0:00:02 > 0:00:05MORSE CODE BEEPING
0:00:05 > 0:00:08On the afternoon of April the 24th 1916,
0:00:08 > 0:00:14the War Office in London received a telegram from Army Irish Command
0:00:14 > 0:00:19informing it of an armed uprising in Britain's second city, Dublin.
0:00:23 > 0:00:28With the Great War at its bloodiest, some 1,400 insurgents seized
0:00:28 > 0:00:33the General Post Office and other strategic locations in the city.
0:00:34 > 0:00:37Patrick Pearse, one of the uprising's leaders,
0:00:37 > 0:00:43read a proclamation declaring Ireland an independent republic
0:00:43 > 0:00:46and Britain's enemy in the trenches, Germany, a gallant ally.
0:00:49 > 0:00:54For five years, I sat at the Cabinet table in 10 Downing Street.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58For two of those as Secretary of State for Defence.
0:00:58 > 0:01:00I'm about to explore how, a century ago,
0:01:00 > 0:01:03predecessors behind these walls,
0:01:03 > 0:01:08war-weary ministers, responded to a bloody rebellion in Dublin.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12These are the documents of the day.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16Cabinet papers, intelligence reports, military orders
0:01:16 > 0:01:22and diaries - British files undisturbed since they were written.
0:01:22 > 0:01:28Here is the story of the Easter Rising told by British politicians,
0:01:28 > 0:01:31soldiers, spies and bureaucrats.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37Was Dublin just another battle at a time of war,
0:01:37 > 0:01:41when military justice was immediate and brutal?
0:01:41 > 0:01:44Or did the men who wrote these documents,
0:01:44 > 0:01:50with their handling of the Rising, hasten the end of an empire?
0:01:50 > 0:01:55Did an unlikely band of rebels, with playwrights and poets as leaders,
0:01:55 > 0:01:58do more to advance the cause of Irish freedom
0:01:58 > 0:02:01in five days than nationalist politicians had done
0:02:01 > 0:02:04in the previous 50 years?
0:02:04 > 0:02:09Or did they damage the cause of an Ireland independent and united?
0:02:10 > 0:02:14Do the answers lie in the enemy files?
0:02:28 > 0:02:33In 1916, Britain was mired in a great war with Germany that
0:02:33 > 0:02:37required a seemingly endless supply of young men to
0:02:37 > 0:02:40replace their dead comrades in the trenches.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44Meanwhile, above this tobacconist's shop
0:02:44 > 0:02:48nestled in the tenements of north Dublin, a secret and subversive
0:02:48 > 0:02:53organisation was plotting an armed revolt against the British state.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56The proprietor of the shop was Thomas Clarke,
0:02:56 > 0:02:59a 58-year-old veteran of the Irish republican movement who,
0:02:59 > 0:03:02along with his small band of co-conspirators
0:03:02 > 0:03:04of republicans and socialists,
0:03:04 > 0:03:10planned a nationwide uprising for the Easter weekend of 1916.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13Money was raised, guns were bought,
0:03:13 > 0:03:16clandestine meetings were staged - a secret plot
0:03:16 > 0:03:21in the heart of the mighty but distracted British Empire.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25But the British weren't too distracted to scent
0:03:25 > 0:03:27the whiff of rebellion in the air.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31The Dublin Metropolitan Police was running two agents,
0:03:31 > 0:03:36codenamed Chalk and Granite, in the months before the Rising
0:03:36 > 0:03:39and they had infiltrated the ranks of the conspirators.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46And a few hundred yards away from Downing Street,
0:03:46 > 0:03:50at the nerve centre of Britain's fledgling Secret Service,
0:03:50 > 0:03:53the spies knew about this elaborate plot in Ireland.
0:04:05 > 0:04:11Britain's Secret Service Bureau - which, in 1916, became MI5 -
0:04:11 > 0:04:13had obtained German code books
0:04:13 > 0:04:18and, in room 40 of the Admiralty, read enemy signals, including
0:04:18 > 0:04:24some passing between the German Embassy, in Washington, and Berlin.
0:04:24 > 0:04:28In late March 1916, the Director of Naval Intelligence
0:04:28 > 0:04:31reported that, "The extreme Irish-American party
0:04:31 > 0:04:36"contemplates an armed uprising timed for the 22nd of April
0:04:36 > 0:04:38"at the latest."
0:04:38 > 0:04:40Other intelligence obtained
0:04:40 > 0:04:44in Dublin and Berlin confirmed the plot,
0:04:44 > 0:04:46which leaves me wondering why,
0:04:46 > 0:04:50when the Rising occurred one day late on Easter Monday,
0:04:50 > 0:04:55both the senior British politician in Ireland, Augustine Birrell,
0:04:55 > 0:04:59and the senior army commander, Major General Friend,
0:04:59 > 0:05:01were both in England
0:05:01 > 0:05:06while other army officers had left Dublin for horse races and the seat
0:05:06 > 0:05:10of the British government at Dublin Castle was virtually undefended?
0:05:14 > 0:05:16DOOR OPENS
0:05:20 > 0:05:22Pauline. Hello.
0:05:22 > 0:05:23Hello.
0:05:23 > 0:05:26How could it be, then, that the British government was
0:05:26 > 0:05:29so unprepared for the rebellion?
0:05:29 > 0:05:30I think we should remember,
0:05:30 > 0:05:35this was 1916, the most difficult part
0:05:35 > 0:05:37of the First World War.
0:05:37 > 0:05:42Very difficult for the ministers of the day to take on board
0:05:42 > 0:05:45the fact that there was something really potentially quite
0:05:45 > 0:05:49nasty taking place, you know, in the heart of the country
0:05:49 > 0:05:51and in the domestic context.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55So information coming in about what was going on in Ireland -
0:05:55 > 0:06:00very inconvenient and, if possible, to be ignored
0:06:00 > 0:06:03because there were bigger things at stake.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07I wonder if I could ask you to comment on specific documents.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11Here is an extraordinary sheaf of telegrams.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15These are sent from the Embassy of Germany, in Washington, to Berlin.
0:06:15 > 0:06:17This one particularly.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20"The Irish leader, John Devoy, informs me that
0:06:20 > 0:06:23"the Rising is to begin in Ireland on Easter Sunday.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26"Please send arms to arrive at Limerick, west coast
0:06:26 > 0:06:27"of Ireland, between Good Friday
0:06:27 > 0:06:30"and Easter Sunday. To put it off longer is impossible.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33"Let me know if help may be expected from Germany."
0:06:33 > 0:06:37It's signed Bernstorff, who I think is the German ambassador.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40That is authentic information, unconscious information. That is
0:06:40 > 0:06:45to say that the enemy does not know that it's in our possession.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48Therefore, there is no reason to suppose that this is in any way
0:06:48 > 0:06:53false information or in any way put forward to act as a decoy.
