SAOIRSE32

RTÉ

15 April 2006 22:07

Large crowds are expected in Dublin tomorrow morning for the military parade commemorating the 1916 Easter Rising. A special ceremony will begin at the GPO on O’Connell Street at noon, just before the parade commences.

Gardaí are reminding motorists that some of Dublin’s main thoroughfares have closed ahead of tomorrow’s events.

O’Connell Street, Parnell Street, Cavendish Row, Saint Mary’s Place and Great Western Way closed at 7pm this evening with many other streets in the city due to close from 6am tomorrow morning.

Diversions will be in place and delays are expected until the roads open again at 2.30pm tomorrow.

Coverage of the 1916 ceremonies will be broadcast live on RTÉ One from 11.30am tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, this afternoon the Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams, called for a national coalition for Irish unity.

Speaking at his party’s Easter Commemoration in Dublin he said he welcomed the Taoiseach’s call for a return to the core values of Irish republicanism.

Mr Adams said that the heart and soul of Irish republicanism are to be found in the Proclamation of 1916.

He said that while there has been progress, the Proclamation is unfinished business which the majority of Irish people want to see brought to completion.

Belfast Telegraph

By Maureen Coleman
15 April 2006

Charlie Chaplin’s Belfast-born granddaughter is to make a movie about the scandal surrounding his romance with a teenage girl.

Oona O’Neill caused shockwaves when she ran off with the comedy genius at the age of 17, prompting her writer father Eugene to disown her.

Now her granddaughter Kiera Chaplin (23), a model-turned-actress, is planning to make a movie of the scandal - and she intends to take on the role of Oona .

Kiera, who was born in Belfast but grew up outside Geneva, runs her own production company called Limelight Films and is keen to tell the love story of Charlie Chaplin and her grandmother.

Oona’s father Eugene O’Neill penned such classics as The Iceman Cometh and won three Pulitzer prizes and a Nobel Prize for his plays.

Kiera said: “I would maybe play Oona myself in the movie.

“Some people tell me I look like my grandfather and other people tell me I look like Oona.”

BN.ie

15/04/2006 - 12:37:01

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has welcomed the restoration of the 1916 parade.

Mr Adams said today that it is important to remember our history and pay tribute to the men and women who fought in the Easter Rising.

He called on the Government to fulfil the promise of the Proclamation and claimed that there is a golden opportunity at the moment to push the peace process forward.

Mr Adams urged the public to get out and support the celebrations tomorrow.

Belfast Telegraph

By Noel McAdam
15 April 2006

Secretary of State Peter Hain has been accused of attempting to implement the ‘dirty deal’ involving the DUP and Sinn Fein which collapsed in December 2004.

The SDLP claimed Mr Hain intends to take ‘vice-regal powers’ under new legislation due after Easter to underpin the recalled Stormont Assembly.

Senior SDLP negotiator Sean Farren said Mr Hain did not vote for the Good Friday Agreement and had no right to change it.

Ahead of expected consultations with the parties next week, Mr Farren warned: “He wants to take vice-regal powers to make changes to the Agreement’s structures to implement the dirty deal done by Sinn Fein and the DUP in 2004.”

The North Antrim Assembly man said Sinn Fein must make clear it rejects the ‘flawed’, so-called Comprehensive Agreement which was made public by the two Governments.

“It is there that they first agreed to a shadow Assembly with the DUP. We are still living to this day with the consequences of that flawed negotiation.

“That failed deal gave the DUP vetoes over what nationalists could be and what they could decide.

“It threatened and hindered the North South agenda and threatened the SDLP with a new form of automatic exclusion.

“The failed Comprehensive Agreement should be left to fade away instead of being pushed again now by the Secretary Of State. That is our clear message to him today.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Noel McAdam
15 April 2006

Ulster Unionists are planning an international campaign in an attempt to embarrass the Government over its ‘plan B’ strategy for joint stewardship of Northern Ireland with the Republic.

The initiative could involve a series of high-level meetings with international organisations in the coming months.

“Fundamentally”, the party warned last night, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s proposed “joint management” by London and Dublin if the Assembly collapses is a “breach of commitments to all residents living in Northern Ireland”.

Former Executive Minister Dermot Nesbitt said he has been asked by UU leader Sir Reg Empey to spearhead the programme to “expose” the Government, which is still in the planning stages.

