1916 Easter Rising Flashcards
The Irish Volunteers plan
“Sinn fein volunteers” - the volunteers who rejected Redmond leadership and refused to support the war. Their commander was eoin McNeill
Late 1914 they reorganised on military lines, with a headquarters staff. Every officer in it apart from McNeill was in the IRB
The IRB have considerable influence within the Irish Volunteers
They openly drilled and opposed recruiting to the British army
The IRB had a saying “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity” so they saw the war as a golden opportunity to initiate a rebellion
When war began the IRB supreme council set up a secret military committee to plan it. At first it had 2 men Tom Clarke and Sean mac diarmada the pearse and plunkett etc
Non IRB members were unaware of the plans for a rising
James Connelly and the Irish citizens army
Founded to defend workers from police attacks during the 1913 dublin lockout
Aims= defend workers against employers oppression
Defend workers from attacks by police
Establish socialist workers republic
Connelly spoke of his intention for a rebellion during ww1
Fearing the ICA might disrupt their plans the IRB offered Connelly a position on the IRB military council
Plans for the rising
They sent rover casement to Germany for soldiers and arms, the Germans would only promise to send guns
The military committee drew up plans for the rising
- arrival of German arms would be the signal to start fighting - In Dublin volunteers would sieze important buildings
In 1915, they planned to rise in the autumn but this fell through. In January 1916 they chose Easter Sunday
Germans send 20,000 guns on the aud
IRB agreed with the Germans that arms should land near tralee between Good Friday(April 21) and Easter Sunday(April 23). The aud landed in Kerry but was captured by British
Eoin Mac Neill and the castle document
The plotters planned to use the volunteers, but eoin Mac Neill knew nothing about their plans.When he heard rumours he said the rebellion would cause suffering and was bound to fail
In order to get mac Neill support the IRB needed to convince him that the Irish Volunteers were under threat from the British
Wednesday April 19th the castle document said the government planned to arrest nationalist leaders, it was probably forgery, but it convinced mac Neill so he gave orders to resist and rebellion was to begin on Sunday
Thursday 20th mac Neill realised he had been conned and cancelled orders until pearse told him about the aud
When mac Neill discovers the capture of the aud he cancels plans for the rising again
April 23 - Lord lieutenant and under secretary met the new about the arms, casement and cancellation and decided not to arrest leaders until Tuesday
IRB decided to go ahead with rising on Easter Monday