0:06:53 > 0:06:55That's a sort of crown jewel of intelligence
0:06:55 > 0:06:57when you get something like that.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03The intelligence breakthrough on Ireland
0:07:03 > 0:07:06came on the 10th of February 1916,
0:07:06 > 0:07:10when a message was intercepted and decrypted giving the planned
0:07:10 > 0:07:14date for the Rising as between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20Here, in unpublished memoirs by Henry Oliver,
0:07:20 > 0:07:23Admiral of the Fleet, he says,
0:07:23 > 0:07:26"We knew beforehand that the revolution in Ireland would start on
0:07:26 > 0:07:30"Easter Monday 1916 and made naval preparations in advance.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33"The Cabinet would not believe the First Lord."
0:07:33 > 0:07:35Mm.
0:07:35 > 0:07:37What do you make of that?
0:07:37 > 0:07:41I say, even in the context of the situation I've described,
0:07:41 > 0:07:45I find that quite surprising. By modern standards,
0:07:45 > 0:07:48not actually taking the Director of Naval Intelligence
0:07:48 > 0:07:50seriously would be a pretty extraordinary thing to do.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53I think you come back, then, to the culture
0:07:53 > 0:07:58and the context in which people are operating and the immaturity
0:07:58 > 0:08:02of the system, which leads to the ability, actually,
0:08:02 > 0:08:06just simply to ignore information which is highly inconvenient.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14Ireland had plagued Prime Minister Herbert Asquith.
0:08:14 > 0:08:19From 1910, his coalition government had relied on John Redmond's
0:08:19 > 0:08:23Irish Parliamentary Party for a majority.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26And the price was home rule for Ireland -
0:08:26 > 0:08:29a form of limited self-government in Dublin.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34The threat of a Catholic-dominated parliament shook unionist
0:08:34 > 0:08:38and Protestant Ulster to its core.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42Armed militias were organised into the Ulster Volunteer Force
0:08:42 > 0:08:46to resist home rule, prompting nationalists to form their own
0:08:46 > 0:08:48rival militia, the Irish Volunteers.
0:08:50 > 0:08:52The island was awash with guns,
0:08:52 > 0:08:57with rival militias numbering over 100,000 men each.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00Ireland was on the brink of civil war.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08The parliamentary bill introduced by Asquith's Liberal government
0:09:08 > 0:09:12and supported by the many Irish Nationalist MPs at Westminster
0:09:12 > 0:09:17would give home rule to Ireland in September 1914.
0:09:17 > 0:09:22Ulster volunteers began to import arms and to drill, in large numbers,
0:09:22 > 0:09:25preparing to defy the will of Parliament.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28The government took no effective action.
0:09:28 > 0:09:32Indeed, Asquith felt relief when the outbreak of war with
0:09:32 > 0:09:38Germany in August 1914 at least avoided civil war in Ireland
0:09:38 > 0:09:40as Irishmen flocked to enlist
0:09:40 > 0:09:45and as the enactment of home rule was postponed, while the war lasted.
0:09:47 > 0:09:52That left two strong impressions - that whenever the government was
0:09:52 > 0:09:55threatened with violence it would dither
0:09:55 > 0:09:57and, that after all the promises,
0:09:57 > 0:10:00all the efforts of the constitutional nationalists
0:10:00 > 0:10:05and all the strife, Ireland had somehow been cheated of home rule.
0:10:09 > 0:10:14The Great War turned rival militias into brothers-in-arms,
0:10:14 > 0:10:16as men from the Ulster Volunteer Force
0:10:16 > 0:10:21and the Irish Volunteers fought on the same side in the trenches.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24The Irish problem was put on hold.
0:10:24 > 0:10:29But a small minority of the Irish Volunteers refused
0:10:29 > 0:10:31to fight for Britain.
0:10:31 > 0:10:36They stayed at home and a future rebel army was born.
0:10:36 > 0:10:38Roy. Very good to see you.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41War breaks out in August 1914
0:10:41 > 0:10:44and John Redmond, leader of the nationalists,
0:10:44 > 0:10:48makes an historic decision - to support the war.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52In popular and even populist terms, to endorse the war, which is
0:10:52 > 0:10:55supposed to be going to be a short war,
0:10:55 > 0:10:59in August, September 1914 seems a very good idea
0:10:59 > 0:11:04because it will both demonstrate home rule as bona fide
0:11:04 > 0:11:09and it will bring in the home rulers on the same side as Ulster.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13"We will go into battle side-by-side with our Ulster brothers
0:11:13 > 0:11:15"and these little
0:11:15 > 0:11:17"local differences will disappear."
0:11:17 > 0:11:19In terms of rhetoric,
0:11:19 > 0:11:21it's enormously successful
0:11:21 > 0:11:24in the short-term and really enthuses people
0:11:24 > 0:11:29and when the Volunteers split over his endorsement of their support
0:11:29 > 0:11:34of the war, the vast majority of the Irish Volunteers follow
0:11:34 > 0:11:35Redmond in supporting the war
0:11:35 > 0:11:38but that means that they will go off and fight
0:11:38 > 0:11:41and very often be killed on the Western Front and,
0:11:41 > 0:11:47slowly but inexorably, the advantage shifts to the small minority who had
0:11:47 > 0:11:49refused to support the war.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52What's been going on amongst the Irish people
0:11:52 > 0:11:57between 1914 and 1916 that makes the Easter Rising possible?
0:11:57 > 0:12:01One of the key elements in all this is a demographic one.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05The youth of the people who fight in 1916,
0:12:05 > 0:12:10and who make the weather before it, cannot be overemphasised enough.
0:12:10 > 0:12:11And the fact that, in some ways,
0:12:11 > 0:12:13they're warring against their parents
0:12:13 > 0:12:15and their parents' generation as much as against
0:12:15 > 0:12:17the British state is, I think, very important.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21This is what's happening between 1914 and 1916 among a small minority
0:12:21 > 0:12:27but it's a very active and a very propulsive minority.
0:12:27 > 0:12:32And it's people who have a sense that to spill blood and to spill
0:12:32 > 0:12:37your own blood in a sacrificial sense for a national rebirth
0:12:37 > 0:12:39is actually part of the deal.
0:12:42 > 0:12:48The rebels struck on the 24th of April 1916 - Easter Monday.
0:12:48 > 0:12:55A time of sacrifice and new life coming out of the dead land.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58They seized the General Post Office for headquarters and,
0:12:58 > 0:13:02just after midday, to the mild curiosity of passers-by
0:13:02 > 0:13:08on this bank holiday afternoon, Patrick Pearse stood outside the GPO
0:13:08 > 0:13:11and read out the proclamation.
0:13:11 > 0:13:13The small audience soon dispersed
0:13:13 > 0:13:17and the curious few read the document that was pasted up
0:13:17 > 0:13:21on nearby buildings as the tricolour of the new republic
0:13:21 > 0:13:24flew above Dublin's main street.
0:13:26 > 0:13:31I think I came around to thinking that the worst of the British
0:13:31 > 0:13:35position on Ireland is that it's ignorant, that it's neglectful,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38it's distracted, its mind is somewhere else,
0:13:38 > 0:13:40it never focuses, it hesitates.
0:13:40 > 0:13:42Would you agree with that?
0:13:42 > 0:13:47The British responses to Ireland have often been below par.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51On the other hand, there are a couple of salient points.