“The task is extremely difficult - the governments have the power while citizens’ power is weak, ” Mr Nesbitt conceded.

“Only by a process of exposure and possible embarrassment is there any chance of success, such is the power of government today.”

Just a week after the joint statement by Mr Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, the UUP claims the new British-Irish partnership is outside the terms of both the Good Friday Agreement and international law.

“Put simply, the aspect of treating nationalist/republican aspirations for a united Ireland as equal to the unionist position is a crime against international law and without precedent,” Mr Nesbitt argued.

Belfast Telegraph

By Alf McCeary
15 April 2006

The Church of Ireland Gazette has criticised DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley for his negativity about the statement issued by London and Dublin last week on the Assembly.

The periodical says in its latest edition that the Assembly stalemate could not have been allowed to continue, and that both the Irish and British governments were right to set the November deadline.

The Gazette added: “It is a pity, however, that the Rev Ian Paisley chose so swiftly to be so negative about the inter-governmental statement.

“While the DUP might, after considered reflection, have come to the same conclusion, at least the party could have set an example by stopping to think about how to make the most of the political opportunity.”

The Gazette also claimed that “Dr Paisley’s criticism of the Republic of Ireland’s role in the evolving of the political future in Northern Ireland was unhelpful. The tragedy is that Northern Ireland’s politicians have not yet come to an agreement on how they can actually sit down together in devolved government.”

The paper added that the Irish government and “not least Mr Ahern himself, had expended ” very great energy in contributing to the peace process.”

The paper warned that the greatest responsibility for progress “now rests with the republican movement. The continued existence of the IRA is an impediment to a happily shared future for Northern Ireland, and its members and friends must know what now has to be done.”

Last week Primate Robin Eames warned against a “knee-jerk” reaction to the inter-Governmental statement and asked people to take time to consider it.

BBC

Alasdair McDonnell said he will not engage in playground politics

The SDLP will not take part in an assembly without power, the party’s deputy leader has said.

Alasdair McDonnell said his party was not interested in “an insulting invitation” to engage in “pre-school playground” politics.

He said there was no point in debating important matters if they had no power to alter government policy.

The parties have been invited to return to Stormont on 15 May in a bid to restore devolved government.

Members will sit for an intitial six-week session before rising for the summer.

Speaking on the BBC’s Inside Politics programme, Dr McDonnell said the SDLP would accept Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain’s invitation if the political parties were given powers to alter decisions taken by direct rule ministers.

‘Play group’

“If Peter Hain is saying to us, ‘Yes, I ‘ll allow you guys to make decisions on education and I’ll allow you guys to reverse some of the decisions my ministers have taken’, that’s fine, then we will engage.

“But if it’s just a question of having a pre-school play group then we have no interest.”

A deadline to restore devolution by 24 November was unveiled in the “take-it-or-leave-it” plan, outlined by the prime minister and the taoiseach in Armagh.

Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern said the assembly would be recalled on 15 May with parties being given six weeks to elect an executive.

If that fails, the 108 members get a further 12 weeks to try to form a multi-party devolved government.

If that attempt also fails, salaries will stop.

The British and Irish governments would then work on partnership arrangements to implement the Good Friday Agreement.

BBC

Belfast is applying the finishing touches to a series of events to mark the 95th anniversary of the launching from the city of the RMS Titanic.

The Titanic was launched from Belfast 95 years ago

The fifth annual ‘Titanic Made in Belfast’ festival begins on Easter Saturday 15 April and continues until Saturday 22 April.

The ill-fated liner, which sank with the loss of 1,500 lives on its maiden transatlantic voyage in 1912, was built at Belfast’s Harland and Wolff shipyard.

During the Easter week, Belfast City Hall will display 250 Titanic artefacts never seen before in Northern Ireland, which will be auctioned in England immediately after the festival.

A wealth of other activities have been organised by Belfast City Council over the week.

One of the highlights will be the first public screening of the unedited ‘lost’ Titanic film, believed to be the longest and most comprehensive Titanic footage yet discovered

Meanwhile, the acclaimed ‘Titanic At Home’ exhibition, has temporarily taken up a new berth.

