AGONY AT EASTER: The 1916 Irish Uprising

by Thomas M. Coffey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1969

This intimate and moving hour-by-hour account of the Easter week rebellion reads like a story, but Coffey claims authentication for every incident and exchange of dialogue. Presented from a vantage point in and around Dublin's General Post Office, the headquarters of the rebels and the center of the battle, the action unfolds in dramatic, almost cinematic fashion. The beginning of the uprising has overtones of opera bouffe: the ragtag company of Irish Volunteers capturing the Post Office right under the noses of grinning British officers who've long since stopped taking them seriously; the eloquent P.H. Pearse reading a stirring declaration of independence to a group of indifferent citizens on the street; a crowd of holiday-minded slum dwellers carting off the components of the rebels' barricades. But the comic confusion gives way to increasing tension and ultimate tragedy as the British slowly close in on the doomed but defiant Dubliners. Coffey has a talent for animating the rebel leaders' determination to make their generation's stand for Ireland: stocky James Connolly and his austere but devoted secretary Winifred Carney who wouldn't let him fight a revolution without her; the emaciated tubercular poet Joseph Plunkett presiding with his shining filigree bangle and two huge antique rings over the maps and military plans; ""the O'Rahilly,"" laughing and sandy-haired with a motherly concern for the prisoners of war, the only leader to fall in the street and escape the firing squad. The epilogue of subsequent success for the Irish independence movement seems almost irrelevant to the brave tale that has preceded it.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1969

Categories: NONFICTION