EASTER WEEK The fiendish brutality of the British and the execution of the leaders of the 1916 Insurrection brought about a protest in Ireland unequalled in history. Sixteen outstanding men, from all walks of life, either shot or condemned to life sentences in prison -- and all this only because they wanted Freedom for their own Nation and willing to lead their own people out of century-old oppression. During World War I it was England, mainly, which sanctimoniously used the famous slogan "Freedom for small Nations" but with the savage order to execute sixteen idealistic men she showed her true colours for the whole world to see. James Connolly, one of the sixteen leaders, was so seriously wounded in the weeklong fighting in Dublin that he actually had to be strapped to a chair, thus to face the firing squad and be executed. In addition to the storm of protest in Ireland from men such as Bishop O'Dwyer of Limerick, Yeats, AM, Russell, Gogarty, and many other famous personalities, similar protest and condemnation of British savagery poured in from well-known figures all over the world among them Bernhard Shaw, Joyce, Kilmer, Rev. Father Thompson, and many, many more. Tom Clark, another one of the leaders, whose dedication to Irish Freedom went back to his Fenian days, and whose loathing of England grew while incarcerated in an English prison, was actually and cruelly tortured in the prison yard, after his capture, by the notorious District Inspector Lee Wilson, R.I.C., the torture being witnessed by Michael Collins and Michael McDonnell. Four years later Wilson paid the supreme penalty for his inhuman savagery when he was shot to death in retribution. General Maxwell, England's "Chief Butcher" in Ireland, tried to severely penalise two priests in Co. Limerick, but he met more than his match in Bishop O'Dwyer. The courageous stand of this Bishop gave heart to the entire nation which at that time, was almost desponded and crushed with grief over the executions and the jailing of thousands of men after the Insurrection. The famous Easter Rising was the second time in my generation that the Irish people stood up to the Imperialistic tyranny and slavery of England. During 1913, the workers of Dublin dared to strike for decent wages and [2] living conditions. The employers closed ranks and used the most ruthless and unfair tactics. James Connolly, executed in 1916, was the most outstanding Labour Leader then and later, and with his keen mind, great ability, and particular flair for effective strategy, he fought the viciousness of the employers and their pro-British friends. Throughout the country the common man took sides and for the first time was heartened by the firm decisiveness of the Dublin workers. Even in my own family, my Mother made me contribute sixpence per week to the Workers Fund, and while this was 25% of my total weekly wages then, it was most cheerfully given. In the years that followed, it always gave me great satisfaction to aid the Irish Transport Workers Union in my place of employment as that Union endeavoured to gain decent wages and working hours for the many boys and girls working alongside me in the same firm. In my own case, I well remember that my wages amounted to precisely two shillings per week, for a sixty-hour work week! And even that pittance was not secure since the employer had the right to levy a fine for any act which, in his estimation, he felt was not right. If one had the great misfortune to be late even one or two minutes on a given morning - and no matter how valid an excuse one might have - one would be docked not for those couple of minutes but for a whole half hour. And if one was late again, on a second morning and a second time then half a days pay would be lost. It was under such tyranny that young Ireland had to exist - yet, the blows rendered in the 1913 workers strike, and then the Insurrection of 1916, ended that chapter of slavery in Irish History. EASTER WEEK ON The Irish Catholic Hierarchy, in a 1918 conclave, denounced the English Conscription Bill and proclaimed their opposition to it. This was its death knell, giving the people all the greater determination to resist all British efforts to rule and control Ireland. The British tried every ruse even going to the extent of hinting to some of our Catholic Leaders that many of the English people would convert to Catholicism if only Irish men would agree to fight for the Empire! As Archbishop Walsh said so very truthfully "We will sacrifice 50,000 young Irishmen on England's battlefields as a price for the conversion of English people to Catholicism yet, [3] and as soon as the war is over these self-same people will quickly revert back again to their
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