Telling the story of the building of Titanic, and of the people who built it, the exhibition this year will be staged at W5, the interactive discovery centre at the Odyssey Pavilion - just a few hundred yards from where Titanic itself grew majestically on the Belfast skyline 95 years ago.

It focuses on the creation of the ship, telling the story through the eyes and words of the workers who put a piece of themselves into the ship and those who sailed from Belfast never to return.

‘Titanic The Image’, a major new exhibition, is being staged in partnership with the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

It will look at the enduring myths around the ship and how it has become a key icon of international popular culture and one of the great metaphors of our time.

The liner was built at Belfast’s Harland and Wolff shipyard

Visitors will be taken on a journey of images charting the three stages of Titanic’s life: its creation in Belfast, its fateful maiden voyage and sinking, and its ‘afterlife’ as portrayed in paintings, films and other visual representations.

Belfast Lord Mayor Wallace Browne said the Titanic story was both fascinating and poignant.

“For too long, Belfast’s part in the Titanic story, and the role of the people of Belfast in bringing Titanic to life, has been neglected,” he said.

“Over the past few years, the city that gave birth to the ship, and many others, finally and rightfully acknowledged her part in the tale, and Belfast City Council once again is proud to celebrate the achievement, commemorate the tragedy and educate the world about our city’s role in the Titanic story.”

This year’s festival, which has been organised by Celebrate Belfast, is dedicated to the memory of John Parkinson, president of the Belfast Titanic Society, who passed away at the age of 99, on 1 March.

More details of the events can be obtained from the Belfast Welcome Centre, by calling +44 (0) 28 9024 6609, by email from events@belfastcity.gov.uk, or online at celebratebelfast2006.

Indymedia.ie

by J Sheehy
14 April 2006

Ruairí Ó Brádaigh - The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary

“In a very real sense, Ruairí Ó Bradáigh can . . . be said to be the last, or one of the last Irish Republicans. Studies of the Provisional movement to date have invariably focused more on the Northerners and the role of people like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. But an understanding of them is not possible without appreciating where they came from and from what tradition they have broken. Ruairí Ó Bradáigh is that tradition and that is why this account of his life and politics is so important.”

—from the foreword by Ed Moloney, author of A Secret History of the IRA

THE biography Ruairí Ó Brádaigh - The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary was launched by Dr Ruán O’Donnell, Department of History, Limerick University, on April 12 - the Wednesday before Easter.

Other speakers at the launch in the Cúltúrlann, Monkstown, Dublin; included the author Professor Robert W White of Indiana University and the subject of the book himself, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh.

The book is in hardback and runs to 350 pages with another 60 pages of notes and is the result of over 20 years of research and interviews with the subject. Dr O’Donnell did extensive work for the bicentenaries of 1798 and 1803 and is now engaged in a study on the Republican Movement in the 1950s

Speaking at the launch of Robert White’s biography on April 12 Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President, Republican Sinn Féin, said:

“This work is a biography. It is not a disguised autobiography. The facts have been checked with me but the assessments, judgements and conclusions reached in it are essentially those of the author, Professor Robert W White.

“The project has taken 22 years, ever since he interviewed me in depth in Roscommon when writing his earlier work, ‘Provisional Irish Republicans’.

“While engaged in this ‘Life’ he took a sabbatical leave from his post at Indiana University to spend six months in Ireland with his wife and family in order to engage full-time in research.

“He read the files of the Longford Leader, the Seán MacEoin papers (now at University College, Dublin) and checked all published material he could find. He cites as sources 140 books and he interviewed personally about 40 different people.

“Bob White visited Ireland frequently, assessed among other sources the Linenhall Library in Belfast, tracked down people and interviewed them as he meticulously sought the data. Now that he has completed his decades of work, I wish to express my wholehearted gratitude to him.

“I think I was accurate when I told him one evening on the telephone to the United States - I had just finished reading the final draft of his work - that I felt he had succeeded in getting inside my head.

“For my own part, on completing, this Easter, 55 years of endeavour with the Republican Movement, I can sum up the ‘Life’ by quoting these words from the tombstone of Charlotte Despard in the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin:

” ‘ I slept and dreamt that life was beauty

I woke and found that life was duty.’ ”

Launching the “Life” historian Ruan O’Donnell said: “Robert White’s new biography of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh is an essential starting point for historical discussion of Ireland in the 1970s, with valuable insights pertaining to the Republican perspective between the early 1950s and late 1990s. The book explains and illuminates many significant incidents, policies and practices raised in outline by the late John Bowyer Bell and Tim Pat Coogan.”