0:13:51 > 0:13:53One is that home rule has been passed
0:13:53 > 0:13:58and that fairly frantic efforts are being made behind-the-scenes,
0:13:58 > 0:14:03whereby Redmond can see home rule delivered without
0:14:03 > 0:14:06a civil war in Ireland. The other thing, of course,
0:14:06 > 0:14:11is that they're involved in a world war and to look at Ireland's
0:14:11 > 0:14:15little susceptibilities and Ireland's nationalist sensitivities,
0:14:15 > 0:14:21at a time when the entire continent is aflame with war,
0:14:21 > 0:14:24is perhaps expecting rather a lot.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35As the Rising entered its second day,
0:14:35 > 0:14:38the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Wimborne,
0:14:38 > 0:14:42was isolated in the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46Fearing for his own safety, Wimborne,
0:14:46 > 0:14:51an unelected figurehead, took a decision of historic significance -
0:14:51 > 0:14:55by proclaiming martial law without consulting the Prime Minister.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00The following day, the Cabinet extended martial law
0:15:00 > 0:15:03throughout Ireland for an indefinite period.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07And the process of changing moderate nationalists into
0:15:07 > 0:15:11revolutionary republicans had started.
0:15:11 > 0:15:14Ireland was placed under military control.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19Field Marshal French ordered two brigades to Ireland without
0:15:19 > 0:15:21waiting for approval from the War Office.
0:15:24 > 0:15:29In April 1916, the Sherwood Foresters were in training
0:15:29 > 0:15:32near Watford, preparing for the war in France although,
0:15:32 > 0:15:38due to a shortage of weapons, some of them had yet to fire a rifle.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42On Easter Monday, they were on leave and they had to be gathered up
0:15:42 > 0:15:48from the cinemas and pubs for an extremely rapid departure by rail.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51But instead of heading for a Channel port,
0:15:51 > 0:15:53they were carried north
0:15:53 > 0:15:56and rumours began to sweep through the trains that they
0:15:56 > 0:16:02were about to fight not Germans but their fellow countrymen -
0:16:02 > 0:16:04Irish rebels on British streets.
0:16:21 > 0:16:25One of the officers onboard ship, captured the mood of that day.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30"I make no bones about it, it was tragic.
0:16:30 > 0:16:32"You must remember that all of the officers
0:16:32 > 0:16:36"and men came from Nottingham and the Retford-Newark-Worksop
0:16:36 > 0:16:39"district of the county and they all knew each other
0:16:39 > 0:16:42"and each other's parents and relations.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48"They had not the slightest desire to shoot down the Irish
0:16:48 > 0:16:50"or any other English-speaking people."
0:17:04 > 0:17:08The first ship to steam out of Liverpool, the Munster,
0:17:08 > 0:17:12was too small for the two battalions that it had embarked
0:17:12 > 0:17:16and, with speed trumping every other consideration,
0:17:16 > 0:17:22officers' kit and the battalion Lewis machine-guns were left behind.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25And so London's first response to the uprising
0:17:25 > 0:17:29in Ireland was to send underequipped officers
0:17:29 > 0:17:33commanding poorly trained soldiers with no heavy weapons,
0:17:33 > 0:17:38to fight an enemy that had taken up entrenched-sniper positions
0:17:38 > 0:17:39on the roads into Dublin.
0:17:49 > 0:17:51The reinforcements from England,
0:17:51 > 0:17:55so anxiously awaited by General Friend, landed here at
0:17:55 > 0:18:00Dun Laoghaire, which then was known as Kingstown, on the Tuesday night.
0:18:00 > 0:18:05In the morning, the four battalions of Sherwood Foresters marched
0:18:05 > 0:18:07through streets which, according to one of their officers,
0:18:07 > 0:18:12Captain Arthur Lee, were thick with people clapping
0:18:12 > 0:18:16and cheering north-west towards Dublin.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23The officers had been invited to breakfast by members of
0:18:23 > 0:18:24the Royal Yacht Club,
0:18:24 > 0:18:27where they awaited orders from brigade headquarters.
0:18:30 > 0:18:35They'd arrived in an Ireland that was staunchly against the Rising.
0:18:37 > 0:18:38- Kevin, hello.- Michael.
0:18:40 > 0:18:44Now, I believe it's your view that the Irish people were
0:18:44 > 0:18:48essentially misled about the events of 1916. Why so?
0:18:48 > 0:18:52Because it wasn't necessary for Irish independence to be
0:18:52 > 0:18:54brought about by the use of violence.
0:18:54 > 0:18:58The interesting thing about the leaders is that not one of them
0:18:58 > 0:19:00had ever stood
0:19:00 > 0:19:04for any electoral office ever, apart from James Connolly, who stood
0:19:04 > 0:19:09for Dublin Corporation in the Wood Quay ward and he came last.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12Otherwise, not one of those people,
0:19:12 > 0:19:14who could have stood for Parliament or local government,
0:19:14 > 0:19:16had chosen to have done so.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20They chose the violent route without ever trying the democratic one.
0:19:20 > 0:19:24The British Parliament had indeed passed a Home Rule Act but it
0:19:24 > 0:19:27was in suspension and nobody had solved the problem about what
0:19:27 > 0:19:31to do about Ulster, so were not the Irish justified in being
0:19:31 > 0:19:33suspicious about these intentions?
0:19:33 > 0:19:36That doesn't justify them killing Irish men
0:19:36 > 0:19:38and women in the streets of Dublin.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42This is one of the major problems about the way 1916 has been
0:19:42 > 0:19:47taught in Ireland, that it is not perceived as it actually was -
0:19:47 > 0:19:50acts of violence against Irish people doing their daily duty.
0:19:50 > 0:19:51It's perceived as somehow or other
0:19:51 > 0:19:53an insurrection against British soldiers.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57The police who were murdered in 1916 were Irish police officers.
0:19:57 > 0:19:59They were given no choice, no chance,
0:19:59 > 0:20:01no opportunity to have an opinion about this.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05Their lives were cut down, just as the proclamation protecting
0:20:05 > 0:20:07the rights of all Irish people
0:20:07 > 0:20:09was being read in the GPO.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12So, if you like, it was a foundational act of hypocrisy
0:20:12 > 0:20:15to say, on the one hand, we respect you, on the other hand,
0:20:15 > 0:20:18we'll kill you because you're on the wrong side.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21One of the things that has struck me about the documents is
0:20:21 > 0:20:25the character and quality of the Sherwood Foresters who arrived.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28I mean, it seems a lot of them were very inexperienced and very,
0:20:28 > 0:20:33very young. And also put in a traumatic situation where
0:20:33 > 0:20:35they were being shot at by their own countrymen,
0:20:35 > 0:20:39by fellow citizens of the United Kingdom at the time.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42Can you imagine the state of mind they must've been in?
0:20:42 > 0:20:45It's impossible to understand how a soldier can cope with
0:20:45 > 0:20:47the situation where, essentially,
0:20:47 > 0:20:50they are fighting a civil war for which they have no preparation.
0:20:50 > 0:20:55Soldiers by 1916 had been taught to fight trench warfare,
0:20:55 > 0:20:59they were not taught how to fight house-to-house fighting,
0:20:59 > 0:21:01which is an entirely different skill.
0:21:01 > 0:21:03The insurgents would have had a very clear advantage.
