All language subtitles for BBC.1916.The.Irish.Rebellion.720p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

"Look up, look up,

"arise from the death dust where
you have long been lying.

"And let the light of liberty visit
your eyes and touch your souls.

"Let your ears
drink in the blessed words,

"liberty, fraternity and equality,

"which are soon to
ring from pole to pole."

Easter Monday, April 1916.

A small band of rebels,
including poets and teachers,

actors and workers, gathers
in Dublin intent on liberating

Ireland from 700 years
of British rule.

EXPLOSIONS

Against the might
of the British Empire,

the poorly armed rebels
stand little chance.

Yet the decision is made to proceed,

even if it brings failure or death.

Outside Dublin's
General Post Office,

rebel leader Padraig Pearse reads

a proclamation, declaring the birth
of an independent Irish Republic.

"Irishmen and Irishwomen...

"Ireland strikes for her freedom."

In that document in 1916,

we have a very radical,
a very liberal

and very far-reaching affirmation

of the equality of men and women.

"We declare the right
of the people of Ireland

"to the ownership of Ireland."

This is a document
that just exudes radicalism.

"The Irish Republic guarantees
religious and civil liberty,

"equal rights
and equal opportunities to all."

I think everything about the Rising

and the writing around it is
futuristic, it's future driven.

"To pursue the happiness
and prosperity of the whole nation,

"cherishing all of the children
of the nation equally."

In reality, the proclamation was
read to a disinterested small

group of people, but symbolically
it takes on enormous power

and ensures that this rebellion

will become a defining event
in Irish history.

The Irish Rebellion of 1916 would
fundamentally change

the course of Irish history.

While its vision,
enshrined in the proclamation

of the Irish Republic,
will inspire freedom movements

throughout the world to
rise against their colonial masters.

The ideals of the proclamation of
1916 arise from a turbulent history.

For over 800 years,

the relationship between Ireland
and her closest neighbour, Britain,

is contested and troubled.

Centuries of British conquest leave
the native Irish dispossessed.

A strategy of plantation established
a new dominant class

of Protestant settlers
loyal to the English crown -

most significantly in Ulster,
in Ireland's North.

The mostly Catholic Irish
rise sporadically in rebellion.

Each time, their rebellions
are suppressed.

In Ireland, you have a very
unequal society

where the feeling of injustice
about the inequality is exacerbated

by the idea it's been founded on
conquest and expropriation.

But in Europe, a revolution
of science and philosophy has begun

that will create a yearning
for liberty and equality

that will in time reverberate
throughout the world.

If you look at the proclamation
of 1916,

some of the core ideas in it

represent the authors
of the proclamation

looking back to a series of
different moments in the past.

They've got a set of ideas
about universal principles

that comes out of a kind of
political activation

of some philosophical ideas

that were being developed
in the 17th century.

Part of what we call the
Enlightenment.

The idea that there
are certain things

which everyone should share in.

Equal rights, equal liberties,
equal opportunities.

The emphasis they place on happiness

certainly seems to echo the words

of the American Declaration
of Independence.

Among the clearest
voices of the Enlightenment

is that of Thomas Jefferson.

Seven years before the
American Revolution

puts an end to British rule
in America,

he writes the
Declaration of Independence.

"All men are created equal,

"endowed with certain
unalienable rights.

"Among these are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness."

Ten years later,
the French Revolution

shakes the foundation
of the Ancien Regime in Europe.

The age of revolution has begun.

The spirit of the Enlightenment

ignites two subsequent
Irish rebellions,

both led by Protestant radicals -

Theobald Wolfe Tone in 1798...

..and Robert Emmet in 1803.

Both uprisings fail,

and yet the ideals of equality
and self-determination

proclaimed by Tone and Emmet
are now deeply rooted in Ireland.

In 1845, a potato blight crosses
the continent of Europe.

Its effects hit Ireland hardest,
where over 30% of the people

are dependent on potatoes
for their survival.

The failure of the crop
is devastating.

And the great famine that follows

casts a long and lasting shadow
on Irish history.

The famine of 1845 to 1851

is regarded by majority
Irish opinion

as demonstrating that the
British government

is not prepared to look after

the Catholic population of Ireland

in the same way it would have
done its own English people,

or, indeed, Scots people, as well.

About a million perish
from the famine,

and a million are going to leave -

but that's only in the years
of the famine.

The migration, the exodus, is going
to continue from that point forward.

It's coming into Manhattan,
it's coming into Boston,

it coming into Chicago.

The example I like to cite
in Manhattan,

which, in the 1855 census,

one quarter of all Manhattan
was Irish born.

Really, what they brought with them
was very little materially,

but they brought this hunger
for independence,

this hunger for freedom.

They saw it here
in the United States.

Here in America,
you had the opportunity,

the freedom to nurture
the animosity,

and, indeed, hatred for the British.

And to see them forming groups

that were devoted
to Irish independence,

and those groups became important
prior to the Easter Rising.

In 1858, those people coalesced
in New York and Dublin

as two organisations -

the Fenian Brotherhood in New York,

and the Irish Republican Brotherhood
based in Dublin.

From the outset, they were regarded
as two linked organisations

working towards the same objective,

the creation of an independent
Irish Republic.

This is the seedbed, in many ways,
of 1916.

The number of Fenians who actually
had spent time in America

is very striking,

and they are looking at Ireland
from an American perspective,

and they've imbibed something
of this can-do mentality

that was already part
of the American psyche.

Having served six years for treason
in a British prison,

Kildare man John Devoy
is exiled to America.

There he becomes a key figure in the
Irish struggle for independence.

Driven by Devoy, the Irish
Republican Brotherhood, or IRB,

develops its vision.

Only by becoming free
from the British Empire

can Ireland achieve full
self-determination for her people.

John Devoy is absolutely fundamental

to the whole exercise -

he's one of those people who
seemed to live for ever.

He's a committed revolutionary,

and he never seems to have
let a day pass

without contriving to bring about

the destruction of
the British Empire.