Table of contents for Ruairí Ó Brádaigh : the life and politics of an Irish revolutionary / Robert W. White. Bibliographic record and links to related information available from the Library of Congress catalog.

Contents
Chronology
Foreword
Introduction

1. Matt Brady and May Caffrey
2. The Brady Family: Irish Republicans in the 1930s and 1940s
3. Off to College and into Sinn Féin and the IRA: 1950-1954
4. Arms Raids, Elections, and the Border Campaign: 1955-1956
5. Derrylin, Mountjoy, and Teachta D la: December 1956-March 1957
6. TD, Internee, Escapee, and Chief of Staff: March 1957-June 1959
7. Marriage and Ending the Border Campaign: June 1959-February 1962
8. Political and Personal Developments in the 1960s: March 1962-1965
9. Dream-Filled Romantics, Revolutionaries, and the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association:
1965-August 1968
10. The Provisionals: September 1968-October 1970
11. The Politics of Revolution: Eire Nua, November 1970-December 1972
12. International Gains and Personal Losses: January 1973-November 1974
13. The Responsibilities of Leadership: November 1974-February 1976
14. A Long War: March 1976-September 1978
15. A New Generation Setting the Pace: October 1978-August 1981
16. “Never, that’s what I say to you–Never”: September 1981-October 1986
17. “We are here and we are very much in business”: October 1986-May 1998

Epilogue
Appendix
Notes on Sources
Works Cited
Index

Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication:

Ó Brádaigh, Ruairí.
Revolutionaries — Northern Ireland — Biography.
Northern Ireland — Politics and government.
Northern Ireland — Biography.

———

Since the mid-1950s, Ruairí Ó Bradáigh has played a singular role in the Irish Republican Movement. He is the only person who has served as chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army, as president of the political party Sinn Féin, and to have been elected, as an abstentionist, to the Dublin parliament. Today, he is the most prominent and articulate spokesperson of those Irish Republicans who reject the peace process in Northern Ireland. His rejection is rooted in his analysis of Irish history and his belief that the peace process will not achieve peace. Instead it will support the continued partition of Ireland and result in continued, inevitable, conflict.

The child of Irish Republican veterans, Ó Bradáigh has led IRA raids, been arrested and interned, escaped and been “on the run,” and even spent a period of time on a hunger strike. An articulate spokesman for the Irish Republican cause, he has at different times been excluded from Northern Ireland, Britain, the United States, and Canada. He was a key figure in the secret negotiation of a bilateral IRA-British truce. His “Notes” on these negotiations offer special insight to the 1975 truce, the IRA cease-fires of the 1990s, and the current peace process in Ireland.

Ó Bradáigh has been a staunch defender of the traditional Republican position of abstention from participation in the parliaments in Dublin, Belfast, and Westminster. When Sinn Féin voted to recognize these parliaments in 1970, he led the walkout of the party convention and spearheaded the creation of Provisional Sinn Féin. He served as president of Provisional Sinn Féin until 1983, when he was forced from the position by his successor, Gerry Adams. In 1986, with Adams as its president, Provisional Sinn Féin recognized the Dublin parliament. Ó Bradáigh led another walkout and later became president of Republican Sinn Féin, a position he still holds.

Dr. Robert White is the Dean of the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts and Professor of Sociology at Indiana University-Perdue University Indianapolis. He has previously authored Provisional Irish Republicans: An Oral and Interpretive History and was co-editor of Self, Indentity, and Social Movements.

Irish Examiner

By Paul O’Hare
15/04/06

MORE THAN 1,000 mourners yesterday attended the funeral of Sinn Féin aide Siobhan O’Hanlon.

Party president Gerry Adams and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness carried her coffin, which was draped in a tricolour, following a service in Hannahstown, west Belfast.

Ms O’Hanlon, who died on Tuesday after a lengthy battle against cancer, was a notetaker in the talks which led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

In his graveside oration, Mr Adams described her as a woman who got things done.