0:21:03 > 0:21:05They knew the streets, they knew the windows,
0:21:05 > 0:21:08they knew the nature, the topography of Dublin.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10It's quite clear that the officers of the Sherwood Foresters
0:21:10 > 0:21:12and other troops arriving,
0:21:12 > 0:21:14they were completely ignorant of the circumstances
0:21:14 > 0:21:15in which they were fighting
0:21:15 > 0:21:19and if you have a man firing from behind a window,
0:21:19 > 0:21:21of which there were very few on the Western Front, he has a clear
0:21:21 > 0:21:25advantage over an incomer who has no knowledge of where he is.
0:21:28 > 0:21:33Wednesday, April the 26th - the third day of the Rising.
0:21:33 > 0:21:34On landing in Ireland,
0:21:34 > 0:21:39the British troops must have wondered who this enemy was.
0:21:39 > 0:21:42There seemed to be scant support for the new republic
0:21:42 > 0:21:45on the streets of Ireland.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48But as the troops got ever closer to the centre of the city,
0:21:48 > 0:21:52the reality of the Rising became brutally apparent.
0:21:52 > 0:21:57They marched into a killing zone and the Great War was about to
0:21:57 > 0:22:00arrive in the affluent surrounds of Georgian Dublin.
0:22:01 > 0:22:06The rebels could hear the troops coming before they came into sight.
0:22:06 > 0:22:08They were armed and ready.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11The first volley of shots peppered into the marching column
0:22:11 > 0:22:14and ten men lay dead within seconds.
0:22:14 > 0:22:16GUNSHOTS
0:22:36 > 0:22:40The massacre was at its worst here at Mount Street Bridge
0:22:40 > 0:22:45where the British dead and wounded lay knee-deep as fire
0:22:45 > 0:22:50poured upon them from shooters in Clanwilliam House.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53This was unnecessary carnage.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56These rebel strongholds could have been bypassed
0:22:56 > 0:22:59to be cleared up later.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03Indeed, the brigade commander, Colonel Maconchy,
0:23:03 > 0:23:05questioned the order
0:23:05 > 0:23:08to clear each building as he advanced.
0:23:08 > 0:23:13But this was 1916, the year of the Battle of the Somme,
0:23:13 > 0:23:17when generals routinely ordered the boys to go over the top.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26Strewn along the canal banks, the bridge
0:23:26 > 0:23:33and around the schoolhouse nearby lay some 230 men dead and wounded.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47- Robert, what a pleasure. - Hello, Michael.
0:23:47 > 0:23:53The British tactics of advancing and destroying the enemy house-by-house
0:23:53 > 0:23:56with terrific casualties, what does that tell us about their mentality?
0:23:56 > 0:23:59Well, it tells you the generals had been in France where they'd been
0:23:59 > 0:24:01doing the same thing for many months.
0:24:01 > 0:24:04I mean, it was a British tactic - storm forward,
0:24:04 > 0:24:06it doesn't matter how may people you lose.
0:24:06 > 0:24:10Interestingly, the 1916 rebels - as my dad would have called them -
0:24:10 > 0:24:15the 1916 rebels, they were also killing an awful lot of innocent people
0:24:15 > 0:24:18and they took precious little heed of their own lives.
0:24:18 > 0:24:23I've got here an extract from the brigade commander's diary.
0:24:23 > 0:24:28He's talking about a number of officers who are shot, then he says,
0:24:28 > 0:24:32"I return to Balls Bridge to the telephone and asked the Irish Command
0:24:32 > 0:24:35"if the situation was sufficiently serious to
0:24:35 > 0:24:38"demand the taking of the position at all costs."
0:24:38 > 0:24:41- Absolutely extraordinary. - Bleak, isn't it?
0:24:41 > 0:24:46Bleak that these were the tactics that were adopted.
0:24:46 > 0:24:51And obviously adopted knowing that Dublin was filled with civilians.
0:24:51 > 0:24:54In other words, there was no concern taken over the number
0:24:54 > 0:24:57of innocent people who were going to be killed in these battles.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01This was a British city, this had to be stamped out quickly.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03There was no letting this run on and on
0:25:03 > 0:25:06and starting to have negotiations, that was out of the question.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09What kind of military response do you expect other than
0:25:09 > 0:25:12an absolutely brutal one?
0:25:12 > 0:25:17I think that Britain had been in the war so long by this stage
0:25:17 > 0:25:21and there had been so many massacres of our own men that they
0:25:21 > 0:25:26had come to a stage of thinking where casualties didn't matter.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29It only mattered when you ran out of men.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32It didn't matter how many you kill on the streets of Dublin
0:25:32 > 0:25:36or on the fields of the Somme, as long as you had more to come.
0:25:36 > 0:25:41But the one thing Britain could not tolerate was a war at home.
0:25:41 > 0:25:43The German fleet was to attack British cities
0:25:43 > 0:25:48on the east coast, we had zeppelins over London.
0:25:48 > 0:25:49Dublin was a step too far.
0:25:49 > 0:25:52This was a major British city up in arms
0:25:52 > 0:25:55and I think they all went a bit mad.
0:26:00 > 0:26:05Britain's enemy in a terrible war was complicit in the Rising.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08Germany supplied arms to the rebels, there was
0:26:08 > 0:26:10talk of a German invasion of Ireland.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13Now all over Dublin it was proclaimed that
0:26:13 > 0:26:17the Irish Republic and Germany were allies.
0:26:18 > 0:26:20Sooner or later,
0:26:20 > 0:26:24they discover a proclamation of an independent Ireland, which
0:26:24 > 0:26:28refers to the Germans and the Central Powers as gallant allies.
0:26:28 > 0:26:29OUR gallant allies, I think.
0:26:29 > 0:26:33I mean, that must have been a huge provocation.
0:26:33 > 0:26:34Yup, that was a death sentence.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37That was a death sentence, that killed them straight away.
0:26:37 > 0:26:39I mean, why they'd sign their name to that...
0:26:39 > 0:26:41Was it really necessary to put in "gallant allies"?
0:26:41 > 0:26:45I can't believe it was but they put it in. Pearse did, anyway.
0:26:45 > 0:26:50There is a very odd parallel, and I don't wish to belabour it,
0:26:50 > 0:26:53between the kind of cult of blood
0:26:53 > 0:26:57and martyrdom - which we can read in the proclamation itself,
0:26:57 > 0:26:59it's so rhetorical -
0:26:59 > 0:27:03and another cult that exists today in the Middle East,
0:27:03 > 0:27:05which I don't even need to name,
0:27:05 > 0:27:09which also has a cult of blood sacrifice, other people's blood too.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20With the General Post Office in rebel hands,
0:27:20 > 0:27:22communications between Dublin
0:27:22 > 0:27:25and the outside world were severely disrupted
0:27:25 > 0:27:28and commanders here could not know whether this uprising was
0:27:28 > 0:27:32Ireland-wide, affecting both South and North.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35But the Amiens Street Station had not been seized
0:27:35 > 0:27:40and its telegraph office was intact, enabling this telegram to be
0:27:40 > 0:27:44sent via the Great Northern Railway Company Ireland.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48"Deliver following message from military headquarters, Dublin,
0:27:48 > 0:27:53"to garrison commander, Belfast. What is situation in Belfast?