The 1800s are the golden
age of the British Empire.

Straddling the globe
from Canada to India.

Many Irish people play a part
in the Empire, making up the armies

and legions of professionals
required to administer it.

Ireland is in a peculiar
way in the 19th century -

part of the imperial project,

and, at the same time,
within the British state,

a part of it is refusing to conform.

One of the Irish working for the
Empire is Roger Casement.

Stationed in Africa's Congo
as a British diplomat,

Casement becomes horrified
by the brutality

of Belgium's colonial regime.

He exposes Belgium's
atrocities to the world

and becomes a renowned crusader
against the excesses of imperialism.

Turning his attention home,

Casement becomes
increasingly attracted

to the cause of Irish nationalism,
and an outspoken

critic of the deep-rooted origins
of the injustices he witnesses.

In post-famine Ireland,
many of the poor peasantry

still live on a knife edge,

with evictions a constant threat.

Casement is not alone -
a new generation is emerging.

Men and women with strong
nationalist convictions,

determined to advocate for equality
and freedom for the Irish people.

Evictions I saw in 1885

changed the whole course of my life.

Transforming me from a
carefree society girl

into a woman of set purpose.

I was determined to do my share

to free Ireland
from the British Empire.

Revolution is a tool
for remaking states and societies.

It's not just a kind of protest
against injustice,

it's a creative process
in its own right.

The most striking feature of
the Irish Revolution in world terms

is that the cultural revolution
precedes the political revolution.

The famine had created this enormous
vacuum in Irish culture.

Ireland had shifted from being
essentially a bilingual country

to being increasingly
a monolingual one.

Ireland had become much more
anglicised,

much more drawn into the mainstream
of British culture.

Nationalist leaders come to believe

that if the Irish people
are to be set free,

they need an ideal to inspire them.

Ireland's ancient and
traditional culture

becomes a central pillar
of the cause.

In many ways,

there was a cultural revival -
particularly in the 1890s.

It was in a context in which wider
politics had failed,

and what happens is that culture
fills the political vacuum.

The group who staged the Rising
tended to be the younger people,

tended to be the politicised people,

perhaps also the more socially
and culturally aware people.

They were the people who were
at the cutting edge

of the causes of the time,
including women's rights,

the language movement,
the literary movement.

There's this cohort of people

who begin to kind of say, "We need
to take responsibility for this,

"we need to imagine a new
kind of Ireland,"

and, in some respects,
the 1916 Rising

is about the Irish saying,

"We belong to an old,
ancient, proud culture,

"and we are not willing any more

"to be treated as
second-class subjects."

In 1904, poet William Butler Yeats
and writer Lady Gregory

forge their part of this new
Irish world.

They found an institution

that will become the high church
of the Gaelic revival -

the Abbey Theatre.

Yeats liked to quote Victor Hugo.

"In the theatre,
a mob becomes a people."

You know, a mob is usually what
starts a revolution.

Those attending or acting on stage
at the Abbey Theatre

include Maud Gonne

and future leaders of the Rising
Roger Casement,

Thomas MacDonagh and
Countess Markievicz.

Playwrights include Eoin MacNeill,

the future leader
of the Irish Volunteers...

..and one of the writers
of the proclamation, Padraig Pearse.

In 1908, Pearse founds
St Enda's School in Dublin...

..dedicated to the cultural
and moral formation

of the ideal young Gael.

"It will be attempted to inculcate
in the pupils

"the desire to spend their lives
working hard and zealously

"for their fatherland...

"..and, if it should be necessary,
to die for it."

St Enda's becomes
a seedbed for the rebellion.

Many pupils will join their teachers
in the Rising of 1916,

including Pearse's brother Willie,
Thomas MacDonagh and Con Colbert.

It was about 1910,
we were in an English class,

just a small group of us.

To our surprise, suddenly Pearse
opened up his mind and said,

"It'll all end in an insurrection,
the Irish struggle."

He said, "There's no way out.

"It's the teaching of history."

In America, the IRB leader,
John Devoy,

is constantly alert to the
revolutionary potential

of various nationalist movements
in Ireland.

By his side is the staunch
Fenian Tom Clarke.

Like Devoy, Clarke has also spent
years in British prisons.

At Devoy's prompting, in 1907

Clarke returns to Ireland.

His mission -

to mobilise and exploit growing
nationalist sentiment

to instigate a rebellion.

At that time, those of us
who were trying to gee up the IRB

weren't making much headway,

because we weren't, ourselves,
of any importance.

Tom Clarke added weight and power
and dignity to the movement.

And with Tom Clarke's advent

came a kind of a positive,
forward movement.

But in Ireland, Tom Clarke
finds that nationalist sentiment

is going in a different direction.

The Irish Parliamentary Party,

under its hugely popular leader
John Redmond

has been agitating in the British
house of Parliament

for a limited form
of Irish self-governance,

to be known as Home Rule.

By 1910, the Home Rule movement

has achieved widespread
popular support in Ireland.

There was the feeling among
the nationalist population

that Ireland required separate
recognition constitutionally...

for devolved government -

however limited may have been the
authority of a Dublin parliament,

and even those who want more,
like the IRB,

even they are prepared to
acknowledge that, essentially,

majority sentiment is going to go
for Home Rule.

Though they would like something
more robust and more extreme.

A British general election in 1910
results in a hung parliament.

Immediately, John Redmond seizes
the opportunity.

He offers Henry Asquith, the leader
of the British Liberal Party,

his political support

on condition that a Home Rule Bill
for Ireland is enacted.

With great reluctance,
Asquith agrees.

But in Ulster, in Ireland's North,

the majority Protestant community
believes Home Rule

to be a betrayal of their steadfast
loyalty to the United Kingdom.

In 1912, 500,000 unionists
sign the Ulster Covenant,

a solemn oath to defend Ulster

against the implementation
of Home Rule.

Ulster Unionists saw
Home Rule as a conspiracy,

a conspiracy to undo
the Ulster plantation -

and that was something
which could not be allowed.

