The Easter Rising as One of the Most Crucial Events in Irish History

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, Martin Luther University, language: English, abstract: The Easter Rising of national Irish rebels is still nowadays regarded as one of the most crucial events throughout Irish history. One may consider it as an botched attempt to gain sovereignty and disparage it to be an uprising that was senseless and doomed to failure in advance, others view it as a symbol of Irish martyrdom and as an insurgence that was anything but useless. Advocates claim that the Easter Rising was necessary to exercise pressure onto the British usurpators. They state that a military uprising like this, even if there was less prospect of success, showed Westminster that there could not be any long- term peace in Ireland without dealing with the question of home rule. Opponents argue that Irish rebels caused the loss of lives of innocent people by fighting a war that was at this time not backed up by the common Irish people, and that in the end they themselves are to be blamed for the casualties and devastation the fights demanded. Supporters reply that the insurrection was the first step to a free state of Ireland, that it stirred nationalism in the minds of the Catholics of the Island and that it was a milestone on the way to the republic. Whatever scholars think of it, it is a matter of fact that this event is one of the most commemorated incidents in Ireland. Countless erected monuments and installed plates at places all over the Island reminisce of the losses and sacrifices of the 1916 rebels. They are called patriots who fought, outnumbered and starved, for a holy aim and who had to submit to ruthless soldiers, sent by an illicit and tyrannous foreign government. Therefore the uprising prevails in the mind of the Irish people, bolstered up by songs, poems or parades and days of commemoration. This paper shall examine the circumstances right before the outbreak of the rising, its preparation and the course of events within it. Furthermore it intends to show in what way the British restored their power and how they responded to the open violence. The paper is supposed to try to display what aftermaths the Easter Rising actually had and if there was any sense in this adventure that was apparently doomed to failure in advance. Another point is concerned with the reflection of the rebellion. If it is blamed to be another example of useless hatred, conducted by only few men of weird mind, or if it is viewed as a necessary act of freedom by heroes who sacrificed themselves on the altar of a free Ireland.