with their time in providing information and answering questions.

I would like to thank all the staff at New Island Books, in particular Daniel Bolger, whose perceptive editing has made such a difference.

Many thanks are due to my parents, Thomas and Rita O’Brien, for their continued support.

And nearly last, but in almost every way first, I want to thank my wife Marian for her truly bottomless love, patience, support, counsel and cheer. This book could not have been possible without her. She is, in every way, a partner and a soulmate.

There are many people who helped with this book and in naming some of them I can only apologise to those I fear I may have indirectly forgotten and I would like to invite them to make me aware of any omissions or relevant information that may be included in any future updated edition.

Paul O’BrienApril 2015paulobrienauthor.ie

The Proclamation of the Irish Republic 1916

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government:

Thomas J. Clarke

Seán Mac Diarmada.

Thomas MacDonagh.

P. H. Pearse.

Eamonn Ceannt.

James Connolly.

Joseph Plunkett.

Foreword

The most iconic building in Ireland is the General Post Office (GPO), which is located on Dublin city’s main thoroughfare, O’Connell Street. In 1916, this building was designated as both the civil and military headquarters of the Irish Republican Army as it attempted to overthrow British rule in Ireland.

Designed by Francis Johnson and opened to the public in 1818, the original General Post Office was classical in design and measured 200ft long and 150ft wide. Constructed from mountain granite with a portico of Portland stone, the building stood 50ft in height and was divided into three storeys. Its six fluted ionic columns supported a pediment surmounted by statues of Mercury, Fidelity and Hibernia that were designed by John Smyth.