Patrick/ Pádraig Pearse
In the wake of the Easter Rising of April 1916, the British executed 16 of their leaders from early May to August 1916. Much of these executed rebels were executed in May and on 3 May 1916, 3 people were executed for rebelling against the British crown. One of these men who was executed that day was Patrick Pearse.
Also known as Pádraig Pearse, Patrick Henry Pearse was born to an English sculptor named James Pearse on 10th November 1879 in Dublin, Ireland. He was more interested in Irish cultural affairs as a teenager instead of the family business and this lead to him becoming a member of the Executive Committee of the Gaelic League in 1898. He studied at the Royal University where he graduated from with a degree in Arts and Law. He had a consistent literary output in both Irish and English. This helped him become editor of the Gaelic League’s newspaper, An Claidheamh Soluis.
While he had been in support of home rule (an Irish run parliament) before the Home Rule bill was suspended, that all changed in late 1913.
In December 1913, he was sworn into the enigmatic Irish Republican Brotherhood who desired to overthrow the British colonialism in Ireland and replace it with an Irish Republic. He was co-opted into their Supreme Council by Thomas James Clarke and Pearse later became the highest ranking volunteer in the Irish Republican Brotherhood. By 1915, Pearse and the Supreme Council of the IRB started to plan for an uprising against the British while World War One raged on in Mainland Europe. It was determined that England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity to move towards breaking free of British imperialism.
At the graveside oration of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, he gave a lengthy speech that included the phrase “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, 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.”
On Easter Monday 1916 (24th April 1916), Patrick Pearse read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic outside of the General Post Office on O’Connell Street in Dublin, a document he was responsible for drafting. He was also chosen as the President of the Republic. The document was signed by Pearse (as P.H. Pearse), Thomas J. Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, Éamonn Ceannt, James Conolly and Joseph Plunkett. The rising lasted for 6 days and saw the destruction of the GPO which was later rebuilt but not without the leaders being imprisoned at Kilmainham Gaol. Another one of the prisoners was Patrick’s brother William (also known as Willy).
Pearse alongside Thomas J Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh were executed by firing squad on 3rd May 1916. He was 36-years-old and he was buried at Arbour Hill Prison in Dublin. In 1966, Westland Row Station in Dublin was renamed in honour of both Patrick and William Pearse, one of the many honours that either brother has by the Irish State.