Mr Adams told mourners the former IRA volunteer embraced politics as a Sinn Féin activist and was present for historic events at Stormont and in Downing Street.

Ms O’Hanlon, 45, also co-founded the West Belfast Festival and carried out voluntary work for adults with Down syndrome.

Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald also spoke at the graveside while Frances Black sang ‘The Foggy Dew’.

Ms O’Hanlon is survived by husband Pat Sheehan and six-year-old son Cormac.

Mr Adams said Ms O’Hanlon would be missed not only by her family but by the Republican movement as a whole.

“Siobhan packed three or four different lives into one,” said Mr Adams.

“She made a huge difference in the lives of many, many people.

“There was her life as a child and a young nationalist from a strong Republican family - growing up in north Belfast.

“There was her life in the IRA. There was her life as a political prisoner. Her life as a Sinn Féin activist.

“Her life as a mother and a wife. And for the last four years or so her life in all these dimensions as she fought the cancer.

“For the last 17 years or so I am very proud to say that I was part of Siobhan’s life and she was part of mine.”

NPR

Irish History on the Auction Block

April 9, 2006

Fonsie Mealy, managing director of Mealy’s Auctioneers in Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, tells Liane Hansen about the auction. (audio link onsite)

“A Card for Emmet Clarke

A hand-painted New Year greeting card made for Emmet Clarke (youngest son of Tom Clarke) made in January 1919. The verse reads: ‘A happy New Year/ To you so free / From us in jail / Across the sea.’”

————————————————————–

“Volunteers

A photograph taken at a reunion — probably in 1936 — of volunteers who served in the 1916 Easter Rising.”

Photos provided by Mealys.com. More onsite.

Independent.co.uk

By David McKittrick, Ireland Correspondent
Published: 15 April 2006

In a milestone event replete with historical and political significance, the Irish authorities will - on Easter Monday - stage a major commemoration of the armed insurrection that triggered the ending of British rule. Thousands of members of the Irish army and other defence forces will mark the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising by parading through Dublin while the Air Corps stages a fly-past. (Photo from >>here. Click to view.)

The immediate significance of the event is that it has not been held in recent decades for fear of giving credence to the IRA campaign of violence. But, following the run-down of the Troubles, the Easter Rising has assumed an important new place, as Irish nationalism and republicanism undergo realignments.

The conventional political parties are locked in controversy over who are the true heirs of the rebellion, attempting to wrest any sense of ownership of the violent event away from the IRA and Sinn Fein. The President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, has pitched into the debate, praising “the sacrifices of the heroes of 1916″ who rescued the country from being one of Britain’s “captured dominions”. Not for the first time, the stuff of history has become the stuff of present-day political dispute.

The GPO, one of the most prominent buildings in O’Connell Street and the focus of the fighting in 1916, is to be transformed into a national monument, part of a whole array of projects in the run-up to the centenary in 2016. Monday’s march-past of the GPO is the revival of a practice that was abandoned in the early 1970s after the eruption of the Troubles. This is no mere gesture of ritual respect. It is a crucial part of a new battle for the title deeds of Irish republicanism.

The Irish political establishment is embarking on a campaign to wrest the republican mantle back from Sinn Fein and the IRA, which have largely commandeered the term. Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern received sustained applause when he recently declared: “The Irish people need to reclaim the spirit of 1916, which is not the property of those who have abused and debased the title of republicanism. We in this state will proclaim our republicanism. We will recognise and praise the vision of the volunteers of 1916.”

The outcome of this new, unarmed, struggle is destined to have important effects on Irish politics. With the IRA campaign over, many observers believe Sinn Fein will reap an electoral harvest. Its declared ambition is to increase its seats in the Irish parliament from five to 14. Senior figures in other parties do not discount that, worrying that it could hand Sinn Fein the balance of power in the Dail.

The six-day 1916 siege of the GPO arguably changed the course of Irish history, leading as it did to British withdrawal, the south’s independence and the creation of Northern Ireland. The rising began unpromisingly, with a confusion of orders and counter-orders which meant that many potential rebels simply stayed home. Fewer than 2,000 turned out, taking over a number of buildings in central Dublin.

Their headquarters was the GPO, which was barricaded by a few hundred volunteers who had marched to it in uniform. The chief of the insurgents, Padraig Pearse, stood on the GPO steps and solemnly proclaimed a Republic. He announced: “We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.” The same proclamation will be read out on Monday.