As early as 1909, 1910,
the Ulster Unionist leadership

is beginning to import small-scale
caches of weapons

into the North.

The creation of the Ulster Volunteer
Force is part of a drift

towards militancy.

The Ulster Volunteer Force
is founded in 1913

to oppose Home Rule
by any means necessary.

Nationalists respond quickly.

They will set up their own
armed militia.

On November 25, 1913,
thousands gather in Dublin

to join the Irish Volunteers
under Eoin MacNeill's leadership.

Among the 4,000 members
to enrol the first evening

are Padraig Pearse,

Thomas MacDonagh

and Roger Casement.

At the back of the room, standing
in the shadows, is Tom Clarke.

Clarke and the IRB need
an army for the rebellion,

but the purpose of the Volunteers
is to ensure Home Rule,

not to rise against
the British state.

Clarke infiltrates the Volunteers
with IRB members,

and enlists Padraig Pearse
to rally the Volunteers

to support their cause.

Pearse brought a degree
of originality

to the way he used culture,

in terms of instilling a sense
of identity and idealism.

He was fashioning with words
a weapon which would,

in many respects, rouse more people
than all their attachment to guns.

But in the end, of course,

he decided a culture without guns
wasn't enough.

"We must accustom ourselves to the
thought of arms, to the use of arms.

"Bloodshed is a cleansing
and sanctifying thing."

By the early 1900s,

Dublin, a city once known
to be among the greatest

of the British Empire,
has stagnated.

Many live in abject poverty.

Social justice was necessary.

Everybody with any position
or money or anything

thought that God
had given it to them

and that he had refused it
to the others.

By the time we get to 1900, Dublin
is the biggest slum in Europe.

26,000 families living
in tenement housing.

So you will often have
three generations of people

living in a single room.

Dublin city is fertile
ground for the socialist thinking

advancing across Europe and America.

In 1913, a major strike breaks out,
led by radical socialists

Jim Larkin and the James Connolly.

20,000 workers are locked
out of their places of employment

because they refused
to renounce membership

of the Irish Transport
and General Workers' Union.

The strike fails, but it makes
a hero out of James Connolly,

who sets up the Irish Citizen Army

to protect workers
against future police attacks.

Connolly was born in Edinburgh,
reared in poverty.

He represented the intermeshing
of Republican separatism

with a more internationalist,
socialist view.

Namely that the revolution
of self-determination

needs to be a total revolution.

That Ireland,
in order to be really free,

would have to be an
egalitarian place,

that it needed a social revolution

as an integral part of the major
revolution that was coming.

When the Ulster Volunteers
lands 20,000 rifles in Larne,

in County Antrim,

the British authorities
fail to intervene.

The Irish Volunteers
also begin acquiring arms

with help from networks abroad.

Guns sourced in Germany
are sailed on a yacht

called the Asgard
to Howth, near Dublin.

Ireland is now
militarised on all sides.

The description, "The brink
of civil war" has frequently,

and with much justification,
been applied to Ireland

in the summer of 1914,
when you consider the gunrunning,

when you consider the determination
on the part of Ulster Unionists

to resist,
by whatever means necessary,

the imposition of Home Rule,

when you consider the determination
of the Irish Volunteers

to defend Home Rule
by whatever means necessary,

this is the language of the era -
that is a language of civil war.

EXPLOSION

EXPLOSION

Then war breaks out.

War breaks out,
in which the whole context

in which Britain is dealing
with Ireland is changed.

In which the calculations of
Ulster Unionists and of Home Rulers,

and, indeed, the Fenian
conspirators are all changed.

With the outbreak of World War I,

Britain immediately postpones
implementation of Home Rule.

The Unionist
response to the war is swift.

The Ulster Volunteer Force
will fight for King and Empire.

Anxious to demonstrate
Ireland's loyalty

and ensure Home Rule
is enacted when the war ends,

John Redmond calls in the
Irish Volunteers to enlist also.

90% of the Volunteers,
upwards of 170,000 men,

answer Redmond's call.

Meanwhile, a core group
of Irish Volunteers

led by Chief of Staff Eoin MacNeill

believes that to fight
for the British Empire

is a betrayal of the
nationalist cause.

The split that follows presents
the Irish Republican Brotherhood

with an opportunity.

Now, in the thousands of Irish
Volunteers who stay in Ireland,

the IRB may have the army
for their rebellion -

but if they are to have any
chance against Britain,

they will need a major
supply of weapons.

We've all heard the statement

"The enemy of my enemy
is my friend."

John Devoy saw the possibility

of an alliance between
the Germans and the Irish.

And then Roger Casement
goes to Germany

and begins to have meetings
with the Germans

over the assistance that they might
render for the Rising.

Which is a pretty straightforward
form of treating this activity,

if you see things from a British
imperial point of view.

While Casement is conspiring
with the Germans to supply arms

for the rebels, tens of thousands
of his fellow countrymen

are bogged down in an increasingly
horrific war on the Western Front.

People begin questioning,

in private, and also in public,
what is this war for?

It's not going to be a short war
any more,

and it is also going to be a war
of very, very high death rates

and injury rates.

And that had a real
impact on the climate within Ireland

and the kind of people who will
coalesce around the Rising,

because now what they can
paint is an imperial British war

which is just killing
and bleeding Irish men.

"All these mountains of Irish dead,

"all these corpses
mangled beyond recognition.

"All these shivering, putrefying
bodies of Irishmen and youth

"are all the price Ireland pays for
being part of the British Empire.

"A piratical enterprise
in which the valour of slaves

"fights for the glory
and profit of their masters.'

Watching the working
classes of Europe and Ireland

slaughter one another in the war,

James Connolly is close to despair,
and feels compelled to act.

He starts planning a rebellion
with the Irish Citizen Army.

But counting only
hundreds in their ranks,

such a rising would be quickly
and easily defeated.

News of Connolly's plan reaches
the IRB's Military Council.

