Rising was justified given the politics of the time

The legacy of Pearse’s oration at the graveside of O’Donovan Rossa was very fitting for the occasion and shows up the shallowness of contemporary Redmondism.

The Home Rule Act was signed into law earlier by King George to be implemented at the end of the war.

This misses the most important political development of 1915, of a new all-party government at Westminster without an electoral mandate that included leading opponents of home rule like Sir Edward Carson and Andrew Bonar Law.

From that point, most informed Irish nationalists recognised that the prospects of the act being enforced were non existent and that John Redmond’s strategy had become undone, and there was an urgent need to stem the flow of cannon fodder to the Western Front.

In the circumstances, conditions were ripe for the Rising and the Volunteers were justified in preparing for it.

Noel Harrington

Scilly

Kinsale

Co Cork