The authorities were taken by surprise but reinforcements were quickly brought in and artillery was deployed, with a British gunboat moored on the Liffey blasting away at the GPO. Within a short time, it was reduced to a shell, the position of the rebels rendered hopeless. (Photo from >>here. Click to view)

After six days Pearse signed a formal letter of surrender “in order to prevent further slaughter of the civil population”. The death toll was 64 rebels, 132 security forces and more than 300 civilians. Following the surrender the whole episode seemed over, but unexpectedly a military fiasco was transformed into a political watershed. While Pearse and his men saw themselves as soldiers following the rules of war, British and Unionist opinion regarded the rebellion as treachery at a time when Britain was locked in the First World War. The authorities imposed martial law, ordering thousands of arrests and transporting hundreds to a camp in Wales. Critically, 15 rebel leaders, including Pearse, were executed by firing squad, producing a wave of outrage.

The subsequent surge of pro-rebel sympathy affected many who had disapproved of the rising. The importance of the event was captured by the poet W B Yeats, who wrote: “All changed, changed utterly: a terrible beauty is born.” Ironically, Sinn Fein, then a small grouping, was not involved in the rebellion. But the authorities christened it “the Sinn Fein rising” and the title was afterwards adopted by the separatist movement.

Pearse and others who were executed, such as the socialist James Connolly, achieved instant martyrdom and lasting cult status as the founding fathers of the new Irish state. Those who survived the pounding of the GPO included major figures such as Michael Collins, later killed in the subsequent civil war, and others who went on to head Irish governments.

The modern Irish state thus had its origins in a tumultuous period which began with the seizure and siege of the GPO. As columnist Kevin Myers put it: “All our political parties were born out of the barrel of a gun.” For decades, nationalist Ireland felt no shame or guilt in that, agreeing with one commentator’s assertion that the rebellion “was a brave, clean fight against an empire, its protagonists deserving all honour”. But when the most recent troubles broke out, unease grew as the IRA argued its killings followed hallowed precedent and it was the legitimate heir to 1916.

With the ending of the Troubles the sense is that 1916 and the GPO can be commemorated in a less inhibited way. Modern Ireland has become steadily less ideological and more pragmatic. But the past still exerts a strong hold on the Irish imagination. Sinn Fein’s leaders are determined to maintain a grip on the past in order to grasp the levers of power in the future. The Irish political establishment is determined to thwart them. The scene is set for the second battle of the GPO.

Irish Examiner

**Photos from Nationalist Propaganda Postcards 1914-1922. Click to view.

By Ryle Dwyer
15/04/06

AT the 1975 Munster football final in Killarney the much-fancied Cork team were being hammered, and many Cork supporters began to bail out early.

A Kerry supporter shouted at them, “Leaving early, can’t take ye’r beating!”

One of the fleeing Cork crowd shouted back: “What do ye mean ‘leaving’? Ye bastards, ye left Casement on Banna Strand!”

In the midst of all the hype about 1916 the story of what happened in Kerry has been largely overlooked. It was a weekend in Kerry during which Murphy’s Law ruled. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

The Germans arrived in Tralee Bay on Thursday in the Aud with an arms shipment for the Rising, but there was no one there to meet them.

At the time the only person in the area who knew about plans for the Rising was Austin Stack, the local brigadier of the Irish Volunteers and head centre of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

On Good Friday three men were sent from Dublin to seize a radio transmitter in Caherciveen and set up a transmitting station in Tralee to get in touch with the Aud. Two of them were drowned when their driver took a wrong turn and drove off the end of the short pier at Ballykissane.

Some later contended that this tragic accident undermined the whole Rising, but it really made no difference whatsoever because even if they had got the transmitter and set it up, they would not have been able to contact the Aud, which had no radio.

Leaders in Dublin had changed the date on which the Aud should arrive to Easter Sunday after it had sailed, so the Germans had no means of contacting the ship. Roger Casement set out from Germany on a submarine with that information, but it had engine trouble and had to return to port, so vital days were lost on getting another submarine.

It arrived in Tralee Bay in the early hours of Good Friday while the Aud was still waiting impatiently for a signal from the shore.

