The document summarizes anti-Irish sentiment in 19th century Britain through quotes from prominent British figures expressing derogatory and discriminatory views towards the Irish people. It led to the growth of the Irish revolutionary movement which began culturally but grew politically through organizations like the Gaelic League, Irish Volunteers, and the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). This culminated in the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin where republicans declared an Irish Republic independent of Britain for 6 days before surrendering. Though a military failure, it sparked Irish independence and the eventual establishment of the Irish Free State and modern Republic of Ireland.

1. 1916

2. Anti-Irish sentiment in 19th-century Britain
• “Ireland is like a half-starved rat that crosses the path of an elephant. What must the elephant do? Squelch it by
heavens - squelch it.”
- Thomas Carlyle, British essayist, 1840s
• “A Celt will soon be as rare on the banks of the Shannon as the red man on the banks of Manhattan.”
- The Times, editorial, 1848 (during the famine)
• “A creature manifestly between the Gorilla and the Negro is to be met with in some of the lowest districts of London
and Liverpool by adventurous explorers. It comes from Ireland, whence it has contrived to migrate; it belongs in fact to
a tribe of Irish savages: the lowest species of Irish Yahoo. When conversing with its kind it talks a sort of gibberish. It is,
moreover, a climbing animal, and may sometimes be seen ascending a ladder laden with a hod of bricks.”
-Satire entitled "The Missing Link", from the British magazine Punch, 1862
• “The Celts are not among the progressive, initiative races, but among those which supply the materials rather than the
impulse of history...The Persians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Teutons are the only makers of history, the only
authors of advancement. ...Subjection to a people of a higher capacity for government is of itself no misfortune; and it
is to most countries the condition of their political advancement.”
- British historian Lord Acton, 1862
• [existing policies] will not kill more than one million Irish in 1848 and that will scarcely be enough to do much good.
- Queen Victoria's economist, Nassau Senior
• “...more like squalid apes than human beings. ...unstable as water. ...only efficient military despotism [can succeed in
Ireland] ...the wild Irish understand only force.” - James Anthony Froude, Professor of history, Oxford

5. The Irish Revolutionary Movement
• After the famine, Irish immigrants in America immediately began to finance
Irish revolutionary organisations.
• The movement began as a cultural movement. A group called the Gaelic
League began to promote Irish culture and language instead of English
civilisation.
• These groups were highly radical for the time. Under the British empire,
Irish language and culture was considered backward and the school
systems had tried to eliminate it in the name of progress.
• The Gaelic League created cultural centres all over the country, where
people would be encouraged to celebrate Irish traditions. At these centres,
the Gaelic league could also disseminate political ideas of Irish Revolution
against the British Empire.

18. Cumann Na mBan (The Women’s Division)

19. The Irish Citizen Army: A Socialist Revolutionary Organisation

20. Ní uasal aon uasal ach sinne bheith íseal:
Éirímis!
Les grands ne sont grands que parce que nous
sommes à genoux: Levons-nous!
(The great only appear great because we are
on our knees: Let us rise!)

21. The Irish Republican Brotherhood (I.R.B.)
• Cultural movements grew into political movements:
• The Irish Volunteers (Oglaidh na hÉireann) began to practice using weapons
in secret.
• Cumann na mBan (The Women’s Division) represented Republican
Women’s groups.
• The Irish Citizen Army represented the working class and industrial poor.
• All these groups were opposed in their own way to continued British Rule.
• Eventually, a secret revolutionary army was formed in Ireland, called the
I.R.B. (Irish Republican Brotherhood). This later became known as the I.R.A.
(Irish Republican Army).

23. Conscription Crisis of WW1
• Britain had engaged its troops in the fighting of
World War I since 1914.
• By 1916, the war department was running
severely low on troops – leading to the
establishment of Conscription. This meant that
every able-bodied man was legally obliged to join
the army.
• At first, the British government hesitated to
impose conscription on Ireland in fear of the
reaction it might cause.
• Irish nationalists, however, predicted that
conscription would be imposed (which it
eventually was in 1918), and urged people to
resist. Instead they would stay in Ireland and
launch an army against the weakened British
state.

29. The 1916 Rising
• Between 1914 and 1916, the I.R.B. secretly amassed guns and trained
soldier divisions, in preparation for a revolutionary uprising against the
British establishment in Dublin.
• The movement combined the IRB, The Irish Citizen’s Army, the Women’s
divisions (Cumann na mBan), and several small cultural groups.
• The leaders were mostly nationalist idealists: poets, teachers, journalists
and activists.
• The Rising broke out on Easter Monday, 24th April 1916 (it is thus often
known as the Easter Rising).

30. Tom
Clarke
Sean Mac Diarmada Edward Daly
Roger
Casement
Constance
markievicz
Eamonn Ceant

32. Rising Locations
• The IRB rebels, numbering around 2,000, planned to occupy several
strategic buildings.
• This included politically important buildings: Liberty Hall
(Headquarters of the Nationalist Unions), The Four Courts complex
(the legal courts), City Hall (civic offices).
• It also included key areas of access: Boland’s Mill, which stood at the
entrance to the port, and the Magazine Fort in that stood on a hill
overlooking the east of the city.
• The most important building for the rebels, however, was the General
Post Office, which controlled all information coming in or out of the
country.