0:27:53 > 0:27:59"Can you or 15th Brigade spare troops for Dublin if required?"
0:27:59 > 0:28:02The answer was that the North was quiet
0:28:02 > 0:28:07and that a large number could be spared and loaded onto the trains.
0:28:15 > 0:28:21As soon as the news reached Belfast, the UVF mobilised its forces.
0:28:21 > 0:28:25Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson offered 50,000 men,
0:28:25 > 0:28:28"for the maintenance of the King's authority."
0:28:30 > 0:28:34Craigavon House may be considered the spiritual home
0:28:34 > 0:28:35of Ulster unionism.
0:28:37 > 0:28:39The Ulster Volunteer Force was founded here and
0:28:39 > 0:28:43from the steps of the house, unionism's leader,
0:28:43 > 0:28:49Sir Edward Carson, proclaimed Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant.
0:28:55 > 0:29:00Carson was the first of just under half a million people to sign
0:29:00 > 0:29:04the Covenant in just a few September days in 1912
0:29:04 > 0:29:09as a grand petition of defiance against home rule.
0:29:11 > 0:29:15Until the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914,
0:29:15 > 0:29:20unionists had been preparing to take up arms against
0:29:20 > 0:29:25the British Crown to prevent home rule in a united Ireland.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29When news reached these parts of the Easter uprising in Dublin,
0:29:29 > 0:29:34organised as it was by an unelected minority,
0:29:34 > 0:29:38it met with predictable condemnation from unionists
0:29:38 > 0:29:43but also with disapproval from a majority of nationalists.
0:29:46 > 0:29:48- Eamon, hello. - Hello, Michael, how are you?
0:29:48 > 0:29:50- Nice to see you.- Very good to see you. Shall we have a seat?
0:29:50 > 0:29:52Thank you very much.
0:29:52 > 0:29:56I've got a little diary here that was written by a soldier
0:29:56 > 0:30:00in the Ulster Regiment, fighting on the Russian front in 1916.
0:30:00 > 0:30:02"The Irishmen in the brigade,
0:30:02 > 0:30:05"at hearing that there is a rebellion going on in Ireland,
0:30:05 > 0:30:06"are very much disturbed.
0:30:06 > 0:30:10"Several of them wanted to go home straight away."
0:30:10 > 0:30:13- It must have been a great shock to Ulster.- Well, absolutely.
0:30:13 > 0:30:15These were members of Carson's Army,
0:30:15 > 0:30:18who formed up outside this house, for example,
0:30:18 > 0:30:21to fight for Britain, for Ulster, for the Empire.
0:30:21 > 0:30:23And suddenly they hear that
0:30:23 > 0:30:26there is a revolution occurring in Ireland.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29They wonder if their homes are safe, if their families are safe,
0:30:29 > 0:30:32and there's an impulse to seek firm intelligence from the War Office.
0:30:32 > 0:30:36Some of them were even threatening to leave their posts.
0:30:36 > 0:30:38Does the fact that there exists in Ulster
0:30:38 > 0:30:41a well-armed and loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force
0:30:41 > 0:30:44give a certain amount of leeway to the British
0:30:44 > 0:30:47- to move troops south?- I think the documents show that, you know?
0:30:47 > 0:30:49Remember, there's a lot of people in the UVF
0:30:49 > 0:30:52who are not fighting at the front - they were working in the shipyard,
0:30:52 > 0:30:56they were managing farms, and they're well-armed.
0:30:56 > 0:30:59We have plenty of evidence of flying columns, for example,
0:30:59 > 0:31:01motorised flying columns,
0:31:01 > 0:31:05operating in Ulster during the week or so of the Rising,
0:31:05 > 0:31:09in places like Tyrone and Armagh, and of course this enables the RIC
0:31:09 > 0:31:14to concentrate on internal security, the regular police, if you like,
0:31:14 > 0:31:15and it allows, obviously,
0:31:15 > 0:31:19British troops stationed in Belfast and Armagh and elsewhere
0:31:19 > 0:31:22to be sent to Dublin to crush the rebellion.
0:31:22 > 0:31:25A document that surprised me very much
0:31:25 > 0:31:29is the record of the parliamentary debate from Westminster.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32This is the 3rd of May 1916,
0:31:32 > 0:31:36and both Sir Edward Carson and Redmond appear to have
0:31:36 > 0:31:39come much closer together as a result of the uprising.
0:31:39 > 0:31:42They both talk about there being less bitterness between them
0:31:42 > 0:31:44than at any recent time.
0:31:44 > 0:31:46One of the ironies is that you had a wartime truce
0:31:46 > 0:31:50between unionism and nationalism, as you had in British politics.
0:31:50 > 0:31:52But you also had more of a camaraderie
0:31:52 > 0:31:55in mixed communities in The North of Ireland.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59You had, for example, nationalist and Orange bands
0:31:59 > 0:32:03marching the volunteers as they took train for the Western Front.
0:32:03 > 0:32:07Increasingly from 1914, Carson believed that if sectarian violence
0:32:07 > 0:32:09broke out at any stage during the war,
0:32:09 > 0:32:12it would discredit the unionist case,
0:32:12 > 0:32:15so he is cultivating this friendship with Redmond, it's reciprocated,
0:32:15 > 0:32:18and that becomes very important after the Rising
0:32:18 > 0:32:22in seeking, er, an immediate Irish settlement,
0:32:22 > 0:32:25which will, if you like, enable Britain to concentrate on the war.
0:32:28 > 0:32:33Before World War I, unionists had been prepared for civil war
0:32:33 > 0:32:37to prevent home rule within a united Ireland.
0:32:37 > 0:32:42The rebels blew home rule apart in just a few days.
0:32:42 > 0:32:44So there's a certain irony here, isn't there?
0:32:44 > 0:32:46Before the First World War,
0:32:46 > 0:32:49the unionists are prepared to take up arms to fight against home rule,
0:32:49 > 0:32:52but it's not clear whether they'll defeat it.
0:32:52 > 0:32:54But with the Easter Rebellion,
0:32:54 > 0:32:57the idea of home rule in a united Ireland has been dealt a blow.
0:32:57 > 0:33:01Yes, I think historians would now agree that the Easter Rising
0:33:01 > 0:33:02really made partition more likely.
0:33:02 > 0:33:07The only question was the acreage and the time limit of partition.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10Certainly after the Rising there's a demand
0:33:10 > 0:33:12to do something to shore up Redmond,
0:33:12 > 0:33:14to shore up moderate loyal nationalism,
0:33:14 > 0:33:18which with Carson has co-operated with Britain in the war.
0:33:18 > 0:33:21And even Carson is prepared to extend the hand of friendship
0:33:21 > 0:33:23to Irish nationalism. It might have worked,
0:33:23 > 0:33:25it might have produced a partitioned Ireland
0:33:25 > 0:33:26with a very soft line on the map,
0:33:26 > 0:33:29because both parts of Ireland would still have been part of the UK,
0:33:29 > 0:33:32subject to the overriding authority of London.
