Patrick Pearse

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Patrick Henry Pearse (also known as PÃÂÃÂ¡draig Pearse or in the Irish language PÃÂÃÂ¡draig Mac Piarais) (November 10, 1879 - May 3, 1916) was a teacher and writer who led the Irish Easter Rising in 1916. Following the collapse of the Rising, Pearse along with his brother and the leaders of the Rising were executed.

Table of contents

1 Radical nationalism
2 St. Enda's
3 The Volunteers, the IRB, and the Easter Rising
4 Pearse's Writings
5 Claims about his sexual orientation
6 Footnote

Radical nationalism

Patrick Henry Pearse was born in Dublin. His father was a Cornish artisan/stonemason, who held moderate home rule views. Pearse was educated by the Christian Brothers. Writer and politician Conor Cruise O'Brien¹ claims that the influence of one of the Brothers, Brother Canice Craven, was central to Pearse's radical nationalism. Pearse joined the Gaelic League (Conradh na nGaeilge) in 1895, soon becoming one of its leaders, where he clashed with its founder, Dr. Douglas Hyde, the latter of whom resisted what he viewed as the politicisation of the League. (He resigned the League's presidency in protest.)

Pearse's earlier heroes were the ancient Gaelic folk heroes such as Cuchulainn, though over time he grew obsessed with the leaders of the previous centuries' republican movement, such as Theobald Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet; it was these men he sought to emulate, leading to his own martyrdom.

St. Enda's

Pearse saw the Anglicanization of Ireland as its greatest danger, and it was that loss of Gaelic hertiage that he initially sought to defeat. Political freedom, he knew, could come at any time, but once Ireland lost its culture it would be impossible to reinstitute. The worst offender he saw as the Irish school system, which raised Ireland's youth to be good Englishmen. It was with this in mind that he founded a bi-lingual school that stressed Irish subjects and Irish athletics. St. Enda's School (Scoil Eanna) opened at Ranelagh in 1908.

With the aid of Thomas MacDonagh and Pearse's younger brother Willie, the experiment was quite successful. He did all he planned, and even brought students on fieldtrips to the Gaeltacht in the west of Ireland. Throughout his life, Pearse was always a dreamer and an idealist, and not at all a pragmatist. He would do what he thought was best; whether or not it was possible remained secondary. This attitude later got the school into severe financial troubles. In 1910 he moved St. Enda's to a more expensive and remote location in Rathfarmham, thus losing a substantial amount of his day students. On top of this, Pearse soon found himself immersed in the rekindled Home Rule movement, and later the radical republican movement. These new obessions took valuable time and energy away from his school, which was nearly forced to close its doors on more than one occasion.

The Volunteers, the IRB, and the Easter Rising

In 1913 Pearse was invited to the inaugural meeting of the Irish Volunteers, formed to enforce the implementation of the Home Rule Act, soon to be passed. Pearse served as a promenient member until his death. It was probably later the same year that he became a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), one of many people who were members of both organizations. When he became the Volunteers' Director of Military Organisation in 1914 he was the highest ranking Volunteer in the IRB membership, and instrumental in the latter's commandeering of the Volunteers. By 1915 he was on the IRB's Supreme Council, and its secret Military Committee, the select group that planned the Easter Rising.

It was Pearse who, shortly before Easter in 1916, issued the orders to all Volunteers units throughout the country for three days of manuevers beginning Easter Sunday, which was actually the signal for a general uprising. When Eoin MacNeill, the Chief of Staff of the Volunteers, learned what was being planned, he countermanded the orders, causing Pearse to issue a last minute order to go through with the plan the following day, greating limiting the numbers who turned out for the rising. Without MacNeill on board as their figurehead, the Military Committee needed someone else to take the title of President of the Irish Republic and Commander in Chief. Pearse was chosen over Tom Clarke, the elder statesman of the IRB. Clarke was a convicted felon, and refused to take a military role, while Pearse was respected throughout the country.

Pearse was the architect of the new proclamation declared by the leaders of the Easter Rising and read in front of the rebel's headquarters at the General Post Office. When it became apparent that victory was impossible, he surrendered, along with most of the other leaders. Pearse and fourteen other leaders, including his brother Willie, were court-martialled and executed by firing squad.

Pearse's Writings

Pearse wrote stories and poems in both Irish and English, his best-known English poem being "The Wayfarer". He also penned several allegorical plays in the Irish language, including The King, The Master, and The Singer. Most of his ideas on education are contained in his famous essay "The Murder Machine: An Essay on Education". He also authored many essays on politics and language, notably "The Coming Revolution".

Claims about his sexual orientation

In her biography of Pearse, Ruth Dudley Edwards claimed that Pearse had latent homosexual tendencies, though she did not suggest, nor did she rule out the possibility, that he was a sexually active homosexual. Her claim, though controversial and condemned by some republicans, was supported by many historians who noted the distinct homoerotic nature of some of his poetry, in contrast to the complete absence of any heterosexual aspect to Pearse's life, whether in terms of relationships, his writings or imagery in his poetry. By the end of the twentieth century, many historians automatically presumed that Pearse, like Roger Casement and other figures associated with the independence movement (notably Eoin O'Duffy) was gay.

Footnote

¹ Cruise O'Brien held traditional nationalist views through much of his early career as an Irish diplomat. He served as an Irish Labour Party government minister in the Fine Gael-Labour National Coalition from 1973 to 1977. By the 1990s his views had changed totally and he served as a unionist MLA for Robert McCartney's UK Unionist Party for a time.