- [Matthew] Kilmainham Gaol.
Dublin, Ireland.
May 3rd, 1916.
It's so early in the morning,
it's still dark outside.
Patrick Pearse sits in his cell,
quiet and contemplative.
And he's just finished writing final letters
to his mother and brother.
A Roman Catholic priest
is admitted by the guards
and Pearse bows head to receive Last Rights.
Shortly after, more soldiers arrive
to escort him outside.
He then marches to the end of the jail yard,
a narrow space hemmed in
by high rough stone walls.
He is then blindfolded
and a white marker
tied around his chest.
The execution detail lines up 12 steps away.
Pearse faces them
and the orders ring out.
Ready, aim, fire.
(guns shooting)
In a nearby cell,
Patrick Pearse's younger brother, William,
here's the echoing report
of his brother's execution.
In less than 24 hours,
he will stand in the same spot
and suffer the same fate.
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In the aftermath of the Easter Rising,
British authorities arrested
thousands of Irish nationalists.
Crowds of Dubliners jeered
as some British soldiers led them off,
calling the murderers
for the bloodshed they brought
into the city streets.
Army courts tried a total of 187 nationalists
in legal proceedings
that broke a number of British laws.
They were held in private,
without allowing the accused any legal defense,
and some of the military officers
serving as judges
had even fought against the Rising.
Due to the imposition of Martial Law,
the British military commander in Ireland,
General Sir John Maxwell,
knew he'd be able to punish
the rebels with impunity.
He was assisted in this
by General Charles Blackader,
and both men were determined
to punish the nationalists
as swiftly as possible,
regardless of public opinion
or even the will of the government.
Of the 187 men tried,
90 were sentenced to death,
75 of which eventually
had their sentences commuted,
but 14 suffered the ultimate punishment.
With firing squads conducting the grim work
in the yard of Kilmainham Gaol.
Patrick Pearse was shot
on the first day of the executions.
Two other nationalists died
within minutes of him
and four others, including William Pearse,
were shot the day after.
And for five days
between May 3rd and May 12th,
the rifles boomed
with each of the rebels facing death
without flinching.
Now, Maxwell claimed that only
the ringleaders of the Rising
and those who had killed
in cold blood were executed,
but that wasn't entirely true.
William Pearse, for example,
had only worked as his brother's aid,
had not been involved in planning
or leading the rebellion,
nor had he killed anyone.
Nevertheless, he suffered his brother's fate.
As the executions continued,
the public's mood began to markedly change.
Apathy toward the Rising was replaced
by dismay at the military's actions,
both in suppressing the revolt
and the clearly unfair trials.
Stoked by international pressure
and members of the press
sympathetic to the nationalist cause,
this unrest quickly swelled into a fury.
While most of of Ireland
hadn't wished to take up armed struggle,
there was still widespread sympathy
for the nationalist cause
and this rapidly translated
into sympathy for these failed rebels.
On the other side of things,
the British government was similarly concerned
with General Maxwell's
handling of the affair
because it was feared
that as they killed the rebels one by one,
the leaders of this rising
were being transmuted into martyrs.
Meaning in death,
the rebellion and its leaders were achieving
what they'd failed to do in life.
Rousing Ireland to rebellion.
By May 12th,
even unionist Irish politicians
were calling for the executions to stop.
On that day,
James Connolly faced the firing squad,
the 14th nationalist to do so.
And due to public pressure,
he would be the last.
At least for the time being.
But as the echoes of that final rifle volley
faded within Kilmainham's stone walls,
the silence left
suggested not an ending,
but a new beginning.
In August, the diplomat Roger Casement,
was also sentenced to death.
Despite not having taken up arms
himself in the Rising,
his work procuring weapons,
and recruits in America and Germany
saw him convicted of treason.
Oddly enough, an obscure legal loophole
relating to the placement
of a specific comma in a statute
was used to ensure a death sentence.
To which Casement commented wryly
that he was to be hanged on a comma.
He was executed August 3rd.
In the aftermath of these executions,
one group quickly moved
to harness this general sense
of anger and injustice,
and tie it to specific political goals.
The Sinn Fein Party had been founded in 1905
as a moderate nationalist party.
