Sister Maureen gave some background history from the Great Hunger and other events leading up to Padraig Pearse's activities.
Sister Maureen spoke about how Pearse stood out at the funeral of Fenian leader, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa in 1915.
Here's a photo of Padraig Pearse (in uniform center-right) at the funeral of O'Donovan Rossa at which he gave the famous graveside oration. He's standing next to John MacBride and Tom Clarke and all three would be shot the first week of May 1916.
He was dressed in the uniform of the Irish Volunteers and delivered one of the most famous orations in Irish History. It ended with the lines: “…The defenders of this realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us, and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything. They think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.” In less than twelve months the Easter Rising would begin.
Here's a copy of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, read by Padraig Pearse outside the GPO at the start of the 1916 Easter Rising against British Rule in Ireland. Of course it led to his execution along with fifteen others.
Some say that Pearse foresaw his future role in a poem he wrote called “The Rebel”:
I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow
That have no treasure but hope,
No riches laid up but a memory
Of an Ancient glory.
My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born,
I am of the blood of serfs;
The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I have eaten,
Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters,
And, though gentle, have served churls…
… And I say to my people’s masters: Beware,
Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people,
Who shall take what ye would not give.
Did ye think to conquer the people,
Or that Law is stronger than life and than men’s desire to be free?
We will try it out with you, ye that have harried and held,
Ye that have bullied and bribed, tyrants, hypocrites, liars!
Sister Maureen is an excellent speaker and she gave an excellent presentation. Watch a video of the entire presentation.
It was good to see both East and West siders at the presentation. Here are a few of them.
Group with Sister Maureen
IACES OGs Mickey McNally, Gerry Quinn and Bill Homan
Padraig Pearse monument in Cleveland Irish Cultural Garden
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