0:33:32 > 0:33:35But it's doomed because Redmond is fatally damaged
0:33:35 > 0:33:38as Sinn Fein rises from the ashes of the GPO,
0:33:38 > 0:33:40but Carson is also diminished.
0:33:40 > 0:33:43While still the popular hero of Ulster unionism,
0:33:43 > 0:33:46he asked for sacrifices from Ulster unionists,
0:33:46 > 0:33:48abandoning the outlying unionists
0:33:48 > 0:33:50in places like Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53He found himself diminished by all that politicking.
0:33:53 > 0:33:55He would remain a figurehead,
0:33:55 > 0:33:58but he never holds the same authority again
0:33:58 > 0:33:59within Ulster unionism.
0:34:05 > 0:34:091,000 troops were dispatched from Belfast
0:34:09 > 0:34:13to complete a cordon around the north side of Dublin.
0:34:14 > 0:34:18Field artillery from a garrison at Athlone arrived from the west.
0:34:21 > 0:34:2416,000 troops arrived from England.
0:34:25 > 0:34:29And the patrol vessel Helga sailed up the Liffey
0:34:29 > 0:34:32with insurgent strongholds in her sights.
0:34:33 > 0:34:37The rebels were now surrounded, and the noose was tightening.
0:34:37 > 0:34:39GUNFIRE
0:34:39 > 0:34:42British soldiers suppressed republican positions
0:34:42 > 0:34:45with machine guns, spraying them with so many bullets
0:34:45 > 0:34:48that return fire was impossible.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57Then came the artillery barrage.
0:34:57 > 0:35:00And by the morning of Thursday April 27th,
0:35:00 > 0:35:05the fourth day of the Rising, the centre of Dublin was ablaze...
0:35:05 > 0:35:07EXPLOSION
0:35:07 > 0:35:10..and a rebel defeat inevitable.
0:35:25 > 0:35:28Having suffered such heavy casualties
0:35:28 > 0:35:30in house-to-house fighting,
0:35:30 > 0:35:33the British used artillery against the General Post Office
0:35:33 > 0:35:37and other major buildings held by the rebels.
0:35:37 > 0:35:40The noise of the battle was deafening,
0:35:40 > 0:35:42the destruction was widespread,
0:35:42 > 0:35:46and fires raged across the centre of Dublin.
0:35:47 > 0:35:50As Britain struggled with Germany on the Western Front
0:35:50 > 0:35:53and appealed to the United States for its support,
0:35:53 > 0:35:56the blazing ruins of its second city
0:35:56 > 0:36:01were not the image that it wanted to offer to the world.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06As the General Post Office was pounded by artillery,
0:36:06 > 0:36:11the most vicious street fighting occurred in the mesh of tenements
0:36:11 > 0:36:14around North King Street, just north of the River Liffey.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18The British troops had tried to take this republican enclave
0:36:18 > 0:36:23only to see 45 of their own shot dead or wounded.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29On Friday April 28th, with the Rising in its fifth day,
0:36:29 > 0:36:33General Lowe ordered a merciless advance along the street,
0:36:33 > 0:36:38that became a key component in the bitter legacy of the Easter Rising,
0:36:38 > 0:36:43as the British troops were about to avenge their fallen comrades.
0:36:45 > 0:36:47The British troops sent to quell the Rising
0:36:47 > 0:36:50were ordered that every man found in a house
0:36:50 > 0:36:52from which shots had been fired
0:36:52 > 0:36:54was to be considered as a rebel
0:36:54 > 0:36:56whether armed or not,
0:36:56 > 0:36:59and that no prisoners were to be taken.
0:37:00 > 0:37:04In May, a military court of inquiry met here,
0:37:04 > 0:37:06at Richmond Barracks in Dublin,
0:37:06 > 0:37:09to consider allegations that British soldiers had killed civilians
0:37:09 > 0:37:14in North King Street and prisoners in cold blood.
0:37:23 > 0:37:26A senior Home Office civil servant, Sir Edward Troup,
0:37:26 > 0:37:30advised ministers against publishing the evidence
0:37:30 > 0:37:33as it might be used for hostile propaganda.
0:37:33 > 0:37:38Why? Because he believed that the orders given to the troops
0:37:38 > 0:37:42were, as he put it, "the root of the mischief".
0:37:42 > 0:37:47But what better for hostile propaganda than a cover-up?
0:37:49 > 0:37:52General, Sir Edward Troup comments here
0:37:52 > 0:37:54that the root of the mischief
0:37:54 > 0:37:57was the military order to take no prisoners.
0:37:57 > 0:37:59This in itself may have been justifiable,
0:37:59 > 0:38:02but it should have been made clear that it did not mean
0:38:02 > 0:38:06that an unarmed rebel might be shot once he'd been taken prisoner.
0:38:06 > 0:38:08It was the root of the mischief, wasn't it?
0:38:08 > 0:38:11Short answer is, yes, it was the root of the mischief,
0:38:11 > 0:38:13but I think Brigadier-General Lowe,
0:38:13 > 0:38:18when he gave his written orders and then repeated them verbally, orally,
0:38:18 > 0:38:19to his commanding officers,
0:38:19 > 0:38:22was unclear in what he actually intended.
0:38:22 > 0:38:27The soldier likes clarity. I think as the orders were passed down
0:38:27 > 0:38:30from the brigadier-general in charge of the operation
0:38:30 > 0:38:32right down to the private soldier on the ground,
0:38:32 > 0:38:35clarity was inserted, and the soldier on the ground
0:38:35 > 0:38:38understood that they were not to take any prisoners,
0:38:38 > 0:38:40and if you don't take any prisoners,
0:38:40 > 0:38:43people that you believe have done wrong, you shoot.
0:38:43 > 0:38:45I don't think actually Brigadier-General Lowe
0:38:45 > 0:38:48intended that everyone should have been shot.
0:38:48 > 0:38:49I wonder what the order DID mean.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52Because in the end, after all, prisoners WERE taken.
0:38:52 > 0:38:55What he was really trying to say is, "Let's get on and get this done.
0:38:55 > 0:38:56"We're not going to take any prisoners."
0:38:56 > 0:39:00He didn't mean - and I'd like to think he didn't mean -
0:39:00 > 0:39:02that we're going to kill everyone that we're dubious about.
0:39:02 > 0:39:04But that was how it was interpreted.
0:39:04 > 0:39:06General Maxwell says here,
0:39:06 > 0:39:09"Parties of men under the great provocation of being shot at
0:39:09 > 0:39:11"from front and rear,
0:39:11 > 0:39:14"seeing their comrades fall from the fire of snipers,
0:39:14 > 0:39:16"burst into suspected houses
0:39:16 > 0:39:18"and killed such male members as were found.
0:39:18 > 0:39:22"It's perfectly possible that some innocent citizens
0:39:22 > 0:39:24"were shot in this manner,
0:39:24 > 0:39:27"but the blame for such casualties must be on the shoulders
0:39:27 > 0:39:29"of those who engineered the rebellion in the city."
0:39:29 > 0:39:31How do you feel about that?
0:39:33 > 0:39:35I think that's a very senior person
0:39:35 > 0:39:38elegantly attributing blame in a convenient place.
