Patrick Pearse: 16 (16Lives) by Ruán O'Donnell

Author:Ruán O'Donnell [O'Donnell, Ruán]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847178534
Publisher: The O'Brien Press
Published: 2016-02-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

President and Commander-in-Chief

Patrick Pearse appeared under the GPO Grand Portico, on Sackville (O’Connell) Street, at around 12.45 p.m., and read aloud the proclamation, ‘Poblacht na hÉireann, Provisional Government of the Irish Republic to the Irish People’, to a gathering of confused, curious and supportive city-dwellers. Brennan-Whitmore observed the scene:

The front door was opened and Pearse and Connolly, with a small escort, passed outside. Pearse read out the Proclamation and then had it posted up publicly. The crowd kept its distance respectfully enough until the little party had passed back into the building when a rush was made to read the notice. Those in the rear called on those in front to read it aloud. Many sentences were loudly cheered and at the end there was a great ovation.1

Reflecting on the events, Lynch recalled:

President Pearse, surrounded by an armed guard, emerged into O’Connell Street and read the Proclamation of Independence. The few cheers that greeted this epochal announcement furnished an index of the denationalised state of Ireland after an era of Parliamentarianism … Time elapsed before the Irish people recognised the fact that the Insurrection of Easter Week effected a necessary revivication of the national soul of Ireland … With the posting of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, the seven signatories thereto became its Provisional Government. Five of them were in the GPO now the Republican GHQ: Pádraic Pearse – President of the Provisional Government and Commander-in-Chief of the IRA, James Connolly – Commandant-General of the Dublin District, Commandant Joseph Plunkett, Tom Clarke and Seán MacDiarmada.2

Labourite William O’Brien theorised that Eoin MacNeill’s complicity might have generated a proclamation bearing his name. Tom Clarke could then have been listed or regarded as ‘president’, pairing the Chief of Staff of the Volunteers with the de-facto leader of the IRB. However, without MacNeill’s participation, ‘the best known man next to MacNeill was Pearse’, who had the additional appeal of being a national figure as well as Volunteer Director of Military Organisation. Clarke was not nominated as president, and his widow’s contention to the contrary probably stemmed from her privileged knowledge that he was accorded the honour of lead signatory.3

Pearse tasked Charles Donnelly with distributing the Proclamation ‘through the city’. He was assisted by an eighteen-year-old newsboy, who took the initiative of selling his bundle. On being gifted the money to assist his impoverished family, and reminded that the document was to be handed out freely, the youth ‘collected the balance of the Proclamations’ and departed. Donnelly did not record the reaction of Pearse or Connolly to the news of unexpected capitalist endeavour, although the stated explanation that the cash had been collected with a view to buying food for the garrison mollified the commanders. He was clearly sincere and on the following day was permitted to join the defenders of the GPO.4

The Proclamation referenced the illegitimate British suppression of Irish independence with the assertion that the ‘long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right’.

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