Brendan O’Carroll: World still hasn’t learned the lessons of 1916

Brendan O’Carroll is set to tell the story of the 1916 Rising as experienced by members of his family for a one-off BBC television programme which will air on RTÉ this weekend, and on BBC2 next week.

The star and creator of Mrs Brown’s Boys will tell the story of his uncles, Liam and Peadar, who took part in the Rising. Liam once ordered the killing of a British solder and went on to spend time in Frongoch prison camp in Wales.

The BBC audience will already be familiar with Mr O’Carroll’s connection to Ireland’s revolutionary period. In 2014, he featured in an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? in which he investigated the assassination of his republican grandfather Peter during the War of Independence, and found out the identity of the British officer who killed him.

Mr O’Carroll also discovered that his grandfather had refused to pass on information about Liam and Peadar, who were in the IRA.

He said he was struck by the security response to 1916, and linked it to people who are “radicalised” in the present day: “I was absolutely stunned at the idea that all those were arrested over the rising, 2,000 plus of them, ended up in Frongoch prison camp, which was built really as a German prison camp for Germans.

“But they ended up there, so they radicalised. They put them all in one place, and they started running courses on how to build radios, they actually wrote chapters and courses and gave them to groups of men on how to use flying columns.

“We should have learned from that, but we didn’t, because we have places like Guantánamo Bay, where we get them all together and put them all in one place, and go: ‘Be good, OK? Don’t be teaching each other things’. I think in many ways, we have continually repeated ourselves in parts of history.”

The actor said he was moved by old photos of schoolchildren in Stoneybatter, where he was later a pupil: “I look at pupils... sitting at the edge of their desks. And their feet are wrapped in canvas and tied with twine... If you put people in the situation where they’ve fuck all to lose, don’t be surprised if they come and give their lives in an effort to change things...

“You put people in a position where they have nothing to lose, and then they are very easy to radicalise. We talk about it like it’s a poetic rising, but actually we were just fucked. We were just poor. Abject poor.”

Asked whether he would have let his family join the struggle for independence, Mr O’Carroll said: I think I would have chained them to the bannisters and said, you’re not fucking going anywhere!”

Brendan O’Carroll: My Family At War will air on RTÉ One on Sunday at 9.30pm, and again on BBC Two on Wednesday, March 16, on BBC Two at 9pm.