1916: The Irish Rebellion

"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.