Fearing that a unilateral
action by Connolly

will alert the British authorities
to their own plans for an uprising,

Clarke and Pearse approach Connolly.

In secret negotiations,
agreement is reached.

The Irish Citizen Army
and the Irish Volunteers

will join forces in rebellion.

A date is set.

Easter 1916.

The strategy for the rebellion
is drawn up by the mystic poet

and journalist Joseph Plunkett.

The rebels will seize key public
buildings in Dublin's city centre

and also major towns
across the country...

..but several influential
Irish Volunteer leaders

are opposed to this approach,

including Chief of Staff
Eoin MacNeill...

..and two of the Volunteers'
original founders - The O'Rahilly,

and Bulmer Hobson.

Well, my feeling was that
if there was going to be a fight,

that a guerrilla fight gave you
the opportunity...

..of never coming to
a decisive engagement -

of keeping the thing going,

if necessary, for years.

Whereas, seizing the
public buildings in Dublin...

..you could do nothing but sit there
till you were shot out of them.

Hobson and MacNeill's protests
fall on deaf ears.

In manoeuvres on Saint Patrick's
Day, 1916,

5,000 members of the Irish
Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army

marched through Dublin.

The rebel conspirators
are overjoyed.

With numbers like these,
a rebellion might succeed.

Immediately, Pearse announces
further manoeuvres

for the coming Easter weekend.

It is a perennial mystery
that the British authorities,

at various levels,
have information coming in

right, left and centre.

Quite apart from the
obviously rebellious behaviour

of the Volunteers
and the Citizen Army,

who are more or less practising
having a rebellion in March,

on Patrick's Day,
when they occupy the city.

It's a racist view,
I guess, of the Irish.

"There may be some scuffles in
the street, but it'll all be over."

This is part of the British
official mind in Dublin,

that not only can the Irish
not run a government,

which was part of the whole

argument against Home Rule,

but they can't organise anything.

By and large, most of the
Volunteer leaders outside Dublin

didn't know what was being planned -

and, of course, some of them
didn't feel that the idea

of an unprovoked insurrection
was a good idea.

But by the time you get to
Good Friday,

increasingly the word is out,

and people have realised that it's
not just a mobilisation,

and rumours are spreading.

And as soon as this happens, figures
like Eoin MacNeill and Bulmer Hobson

begin to organise themselves

to stop the rebellion taking place.

Realising that the mobilisation
is, in fact, a cover

for full-scale rebellion,

MacNeill tells Pearse
that he will do everything

to prevent the Rising -

short of informing the British
authorities in Dublin Castle.

But Pearse, Clarke and Connolly
are convinced the time has come.

All they need now are the guns.

With only two days to
go before the Rising,

Casement is finally on his way
from Germany on a U-boat.

Following close behind is
the Aud, a cargo ship

carrying 20,000 rifles

and a million rounds of ammunition
for the rebellion.

Bad, utterly cock-up communications.

They were not met,
and arrived off the coast.

Casement, coming in his submarine,

likewise arrived unannounced.

He was arrested, and the captain
of the Aud, on being discovered,

scuttled the ship.

So the ship and the arms were lost,

and the British were alerted that
something was going to happen.

Hearing the weapons had been lost,

MacNeill is now convinced that the
Rising has no chance of succeeding.

On MacNeill's orders,
The O'Rahilly drives to Cork,

Kerry and Limerick to spread
the news that the Rising is off.

The next day,
Easter Sunday, April 23rd -

the very day the Rising
is set to begin -

MacNeill publishes
a countermanding order

in the Sunday Independent
newspaper.

More than half of the
Irish Volunteers

who had been expected to
mobilise stay home.

Gathered in Liberty Hall,

the rebel leaders are dismayed
by MacNeill's order.

The mood, it seems,
was extraordinarily low

in terms of morale, despair,

utter devastation, silence...

There was mobilisation, of course,
because large numbers

of the Volunteers didn't
see the counter-order.

You had large numbers in
different parts of the country

turning up, not knowing
what they were to do next.

But as Sunday wore on, the despair
of the morning gave way

to an urgency - and, some said,
a certain eerie exhilaration.

I walked over to Liberty Hall...

..when I went in,
there was my father.

He looked at me...

and I said to him,
"Daddy, are you not going to fight?"

And he turned to me and two
big tears roll down his cheeks.

He says, "If we don't fight, Nora...

"..we can only pray
for an earthquake to come

"and swallow us and our shame."

It wasn't planned to be a gesture.

It was planned to be as effective,
militarily, as it was possible

to conceive in the circumstances.

But if it had to be a gesture,
then so be it.

Striking a losing blow is better
than striking no blow at all.

In Liberty Hall, the Proclamation,

which has been drafted by Pearse,

with contributions
from Connolly, Clarke, MacDonagh,

and others on the Military Council,
is being printed.

The Rising...

will go ahead.

Easter Monday, April 1916.

Early morning.
The streets of Dublin are quiet.

Most people are at home
enjoying the public holiday.

Others, among them government
officials and British Army officers,

have already left the city for the
races at Fairyhouse in County Meath.

Around the city,
dispatch riders cycle furiously

from house to house,
spreading the word.

The long-awaited rebellion
is about to begin.

We knew something was
going to happen

because there was...
that feeling in the air.

From all over Dublin, small groups
comprising the Irish Volunteers,

the Irish Citizen Army, and the
women's organization Cumann na mBan

are moving toward the city.

Due to the countermanding order,

only 2,000 men and women
have answered the call.

At least 4,000 had been expected.

The countermanding order
has caused so much confusion

around the country that the Rising
will be confined mostly to Dublin.

The poet Patrick Pearse

and the socialist leader
James Connolly

lead 200 men and women out of
Liberty Hall,

headed for the GPO -

Dublin's General Post Office -
on O'Connell Street.

The company of Volunteers came
up the street,

and as soon as they
came opposite the Post Office,

they got the order, and
wheeled left into the Post Office.