0:39:38 > 0:39:42In the hurly-burly, the intensity of the situation,
0:39:42 > 0:39:45very difficult for them in an instant to say,
0:39:45 > 0:39:47"That's a Sinn Fein rebel and that's an innocent person."
0:39:47 > 0:39:50When a bullet is fired, the echo and the ricochet
0:39:50 > 0:39:53mean you really have no idea where it's coming from.
0:39:53 > 0:39:55Resonates entirely with my own early experiences
0:39:55 > 0:39:58in the early '70s and '80s in Belfast.
0:39:58 > 0:40:00Taking cover behind a red pillar box
0:40:00 > 0:40:03or round the corner of a red telephone box, it feels most odd.
0:40:03 > 0:40:06You look up and see shops which you recognise in your own home town,
0:40:06 > 0:40:08but there are people out there shooting at you.
0:40:08 > 0:40:11It's a very unnerving and unusual experience,
0:40:11 > 0:40:14and these young South Staffordshire soldiers would have found that too.
0:40:14 > 0:40:17We meet here in rather extraordinary circumstances,
0:40:17 > 0:40:20because this is what remains of the Richmond Barracks,
0:40:20 > 0:40:23and somewhere in here was the court of inquiry.
0:40:23 > 0:40:26Do you imagine that it would have been an injustice
0:40:26 > 0:40:30for some of these ordinary soldiers to face further disciplinary action
0:40:30 > 0:40:33if actually they were following orders
0:40:33 > 0:40:35which told them to regard every man
0:40:35 > 0:40:37in a house from which fire was coming, to be thought a rebel
0:40:37 > 0:40:39and that they were to take no prisoners?
0:40:39 > 0:40:41The correct answer has to be,
0:40:41 > 0:40:46every man in every situation is responsible for their own actions,
0:40:46 > 0:40:48and they have to apply their own moral judgment.
0:40:48 > 0:40:50That's fine in principle.
0:40:50 > 0:40:54But take, let's say, an 18-year-old South Staffordshire private soldier
0:40:54 > 0:40:57in the hurly-burly and the confusion that we're just talking about.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00It was probably easier for him to keep in his mind,
0:41:00 > 0:41:02"We're not taking any prisoners,"
0:41:02 > 0:41:06than to actually use and apply that quite sophisticated moral judgment.
0:41:06 > 0:41:07So you start to backtrack it,
0:41:07 > 0:41:10and say, "Well, who does carry the responsibility?"
0:41:10 > 0:41:12and it starts to edge up the chain of command.
0:41:12 > 0:41:16And on the face of it, it would seem that an unclear instruction
0:41:16 > 0:41:18issued by Brigadier-General Lowe
0:41:18 > 0:41:22was, as Sir Edward Troup said, the root of the mischief.
0:41:24 > 0:41:28On Saturday 29 April, 1916,
0:41:28 > 0:41:32six days after he'd read the proclamation outside the GPO,
0:41:32 > 0:41:36Patrick Pearse, with the building tumbling down around him,
0:41:36 > 0:41:38realised that he would have to accept
0:41:38 > 0:41:42Britain's demand for unconditional surrender.
0:41:42 > 0:41:44Overseeing the surrender
0:41:44 > 0:41:48was the newly appointed Military Governor of Ireland,
0:41:48 > 0:41:50General Sir John Maxwell.
0:41:50 > 0:41:52In the great drama of the Easter Rising,
0:41:52 > 0:41:56Maxwell would become one of its most divisive figures,
0:41:56 > 0:42:00and at this critical moment, he had centre stage.
0:42:00 > 0:42:06The general was determined to crush this insurgency with great speed,
0:42:06 > 0:42:10and bring World War I justice to bear on the ringleaders.
0:42:10 > 0:42:14Traitors on the Western Front were shot dead.
0:42:14 > 0:42:16Why should traitors on the streets of Dublin
0:42:16 > 0:42:18be treated any differently?
0:42:21 > 0:42:24British ministers showed their resolve to suppress the Rising
0:42:24 > 0:42:27by appointing a military governor.
0:42:27 > 0:42:29General Sir John Maxwell
0:42:29 > 0:42:33was chosen partly because he had no record with Ireland.
0:42:33 > 0:42:34He blamed the government
0:42:34 > 0:42:38for failing to deal with the rebellion effectively,
0:42:38 > 0:42:40before it reached a head.
0:42:40 > 0:42:43Not unreasonably, in my view.
0:42:49 > 0:42:51But that made him determined
0:42:51 > 0:42:52to resist interference
0:42:52 > 0:42:56by elected ministers as he crushed it.
0:42:56 > 0:43:00Because Maxwell knew what he needed to do,
0:43:00 > 0:43:05while Asquith merely reacted to events after they had happened,
0:43:05 > 0:43:10the history of Ireland bears the stamp of the general
0:43:10 > 0:43:12more than of the Prime Minister.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19- Charles.- Michael, hello.
0:43:19 > 0:43:21Good to see you.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24Maxwell has been pretty much demonised.
0:43:24 > 0:43:27He's a name that many Irish people would remember today.
0:43:27 > 0:43:30But it seems to me that it is the politicians who,
0:43:30 > 0:43:33through their neglect, allow him to make the weather on the ground.
0:43:33 > 0:43:35Would you agree with that?
0:43:35 > 0:43:38Well, ultimately that's true.
0:43:38 > 0:43:41He's only an instrument of policy.
0:43:41 > 0:43:44If you send a soldier in to do this job,
0:43:44 > 0:43:48you must expect him to bring military preoccupations.
0:43:48 > 0:43:52His job as he understood it was to act resolutely.
0:43:52 > 0:43:55He didn't have much connection with Ireland,
0:43:55 > 0:43:58that seems to have been rather a good reason for appointing him,
0:43:58 > 0:43:59but did he then lack
0:43:59 > 0:44:02an understanding of Ireland, do you think?
0:44:02 > 0:44:06I think most of the senior soldiers lacked a real understanding
0:44:06 > 0:44:09of Ireland. There were one or two exceptions,
0:44:09 > 0:44:12but most of them, from Kitchener downwards,
0:44:12 > 0:44:16they tend to take a pretty simple view of Sinn Fein
0:44:16 > 0:44:20and they just cannot believe that it is a movement
0:44:20 > 0:44:24that really has any moral authority, and so most soldiers
0:44:24 > 0:44:28are really looking for ways of destroying Sinn Fein
0:44:28 > 0:44:30from a very early point.
0:44:32 > 0:44:36Having suppressed the Rising in a swift and brutal fashion,
0:44:36 > 0:44:39Maxwell moved on to swift and brutal justice.
0:44:39 > 0:44:44Once again, he was largely left to his own devices.
0:44:44 > 0:44:48The general decided who lived and who died.
0:44:50 > 0:44:52Once the rebellion has been crushed,
0:44:52 > 0:44:54we get to the matter of the courts martial,
0:44:54 > 0:44:58and the death penalties and the executions.
0:45:00 > 0:45:02What do you think Maxwell's reasoning is at that time?
0:45:02 > 0:45:05I don't know if he had a fixed idea
0:45:05 > 0:45:07about how many people should be executed,
0:45:07 > 0:45:12but he wanted to have very rapid proceedings.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14As very often when soldiers
0:45:14 > 0:45:17are sent to do difficult jobs by governments,
0:45:17 > 0:45:19the governments often don't define their terms of action.