As Casement and two colleagues were coming ashore their boat capsized and they were thrown into the water. Casement was suffering from malaria and after being soaked, he was in no condition to walk the six miles to Tralee. The other two went for help, but he was captured before the help arrived. The Germans were convinced that Casement came back to Ireland to take part in the rebellion, but he was really trying to prevent it. “The one hope I clung to,” he later told his solicitor George Gavan Duffy, “was that I might arrive in Ireland in time to stop the Rising.”

When Casement was brought into the RIC barracks in Tralee he was put in the billiards room and a fire was lit for him. Head Constable John A Kearney sent for a local doctor, Mikey Shanahan, who was known to have Sinn Féin sympathies.

Shanahan was allowed to see Casement by himself.

Kearney knew the prisoner was Casement. The head constable hoped Casement would identify himself to Dr Shanahan and have the local volunteers rescue him. Before the doctor left the station Kearney showed him a photograph of Casement saying he was the prisoner. He wished to make sure that Shanahan would tell the volunteers the RIC knew who it was holding.

But Stack pretended not to believe the doctor. He insisted that the RIC had only arrested a Norwegian sailor.

Meanwhile, Kearney invited Casement up to his residence for a meal. “I would love nothing better than a good steak,” Casement said when asked what he would like to eat.

Kearney’s wife went out to purchase steak from a local butcher because they had no meat in the residence as it was Good Friday. She cooked him the meal, and Kearney sent out for some Jameson whiskey for the prisoner.

Before bringing Casement back down to the billiards room, where he was left unrestrained with the front door unlocked so that a rescue party could just walk in, the head constable told his wife to keep their children upstairs as he expected the volunteers to rescue the prisoner.

Casement asked Kearney to send for a priest. Fr Frank Ryan was summoned from the nearby Dominican Church.

In Fr Ryan’s presence, Kearney asked Casement: “What do you want with a priest? Aren’t you a Protestant?”

Kearney then left Fr Ryan alone with Casement, who identified himself and asked the priest to get a message to the volunteers.

“Tell them I am a prisoner,” he said, “and that the rebellion will be a dismal, hopeless failure, as the help they expect will not arrive.”

THE priest was taken aback. He had come on a spiritual mission and had no desire to get involved in this kind of politics.

“Do what I ask,” Casement pleaded, “and you will bring God’s blessing on the country and on everyone concerned.”

Then “after deep and mature reflection”, Fr Ryan realised that “it would be the best thing not alone for the police, but also for the volunteers and the country, that I should convey the message to the volunteers and thereby be the means through which bloodshed and suffering might be avoided. I saw the leader of the volunteers in Tralee and give him the message. He assured me he would do his best to keep the volunteers quiet.”

One can only imagine Stack’s state of mind when Fr Ryan told him that Casement wanted the rebellion called off. He was supposed to be the only person in the area to know about the plans. Now he was being told about it by a priest who had no involvement in the movement.

What was worse, Fr Ryan told more than Stack that Casement wanted the rebellion called off.

“I also told the head constable of the steps I had taken, and my reasons for it, and he agreed with me that it was perhaps the wisest course to follow,” Fr Ryan noted.

At this point Kearney sent Stack a message that Con Collins, a friend arrested earlier in the day, wished to see him at the RIC barracks.

Paddy J Cahill, the deputy brigadier, advised Stack not to go, or at least make sure he had nothing incriminating on him. Stack handed over his revolver and supposedly checked his belongings to ensure he had nothing else of importance.

When he was searched at the RIC station, however, he was carrying a massive bundle of letters from people like Pádraig Pearse, James Connolly, Bulmer Hobson and a circular from Eoin MacNeill urging the volunteers to resist forcefully any attempt by the Crown authorities to suppress or disarm them. He was promptly arrested.

Stack later wrote to his brother, Nicholas, that he was carrying “a large number of letters, ie, fully 20 or 30 letters, I imagine”. The count at the barracks was 52 letters. Somebody might carry that many letters in a briefcase, but has anyone ever carried that number on their person.

One must ask why was Stack carrying so many letters when he went to the barracks? With things obviously going so badly wrong in relation to the plans for the rebellion, it looked suspiciously like he wanted to be arrested so that he would be in custody when the balloon went up?

It is about time people began examining the record for what it was, not what it should have been.