Round about midday, the door was
banged open and a number of men -

round about 20 - came into the room

dressed in green uniforms,

with rifles in their hand.

They ordered everybody
to get out immediately.

Now cleared of staff and customers,

the GPO becomes
the headquarters of the rebellion,

with Pearse as acting president,

and Connolly as commander in chief
of military operations.

On hearing that the Rising
is going ahead

regardless of his efforts
to stop it,

The O'Rahilly drives to
the GPO to join the fight.

Having helped to wind the clock, he
is now determined to hear it strike,

and reaches the GPO to witness
Patrick Pearse emerge

to read the Proclamation reclaiming
the foundation of an Irish Republic.

"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.

"In every generation
the Irish people

"have asserted their right to
national freedom and sovereignty,"

"and we declare the right
of the people of Ireland

"to the ownership of Ireland."

"The Republic guarantees
religious and civil liberty,

"equal rights, and equal
opportunities to all its citizens."

There's no question
that Connolly and Pearse,

after the shenanigans
of the previous few days,

that they were damn glad
to reach the day

that they were actually there.

At long last, the curtain
is opening - we're on stage.

Beidh cuimhneamh ar an la seo -

this day will be remembered.

The rebels spread out
and take control

of several strategic buildings
across the city centre,

including the Four Courts
on the banks of the River Liffey,

and Boland's Mills to the south.

The plan is to lock-in,
wait for the British to attack,

and resist for as long as possible.

They know the longer
they can hold out,

the greater their chance of
galvanising Irish and world opinion

to the cause of independence.

As they move towards
their positions,

a small detachment
of the Irish Citizen Army,

led by well-known
actor Sean Connolly,

and radical feminist Helena Molony,
approaches the centre

of the British administration
in Ireland - Dublin Castle.

We went right up to
the castle gate...

..and then a police sergeant
came out.

When Connolly went to go past him,
the officer put out his hand.

Connolly shot him.

GUNSHOT RINGS OUT

The man Connolly shoots
is sergeant James O'Brien.

He is the first
fatality of the Rising.

O'Brien is an Irishman
from County Limerick.

Inside Dublin Castle, the most
senior British official in Ireland -

Matthew Nathan -
is reviewing security

with his head of intelligence,
Major Ivor Price.

He is completely unaware
that the rebellion has started.

I ran to see a policeman
lying in a pool of blood,

and half a dozen Volunteers
in green coats dashing about.

I fired a few shots
from my revolver.

GUNFIRE

Soldiers fire,

and Connolly takes the Irish
citizen army out of Dublin Castle

and the castle stays intact.

Dublin Castle in 1916
was defended by six soldiers.

It would have been a shout

that goes round the world,
"Dublin Castle has been seized."

Maybe they felt there was
too many people there,

but that raises the question,
was there any reconnaissance done?

Did anyone go out and
spy out the lie of the land?

Led by British Army veteran
Michael Mallin,

the Irish Citizen Army begins
to fortify St Stephen's Green,

commandeering vehicles,

barricading entry points.

Once Stephen's Green has been
taken by the Irish Citizen Army

they do two main things -
they start building barricades,

secondly they start
digging trenches,

which speaks to this
military innocence in a way.

If you want to hold the green

you would take the rooftops
of those buildings,

you would not build trenches
in the green.

Later in the day they're joined
by Constance Markievicz,

wealthy socialist and
prominent radical nationalist.

When they march off
to begin their revolution,

somebody asks Countess Markievicz

if she's taking part in
a rehearsal for something.

And when the first copies of
the proclamation are stuck up

by Sean T O'Kelly on lampposts
with flour paste,

somebody passing by says,
"Is that a playbill?"

Which I always think is rather
emblematic

of what is a very
theatrical production.

An old man tries to retrieve
his cart from a barricade

in Stephen's Green.

After repeated warnings, he is
shot dead by one of the rebels.

GUNSHOT

After some odd adventures,
I got as far as Jacob's

and, by God, there was
a hostile crowd there,

calling on the lads inside, "Come
out you lot of effing slackers,

"if you want to fight, go out
and fight in France," and all this.

They were waving Union Jacks
and God knows what.

There are 25,000 Dubliners
serving in the British Army

during the First World War.

One in five of them are killed.

There are, of course, going to be
those hugely angry for that reason.

You also had the Separation Women,

who were in receipt of allowances
through the post offices

from their husbands who were
fighting in World War I,

and they were enraged by the fact
that they couldn't get their money

because somebody wanted to die
for Ireland -

they had no interest
in dying for Ireland,

they wanted their money
to rear their children.

On O'Connell Street,
reports of a disturbance

brings a company of British Army
Lancers onto the street.

It was obvious they were going to

have the cavalry
charge down the street.

And suddenly there's
this volley of gunfire,

horses are taken down,
men are killed -

the Rising has moved into
a real stage where

there's no turning back now.

Isolated at the Viceregal Lodge
in Phoenix Park,

the Viceroy, Lord Wimborne,
is in a state of panic.

Convinced by intelligence reports

that the Germans
are behind the rebellion

and that worse is to come,

he declares martial law in Dublin
for the first time in 100 years.

He appeals to Prime Minister
Herbert Asquith in London

for immediate military support.

The initial response
is surprisingly muted.

Earlier in the day, the Germans
launched Zeppelin raids

on English cities in Kent and Essex,

while their battleships bombard
towns on England's coast.

It takes time for events in Dublin
to capture Asquith's attention,

but when Britain's response
finally comes,

it is massive and resolute.

Late on Tuesday night, thousands of
soldiers arrive at Liverpool docks

and board ship, bound for Ireland.

Early Wednesday morning,
thousands of British soldiers

land at South Dublin's
Kingstown Harbour.

Among them are two battalions
of Sherwood Foresters,

young infantrymen so raw
they have to be shown

how to load and fire their guns
on the pier.

Some even think they've arrived
at the Western Front in France.

The Sherwoods are split
into two groups,

one marches towards Dublin through
the leafy suburb of Ballsbridge.

