Arcadia Ireland

Students from England, Scotland & Ireland meet up in Dublin

During Easter week in 1916, a small yet determined group of rebels took up arms against Britain during an historic rebellion that changed the direction of Irish self-determination. What made this band of rebels, composed of schoolteachers, poets, labour organisers, suffragettes and shopkeepers so determined? What were they fighting for? Was this a pointless endeavour, as Yeats penned, ‘For England might keep faith’; or was this violent attack against British authority a ‘bloody protest for a glorious thing’ a view held by one of the rebellion’s leaders, Patrick Pearse.

Was the global context of the uprising relevant to its understanding? Who participated and why? Did the majority of the Irish people support the rebels? Who died and who survived? How does a small country like Ireland have such a global reach?

This past weekend, 25-28 February, Arcadia organized a weekend in Dublin for students on its programmes in Ireland, Scotland and England to ask these questions and to interrogate the legacy of the 1916 Uprising one hundred years later.

Students were given plenty of reading and video feeds beforehand to learn as much as possible in preparation for the weekend. A good start was RTE’s production 1916 or for something more irreverent and accessible, the Rubberbandits take on the Uprising. 

Students and staff from Ireland, Scotland and England all met up on the Friday for a feast at JW Sweetman’s pub on the South Dublin Quays, adjacent to O’Connell Bridge. We all assembled right in the middle of the Dublin battlefield from a century ago to devour fish and chips and Irish stew. I was able to drop a little background history onto the group to explain the significance of our location as well as to contextualize the importance to the Rising of our next stop on the night, a play at the world famous Abbey Theatre.

Several Abbey Theatre staff and actors participated in the Easter Rising and during this year, the Abbey is putting on a programme to commemorate the rebellion called ‘Waking the Nation’. We watched Cypress Avenue by David Ireland and starred Stephen Rea as Eric Miller, a paranoid Belfast Loyalist who is convinced that his newly born grand-daughter is actually Gerry Adams the Sinn Finn TD and long-time Irish nationalist. The absurdity of this premise as well as some shocking depictions of violence blends with comedy and realism, challenged out students to consider different conceptions of Irish identity.

The following morning consisted of walking tours of central Dublin, where most of the fighting took place. Students got to see important landmarks like Trinity College, Dublin Castle (where the first casualty died), and the stony edifice known as the General Post Office (GPO), where the rebel leadership established their headquarters. Our students were fortunate to view the flag raising ceremony while touring along. Students also had time to visit Kilmainham Jail, a very popular attraction this year. The rebels were interred and later executed in the jail’s stone-faced work yard.

On the Saturday afternoon Dr Mary McAuliffe from University College, Dublin, who is a fine friend of Arcadia’s Dublin Center, spoke to the students about the involvement of women in the Rising. The lecture took place at the historic Gresham Hotel, adjacent the GPO on O’Connell Street. Women played an integral role in the planning of the Rising and also in combat operations during Easter Week. While Countess Markievicz is perhaps the best-known woman combatant at this time, many others participated in the fighting and propaganda efforts after the Rising.

The formal structure of the weekend concluded later on Saturday afternoon as our students received a guided tour of a fantastic exhibition about Ireland’s involvement in World War I. The exhibition was at the National Library of Ireland and set the Rising in the wider global context of the First World War. Students perused contemporary photographs, newspapers, diaries and hand-written letters from the Western Front.

This was a brilliant co-curricular activity organized for our students in the region. We look forward to putting on future travel and learning events for our students in Ireland, Scotland and England!