38. Progress of the Rising
• The rebels occupied Dublin for 6 days starting on Monday the 24th.
• On occupation of the GPO, a proclamation of the Irish republic was read
aloud to the crowds gathered in the streets.
• By the second day the British government declared martial law in the
country.
• Within another day, up to 20,000 British troops poured into the city to stop
the rebels.
• The British warship Helga was sailed up the river Liffey to the rebel
strongholds, where it bombed out most of the city centre.
• By Saturday, 29th of April the rebels finally surrendered and were all
arrested.

48. Archival footage of the
Rising as shown in 1916 to
British audiences.
https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=GEstWXaT5OY

58. ‘The Foggy Dew’: Folk song on the Easter
Rising As down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I
There Armed lines of marching men in squadrons passed me by
No fife did hum nor battle drum did sound it's dread tatoo
But the Angelus bell o'er the Liffey swell rang out through the foggy dew
Right proudly high over Dublin Town they hung out the flag of war
'Twas better to die 'neath an Irish sky than at Sulva or Sud El Bar
And from the plains of Royal Meath strong men came hurrying through
While Britannia's Huns, with their long range guns sailed in through the
foggy dew
'Twas Britannia bade our Wild Geese go that small nations might be free
But their lonely graves are by Sulva's waves or the shore of the Great
North Sea
Oh, had they died by Pearse's side or fought with Cathal Brugha
Their names we will keep where the fenians sleep 'neath the shroud of the
foggy dew
But the bravest fell, and the requiem bell rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide in the springing of the year
And the world did gaze, in deep amaze, at those fearless men, but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light might shine through the foggy
dew
Ah, back through the glen I rode again and my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valiant men whom I never shall see more
But to and fro in my dreams I go and I'd kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled, O glorious dead, When you fell in the foggy dew.

59. Aftermath of the Rising
• The Rising led to a 6-year war of independence from Britain.
• In the General Election of 1918, almost all the country voted for the
Nationalist Sinn Féin party.
• This party, with democratic mandate, refused to recognise the British
government and set up its own government in Dublin, called the Dáil.
• The only part of the island which opposed this was the Protestant
North, which had remained strongly unionist and pro-British.

62. Members of the First Dáil
Michael Collins, 1916
rebel, became the
Dáil’s Minister of
Finance
Eamon de
Valera,
Taoiseach
(prime
minister)of
the Irish
Republic
Constance Markievicz
became the first
woman elected to the
UK parliament –
though she never took
her seat, instead
becoming Minister for
Labour in the Dáil.
Douglas Hyde – a
leading activist for the
promotion of the Irish
language, would
eventually become the
first president of the
Irish Republic (a
ceremonial role).

64. Drawing the Border
• After 6 years of war, the British finally conceded to the Irish rebels, by
offering a deal.
• Ireland could become independent, but a border would be drawn
around the Protestant northern counties, which would remain in the
United Kingdom.
• The Island of Ireland was essentially split, with a new independent
state to the south, and a small province of the UK to the North.
• This province was now officially called Northern Ireland.

66. Decolonising the South
• Throughout the 20th century, the new independent Irish Free State (which would become
known as the Republic of Ireland) steadily removed symbols of British colonial authority.
• The King was no longer recognised, and Ireland inaugurated a President instead, titled
Uachtarán na h-Éireann. The former Imperial governor general was sent back to England, and
the president moved into his house.
• Irish was proclaimed the official language of the state, and English recognised as a secondary,
foreign language.
• Statues and monuments from the empire were removed, and street names were changed.
• In 1939, Ireland declared itself neutral and refused to fight with the British in WWII.
• In 1949, the Free State government formally left the Commonwealth, and changed its name
to the Republic of Ireland. This removed all remnants of British political authority south of the
border. The Republic of Ireland is thus more politically removed from Britain than Canada,
India, or Australia.
• Ireland continued to lay territorial claim to the North.

79. Free State National Anthem (Later National
Anthem of the Republic of Ireland) – as shown on
the new Irish state media in the 1960s: Telifís
Éireann.

80. Lyrics to Anthem and Translation
• Sinne Fianna Fáil,[fn 1]
atá faoi[fn 2] gheall ag Éirinn,
Buíon dár slua
thar toinn do ráinig chugainn,
Faoi mhóid bheith saor
Seantír ár sinsear feasta,
Ní fhágfar faoin tíorán ná faoin tráill.
Anocht a théam sa bhearna baoil,
Le gean ar Ghaeil, chun báis nó saoil,[fn 3]
Le gunna scréach faoi lámhach na bpiléar,
Seo libh canaídh amhrán na bhfiann
• A bhuíon nach fann d'fhuil Ghaeil is Gall Tá
sceimhle 's scanradh i gcroíthe námhadRoimh
ranna laochra ár dtíre dtinte is tréith gan
spréach anois Sin luisne ghlé sa spéir anoir
S an bíobha i raon na bpiléar agaibh
Seo libh, canaídh Amhrán na bhFiann
• Soldiers are we,
whose lives are pledged to Ireland,
Some have come
from a land beyond the wave,
Sworn to be free,
no more our ancient sireland,
Shall shelter the despot nor the slave.
Tonight we man the "bearna baoil",[fn 4]
In Erin's cause, come woe or weal,
’Mid cannon's roar and rifles' peal,
We'll chant a soldier's song
• Sons of the Gael! Men of the Pale!
The long watched day is breaking;
The serried ranks of Inisfail
Shall set the Tyrant quaking.
Our camp fires now are burning low;
See in the east a silv'ry glow,
Out yonder waits the Saxon foe,
So chant a soldier's song.