The rebel commander at
Boland's Mill's garrison,

Eamon de Valera, a mathematics
teacher, has set up outposts

covering Mount Street Bridge
and Northumberland Road.

We knew that number 25 was being
held by only two men,

Michael Malone and Jim Grace.

Around about one o'clock in the day
we heard the noise of marching men

and looked out and here we saw, as
we thought, the whole British Army

coming in, and they were marching
along, quite unconcerned...

..and the men in number 25
waited until they got

to the junction of Haddington Road
and Northumberland Road.

SHOTS FIRE

When they came under fire
it was complete chaos.

Clearly nobody knew what to do.

A lot of soldiers
are killed on the spot

and they had no idea where
the firing was coming from.

The sound echoes across all
the surrounding buildings,

you just can't tell
where it's coming from.

Well, we thought there were
probably 200 or 300.

Their fire was so good
and so accurate

that they misled the troops
as to the numbers.

From their outpost at Clanwilliam
House on the far side of the canal,

the rebels will have any soldiers

who reach Mount Street Bridge
in range.

When they came in our view
then we opened fire.

They charged about
seven or eight at a time

across the bridge, but they
never crossed the bridge.

Eventually the British
traced the sniper fire

in Northumberland Road to the upper
floor window of number 25.

It would have been between
half past six and seven -

it was still bright -
when they made an almighty rush

and they got up the steps

and they threw a bomb at the door
and we heard an explosion

and we saw a bright light and
we knew it was the end of those two.

In the end 230 British soldiers
are dead or wounded.

The rebels lose just four men.

By now, four 18 pound field guns
stationed by the British

at Trinity College
have begun shelling the city.

After a couple of very bruising
encounters,

it's clear that the British forces
will not attempt a frontal charge

on any of the fixed positions
of the Volunteers.

Instead what they will do

is they will draw a ring of steel
around them

and basically tighten that ring...

..so that the rebels will eventually
see that they have no option

but to surrender or die.

The British sail a gunboat,
the Helga, up the River Liffey,

and begin shelling O'Connell Street
and the GPO.

EXPLOSIONS

EXPLOSIONS

The assault intensifies

as the British systematically
close down the city.

Outside the GPO, as Connolly
tries to link with an outpost,

a sniper's bullet
rips into his ankle.

With some difficulty he manages to
drag himself back inside the GPO.

Fire spreads rapidly from
building to building

on the densely-packed
commercial street.

As far as we could see, the sky was
just one enormous mass of flame.

Tremendous, enormous mass of flame.

And we felt that
the whole centre of the city

was being destroyed by fire.

With parts of the GPO
already on fire,

Volunteer Eamon Dore has a meal
with some fellow rebels.

The post office was, of course,
completely on fire at the time,

it hadn't come quite down to
our room

but it was all around us, though.

I asked Tom Clarke, I said,
"What would you do if we won?"

Well, he said,
"We won't win this time."

I said, "IF we won,
what would you do?"

He said, "I'd get a small cottage
with a big wall round it

"and I'd grow flowers."

At 2am on Friday morning,

the newly appointed military
governor of Ireland,

General Sir John Maxwell,

sails up the Liffey into Dublin.

"It looked as if the entire centre
of Dublin was in flames.

"When we got to North Wall,
bullets were flying about -

"the crackle of musketry
and machinegun fire

"breaking out every other minute.

"I think the signs are that
the rebels have had enough.

"I will know for certain tonight."

The garrison in the Four Courts
under the command

of 25-year-old
Edward Daly has been surrounded.

Daly and the Volunteers are
involved in fierce fighting

with the British
along North King Street.

Days of fighting have cost
the British dearly,

with the loss of 11 men
and 32 wounded.

When they finally
gain control of the street,

their retaliation on some local
residents is merciless.

"The men were brought into the back.

"We heard poor Christie
pleading for his father's life.

" 'Oh, don't kill Father.'

"Shots rang out."

That night, in houses along
North King Street,

British soldiers execute
15 innocent civilians.

Pearse ordered the garrison
be assembled in the main hall

of the GPO on Friday afternoon.

We knew that the end was near
and he said, then, that...

"Win it we will,
although we may win it in death."

By Friday evening it is clear
that the GPO must be evacuated.

The O'Rahilly volunteers to lead
in advance party down Moore Street,

to set up a position to provide
cover for the next wave of rebels

abandoning the GPO.

But the British are waiting.

They waited until the last of us
came around the corner

from Henry Street, and then
they let it all loose on us.

Incessant heavy fire.

An awful lot fell near me -
three or four of my friends.

Lieutenant Paddy Shortis -

I had chummed up with him
only the previous day -

we were friends for a
very brief duration,

he was shot dead beside me,
and two or three others.

Myself and about six others veered
to the left-hand side of the street

and The O'Rahilly was well
in front and was shot there.

I saw him fall on his face

and the sword
fall out of his hand.

And I saw him then
turn on his left side,

he was in great pain and
he made the sign of the cross.

When Pearse and the remaining rebels
evacuate the GPO,

they, too, come under heavy fire

and are forced to take cover
in houses in Moore Street.

By daybreak on Saturday,

the commander of the British forces
in Ireland, Brigadier-General Lowe,

has effectively
cordoned off the city centre.

The noose has closed.

In a building on Moore Street,
Padraig Pearse sees something

that finally convinces him
to end the fight.

On the street outside
three old men lie dead...

..holding white flags
in their hands.

This, according to Sean Mac Diarmada
is the moment that Pearse decides

to save the lives
of further civilians

by calling an end to the Rising.

At 2:30pm, Pearse meets Lowe
at the top of Moore Street,

presenting his sword, and with it
the formal, unconditional surrender

of the Provisional Irish Government
and the Irish Republican Army.

The Irish Republic
has lasted for just six days.

Though sporadic
resistance continues,

by Sunday, all the main rebel
garrisons have surrendered.

Gravely injured, Connolly is moved
to a hospital ward in Dublin Castle.