Originally, they'd advocated for an Ireland
that was independent from Great Britain,
but that also remained part
of the British Empire,
retaining the monarchy.
But by 1916, both the attitude
and goals of the party had changed.
Many members of the Irish volunteers
and the Irish Republican Brotherhood
were also members of Sinn Fein.
And the party was seen,
wrongly to an extent,
as the driving force
behind Militant Republicanism.
So Sinn Fein chose to capitalize
on this misconception.
And in 1917,
they pivoted to in avowedly Republican stance.
a move for which they were awarded with victory
of 73 out of Ireland's 105 parliamentary seats
in the 1918 general election.
And for some,
the victory of a Republican party
was a green light
to take up arms once again.
Near Ballyvourney, Ireland.
July 7th, 1918.
Sunlight dapples the Irish countryside
as two policemen of the Royal Irish Constabulary
walk along a quiet lane.
They've just left the village of Ballyvourney,
having attempted to stop an illegal gathering.
But as they pass
through the mouth of the glen,
gunshots ring out.
Several figures leap
from the surrounding hedgerows
and assail the two policemen.
One is shot in the neck,
the other is thrown into the dirt and beaten.
His attackers identify themselves
as Irish volunteers.
The nationalists take
the carbines and ammunition
carried by the police,
and leave them in the roadway.
And this is only the beginning.
For the Easter Rising may be in the past,
but after the executions
and the rise of Sinn Fein,
the nationalist cause has never been stronger.
That ambush was the first time
the nationalists had fired on the police
since the end of the Rising,
and it signaled further violence ahead.
Buoyed by election success,
Sinn Fein and its adherents
prepared for an armed uprising
that would eclipse that of 1916.
In early 1919,
an uprising that became known
as the Irish War of Independence
flared throughout Ireland.
Nationalists waged a gorilla campaign,
resulting in around 2,300 dead,
nearly half of them civilians.
But despite the British government
responding with aggressive tactics,
it soon became clear that this time
Ireland would have to be granted its independence.
Though less than a year later,
a second war was raging.
This one, a civil war among Irish nationalists.
One faction consisted of Republicans,
while the other comprised
those who wanted Ireland
to remain part of the British Empire
even though by then,
it was no longer part of the United Kingdom.
And after a year of fighting
that proved just as bloody
as the War of Independence,
the Republicans were defeated
and the Irish free state born.
In the aftermath of all of that conflict,
the Easter Rising itself
remains difficult to categorize.
To some, it was nothing less
than the realization of centuries
of struggle against imperial domination.
Often rhetorically intertwined
with the Roman Catholic symbolism of Easter,
it's seen as a righteous rebellion
by brave men who fought to the end
and who's martyrdom
paved the way for Irish independence.
But there's also an opposite view
which holds that the rebellion itself was unnecessary.
Ireland had been working its way steadily
towards self-determination,
and it seemed likely that independence
could have been achieved, eventually,
without resorting to widespread bloodshed.
Even some Republicans have viewed
the likes of James Connolly
as a king to a hate preacher
who brought violence down
on the people of Dublin.
And prior to the executions,
Ireland's apathy toward the Rising
showed that there was little appetite then
for armed struggle.
As is so often the case,
the truth is complex
and attitudes in Ireland
toward the Rising have swayed
back and forth over the past century.
Sometimes it's an anniversary
that has been commemorated and celebrated,
while at other times
it's been regulated to a minor remembrance.
But perhaps the Rising's violent legacy
is best understood
through a single bloody incident.
On April 26th, 1916,
while fighting raged in Dublin,
a British officer, Captain John Bowen-Colthurst,
had six civilians murdered.
Colthurst, a veteran of the Boer War and World War I,
who may have been suffering from PTSD,
claimed that he thought
the coldblooded executions
were, quote, "The right thing to do."
He was later arrested,
but escaped long-term punishment
with an insanity plea.
Now the widow of one of his victims
described Colthurst
as the English man with the veneer removed.
But here's the thing,
Colthurst wasn't English.
He was an Irishman born and raised in Cork.
Such incidents serve as a stark reminder
of what can happen during times of revolution
and the harsh realities that are often
left out of founding myths.
For while many Irish men and women
were willing to fight and die
for their independence from Britain,
tragically, many of the people
they fought were often their own.
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