Patrick Pearse
Patrick Pearse wrote the proclamation read outside the Post Office in 1916 and was shot for it two weeks later. He was born in Dublin in 1879 to an English stonemason and an Irish mother, was called to the bar and barely practised, and gave his working life to the Irish language. He edited the Gaelic League's newspaper and founded St Enda's, a bilingual school run on the principle that a child should be taught in his own tongue by people who loved him, which he financed into permanent debt. His politics arrived late and then went a long way. He came to believe that the constitutional movement had achieved nothing in forty years, and that the necessary thing was not a war that could be won but an act that would restate the claim — a blood sacrifice, in the language he used, which is the part of him modern Ireland finds hardest. He joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1913 and gave the graveside oration for O'Donovan Rossa in 1915, ending with the line that the fools had left the Fenian dead and that Ireland unfree would never be at peace. The Rising began on Easter Monday 1916 with about 1,200 people, no support in the country and a countermanding order in the newspapers. He surrendered after six days to prevent further civilian deaths. Fifteen leaders were shot over ten days at Kilmainham, which turned public opinion completely, and Sinn Féin swept the 1918 election. His brother Willie was shot with him, on no evidence beyond being his brother. The proclamation he read out guaranteed equal rights and equal opportunities to all citizens and addressed itself to Irishmen and Irishwomen, which was unusual in 1916 and is quoted at every Irish state occasion since.
- Lived: 1879 CE – 1916 CE
- Nationality: Irish
- Roles: revolutionary, writer