The other leaders,
along with many of the rebels,

are taken to Richmond Barracks.

Hundreds of us,
very dishevelled men, I remember.

Unshaven, soiled, tired-looking

but a marvellous spirit of defiance.

It seems very eerie going down
such a silent O'Connell Street.

There was hardly a sound, and at the
GPO, smoke still rising from it.

I thought to myself, that's
like our dreams, in ruins now.

As the smoke rises from
the devastated city centre

the immediate cost is clear.

65 rebels and 140 British troops
are dead...

but by far the largest group of
casualties are Dublin civilians.

At least 300 men, women and
children have lost their lives.

The word chivalry has often
been used

in relation to the
conduct of the fight.

I don't think you can make
a sweeping assertion

about the conduct of the fight -

particularly when you consider
that there were in the region

of 40 children killed over the
course of Easter week 1916.

Those children did not ask
to die for Ireland.

There was a whole
series of demonstrations

while we were marched down.

Some of the women there shouted
all sorts of expletives at us,

told the soldiers to
"shoot the bastards".

So I can say this much, definitely,
that the Rising in Dublin

was not popular in 1916.

Mainstream nationalist Ireland
deeply disapproved.

Not only was the action condemned
as a stab in the back,

a treachery,
irresponsible and worse,

but there were further calls

for the most severe penalties
to be meted out to the ringleaders.

By now Ireland is being
governed under martial law

by British General Sir John Maxwell.

Maxwell is in no mood for mercy.

He rounds up the rank and file
of the Irish Volunteers

and the Irish Citizen Army and sends
them to prison camps in Britain.

The leaders would be
court-martialled.

Asquith's eldest son,
his most brilliant son, Raymond,

he was killed in the Great War.

Many of his cabinet ministers
had lost sons by 1916,

and, therefore,

what's the execution
of the Irish leaders in 1916,

when people are being killed

in their hundreds, their thousands,
every day?

And that, I think...

it coarsens
the British reaction to 1916,

it blunts their political antennae.

The first to face Britain's justice

are Padraig Pearse, Tom Clarke
and Thomas MacDonagh.

All three are found guilty
of rebellion against the Crown

and sentenced to death
by firing squad.

Transferred to Dublin's
Kilmainham Gaol,

they were informed that they
will be shot at dawn.

Their families are to be
allowed one last visit.

But neither the Pearse family nor
Muriel MacDonagh

receive the news in time.

A Capuchin priest, Father Aloysius,
is allowed to visit.

"The bare cell was lighted
from a candle

"at a small opening in
the cell wall.

"I had barely light to read
the ritual,

"but the man, Pearse, as he
lifted up to receive his God,

"seemed to beam with light.

"The same description would apply
to Thomas MacDonagh.

"Both assured me they were happy.

"I left Pearse and MacDonagh
in the most edifying disposition.

"Pearse was anxious
that his mother should get a letter

"he had just written."

"My dearest mother,

"I had been hoping that it would be
possible to see you again,

"but it does not seem possible.

"I have just received
Holy Communion.

"I am happy, except for the
great grief of parting from you.

"This is the death I should have
asked for

"if God had given me the choice of
all deaths -

"to die a soldier's death
for freedom.

"Goodbye, dear, dear mother."

That same night in a nearby cell

Thomas MacDonagh
writes a note to his son.

"Don, darling little boy,
remember me kindly.

"Take my hope.

"You will recognise, I think, I have
done a great thing for Ireland...

"..won the first step
for her freedom.

"God bless you, my son."

Only Tom Clarke's wife, Kathleen,

herself a prisoner in Dublin Castle,
gets there in time.

We got about an hour.

Well, even then we didn't talk
about anything about ourselves,

we talked about the future.

And the future of the country.

And he said...

"We, all of us that are
going out tonight," he said,

"believe that we have saved
the soul of Ireland...

"..that we have struck the first
successful blow to freedom,

"but between this and freedom,"
he said,

"Ireland would go through hell."

"But," he said, "Ireland would
never lie down again."

Three days after the Rising,
the British authorities announced

that three leaders,
Clarke, MacDonagh and Pearse

had been executed.

The population of Dublin were not
aware of what was going on,

because the court martials
were held in secret...

..and hearing volleys of shots
from Kilmainham prison

was not calculated to
appease the concerns

of those who knew that hundreds
of people had been rounded-up

and, for all they knew, hundreds of
people were going to be executed.

In the following days,
the executions continue.

On Wednesday 4th,
Edward Daly, Michael O'Hanrahan,

Joseph Mary Plunkett

and Pearse's younger brother,
Willie, face the firing squad.

May 5th,
Major John MacBride is executed.

May 8th, four more executions -

Conn Colbert, Eamonn Ceannt,

Sean Heuston and Michael Mallin.

"My darling wife,
pulse of my heart...

"..this is the end of
all things earthly.

"I enclose the buttons
off my sleeve.

"Keep them in memory of me."

Machiavelli used to always say
if you had bad news

you should get it
all over in one go.

If they were going to execute, they
would have been much better off

carrying out the executions
one day, bang - that.

Instead of which,
nobody knows what's happening,

there's very strict censorship -

and the impact upon
Irish public opinion

has been well likened to watching

blood slowly seeping from
under a locked prison door.

Irish politician John Dillon,

a senior figure in the
Home Rule Party,

delivers an angry speech
in the House of Commons

that provokes shock and outrage.

His target - the British government
and its policy of retribution.

"You are letting loose
a river of blood.

"It is the first rebellion that
ever took place in Ireland

"where you had the majority
on your side.

"It is not murderers who are being
executed, it is insurgents

"who have fought a clean fight -
a brave fight, however misguided."

In America, people are beginning
to pay attention.

What's interesting about the
coverage of the Easter Rising

in American newspapers
is the extensive nature of it.

The New York Times
devoted 14 days

to coverage of the Easter Rising
on its front page.

Then you see American public opinion
swung in favour of the Irish

and against the British.

So that you would have
monster meetings,

gatherings of Irish-Americans

and those who were supporting
Irish independence,

and the then ambassador from
Great Britain to the United States

is watching very closely,

and right after the executions

he says that,
"When they look our way,"

meaning the Irish in America,
"they have blood in their eyes."

With Irish and international
pressure mounting,

many rebels,
including three prominent leaders,

Eamon de Valera, Countess Markievicz

and WT Cosgrave are taken
off the execution list.

For the two remaining signatories
of the proclamation, however,

there will be no mercy.

On 11th May,
James Connolly and Sean Mac Diarmada

are court-martialled and sentenced
to death by firing squad.

James Connolly is still in the
Red Cross Hospital in Dublin Castle,

being treated for his wounds.

About midnight
Connolly's wife, Lily,

and daughter, Nora,
are brought to see him.

Well, we got ready, and we went down
and we were taken in a...

an army lorry, coming down through
O'Connell Street and all the...

You still smell burning and all...

they still had that

horrible smell of burning.

So when we got in to my father,
he said,

"Well, Lily," he said, "I
suppose you know what this means?

And she said, "Oh, no.
Oh, no, not that."

He said, "Yes, Lily."

She broke down, then, and she said,

"But your beautiful life, James,"
she says, "your beautiful life."

He said, "Wasn't it a full life
Lillian, isn't this a good end?"

And she broke, but she still cried,
so he says, "Look, Lily,

"please don't cry,"
he says, "you'll unman me."

So she tried to control herself.

I was trying to control myself, too.

And he was trying to plan our life
for after he was gone, and...

Then they told us...

time is up, and we'd have to go,

he was to be shot at dawn,
you see.

On May 12th, James Connolly
and Sean Mac Diarmada

are the last of the leaders
to be shot by firing squad.

Having been found guilty
of treason on the 3rd of August,

Roger Casement is hanged
in Pentonville Prison in London.

Casement's death brings
the executions to an end...

..but it also marks a beginning.

I think that Pearse imagined
execution as, in fact,

a great weapon,
a great rebel weapon.

"Yes, they'll kill us,

"but our fame will live on."

Execution means drama.

You might almost say,
it is great theatre -

except it's great theatre
where the losers die.

But the way they die,

and what they leave after them,
then resonates with those to come.

Violence polarises situations, and
when ordinary Irish nationalists,

people who had been hostile
to the rebellion,

have to choose which side
their sympathies are with,

it's not for the execution
squads of the British Army

but for people who are,
after all, their own blood.

People began to see
the rebels differently,

they began to understand
and get ideas of self-sacrifice

and heroism and courage and
they began, as a result of that,

to try and understand
what it was that drove them

to this extremity when it was clear
that they couldn't possibly win.

INTERVIEWER: What effect did
the executions have on you?

The same as it had on
everybody else,

made me completely and
absolutely pro them,

and I became a political
Irishman from that day.

The executions of the leaders
did a lot of political damage,

but the arrests of
a lot of ordinary people

did at least as much damage
and spread it wider.

The British forces went into areas
which hadn't seen an insurrection

and arrested large numbers of people
in the weeks after the Rising.

They brought together people
who'd never met each other,

and had no public influence
before, nothing in common.

By doing so they greatly broadened
the new revolutionary elite.

Late in 1916, most of the internal
prisoners are set free.

The rest are released
the following year.

In the months that follow,
in a remarkable change of heart,

the majority sentiment
comes to support the cause

for which the rebels of 1916
had fought and died.

When the Great War ends
tens of thousands of Irish soldiers

return to a transformed Ireland.

Having fought under a British flag,
some find themselves ostracised.

Their sacrifice at the
front line no longer valued.

Others joined the republican cause

and devote themselves fully to
achieving Irish independence.

In the general election of 1918,
Sinn Fein,

the political party that
rejects Home Rule

in favour of separatist
republicanism,

wins a landslide victory,

gaining almost three quarters
of the seats.

One third of the newly elected
Sinn Fein representatives

had fought in 1916.

Significantly, this is the first
time in Irish history

that women are given the right to
vote in parliamentary elections.

In the north of Ireland,

Ulster Unionists are by far
the most successful party,

setting the scene for the
future partition of the island.

Refusing to take their seats
in the parliament in London,

on the 21st of January, 1919,

the elected Sinn Fein
representatives not imprisoned

gather at Dublin's Mansion house,

where they declare
an Irish Republic,

establishing the first independent
Irish parliament,

which they name Dail Eireann.

The Irish people have asserted
their democratic right

to govern themselves.

Ireland's future,

as she takes her place among
the free nations of the world,

will involve a protracted and,
at times, disillusioning process.

It will bring a guerrilla war...

..negotiations,

compromises...

..a bitter civil war...

..and the partitioning of Ireland,

with six counties of Ulster
to be called Northern Ireland,

remaining within the United Kingdom.

The rebellion leaves behind

a complex and, at times,
contested legacy.

And yet, with 1916,
the decisive step had been taken.

Its historical significance
would reverberate around the world,

providing a catalyst
for the irreversible dismantling

of old colonial powers
throughout the rest of the century.

You can almost feel, in 1916,

the clock of civilisation
is beginning to turn.

The old British Empire is beginning
to come apart at the seams...

..and part of that is
the 1916 Rising. Why?

It's the first time
since America in 1776

that, almost at the heart of their
Empire, there's a resistance.

And the rest of the 20th century
the sound of the globe

is of bits of the Empire falling off
and the huge British dominance

across the globe beginning to
shrink back to its old island basis.

100 years on, the ideals that
animated the men and women of 1916,

ideas of freedom, equality
and civil and religious liberty

continue to exercise,
challenge and inspire us today...

..and may well resonate among
the generations of the future.

"The Proclamation, it lives.

"From minds alive with Ireland's
visit intellect it sprang.

"Such documents do not die."

"We have done right.

"People will say
hard things of us now

"but later on they will praise us.

"Do not grieve for all this.

"Think of it as a sacrifice which
God asked of me...

"and of you."