0:45:19 > 0:45:22I think in this case the question really is,
0:45:22 > 0:45:26was there a point at which the British authorities
0:45:26 > 0:45:29could have stopped the execution process?
0:45:29 > 0:45:32Is there a number that would have been considered reasonable?
0:45:32 > 0:45:34And I mean, the number that were executed
0:45:34 > 0:45:37would not be considered excessive in some situations.
0:45:37 > 0:45:41But in Britain, inside the United Kingdom,
0:45:41 > 0:45:47it's...enough to provoke, er, a very hostile public reaction.
0:45:47 > 0:45:50But when he faces these criticisms, on the one hand, he says,
0:45:50 > 0:45:54"I might have executed many more people, I've been quite lenient,"
0:45:54 > 0:45:56and on the other hand he says that,
0:45:56 > 0:45:59"I have a thick skin, I can weather this."
0:45:59 > 0:46:02I think he just hoped that his analysis,
0:46:02 > 0:46:04that the mass of Irish people were loyal
0:46:04 > 0:46:08and that they would accept and even possibly applaud
0:46:08 > 0:46:11the punishment of the leaders of this revolt...
0:46:11 > 0:46:14When he finds that he's wrong about that,
0:46:14 > 0:46:17I think he's increasingly upset.
0:46:17 > 0:46:22Whether that's because he realises that this is his big chance,
0:46:22 > 0:46:25if you like, and he may have blown it...
0:46:25 > 0:46:27He tries not to give that impression,
0:46:27 > 0:46:30but one feels that there's something of that about it.
0:46:31 > 0:46:3716 men, including every signatory of the Proclamation,
0:46:37 > 0:46:38were sentenced to death.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42Thomas Kent was shot at the Military Detention Barracks in Cork,
0:46:42 > 0:46:48and Roger Casement was hanged in Pentonville Prison in London.
0:46:48 > 0:46:50But the vast majority of the executions
0:46:50 > 0:46:52were carried out at Kilmainham Gaol
0:46:52 > 0:46:56during a ten-day period in May 1916.
0:46:57 > 0:46:59When it came to forming up the firing squads
0:46:59 > 0:47:03that marched along this track from the barracks towards Kilmainham Gaol,
0:47:03 > 0:47:06the British soldiers were willing enough.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09They'd seen their comrades mown down by snipers
0:47:09 > 0:47:11just a few days before.
0:47:11 > 0:47:17Amongst the officers and NCOs, feelings were more complex.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20Second lieutenant William Wylie, a barrister,
0:47:20 > 0:47:22was an unwilling prosecutor
0:47:22 > 0:47:25who believed that the courts martial should be held in public
0:47:25 > 0:47:30and that the accused should be assigned a defence lawyer.
0:47:30 > 0:47:34Out of sense of justice, he conducted, effectively,
0:47:34 > 0:47:37both the prosecution and the defence.
0:47:48 > 0:47:52Lieutenant AA Dickson rehearsed the firing squads meticulously
0:47:52 > 0:47:57and he was very pleased with the efficiency of the operation.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
0:48:10 > 0:48:14was fighting an existential struggle against Germany
0:48:14 > 0:48:17and the war was not going well.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20The Easter rebels had plotted with Berlin
0:48:20 > 0:48:25and killed 116 British officers and men.
0:48:25 > 0:48:28At a time when soldiers were being shot for desertion,
0:48:28 > 0:48:30it was perhaps a surprise
0:48:30 > 0:48:35that as few as 16 insurgents were executed in total.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39But...what the Irish situation required
0:48:39 > 0:48:43was not a judicial or military response
0:48:43 > 0:48:44but a political one.
0:48:44 > 0:48:49The fact that Patrick Pearse and others had courted martyrdom
0:48:49 > 0:48:53should have alerted the British government to the propaganda trap.
0:48:53 > 0:48:59Alas, the Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, never got a grip.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02After the first three had been executed,
0:49:02 > 0:49:06he's recorded as limply "being surprised"
0:49:06 > 0:49:10that the trial and sentence had been so rapid.
0:49:10 > 0:49:13General Maxwell was allowed to go on
0:49:13 > 0:49:15piling up the martyrs,
0:49:15 > 0:49:19particularly here, in the Stonebreakers' Yard.
0:49:31 > 0:49:35Sergeant Major Samuel Lomas wrote in his diary that,
0:49:35 > 0:49:38"Thomas MacDonagh was marched in blindfolded..."
0:49:40 > 0:49:44"..and the firing party placed ten paces distant."
0:49:44 > 0:49:45GUNSHOTS
0:49:45 > 0:49:48"Death was instantaneous."
0:49:50 > 0:49:52"The second, PH Pearse, whistled
0:49:52 > 0:49:54"as he came out of his cell."
0:49:56 > 0:49:57GUNSHOTS
0:50:01 > 0:50:05"The third, JH Clarke, an old man, was not quite so fortunate,
0:50:05 > 0:50:09"requiring a bullet from the officer
0:50:09 > 0:50:12"to complete the ghastly business."
0:50:12 > 0:50:13SINGLE GUNSHOT
0:50:18 > 0:50:20Just over an hour later, Lomas wrote,
0:50:20 > 0:50:25"This business being over, I was able to return to bed for two hours
0:50:25 > 0:50:28"and excused duty until noon."
0:50:35 > 0:50:38General Maxwell ordered a large lime pit
0:50:38 > 0:50:41to be dug in the yard of the Arbour Hill Prison
0:50:41 > 0:50:44and the bodies were brought in ambulances
0:50:44 > 0:50:46along the banks of the Liffey.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49Each corpse was identified by a nametag
0:50:49 > 0:50:52and a sketch map marked its final resting place.
0:50:52 > 0:50:57The Prime Minister, Asquith, wanted to grant Mrs Pearse's request
0:50:57 > 0:51:02that the remains of her two sons, William and Patrick,
0:51:02 > 0:51:06be returned to her for interment in consecrated ground.
0:51:06 > 0:51:08But Maxwell vetoed,
0:51:08 > 0:51:13arguing that they would be "turned by Irish sentimentality
0:51:13 > 0:51:16"into the shrines of martyrs."
0:51:16 > 0:51:19Well, that was going to happen wherever they lay,
0:51:19 > 0:51:22but the general had seized the opportunity
0:51:22 > 0:51:25to make the British appear to the Irish
0:51:25 > 0:51:30as inhumane, shabby, and sacrilegious.
0:51:42 > 0:51:47Prime Minister Asquith came to Dublin on 12 May 1916.
0:51:47 > 0:51:50His timing could hardly have been worse.
0:51:50 > 0:51:52He landed in Dun Laoghaire
0:51:52 > 0:51:56just hours after James Connolly and Sean Mac Diarmada had been shot.
0:51:58 > 0:52:01Asquith ordered an immediate end to the executions.
0:52:12 > 0:52:13Declan.
0:52:13 > 0:52:16- Very good to see you.- How are you?
0:52:16 > 0:52:20I'm very well. I must say that even as a Brit,
0:52:20 > 0:52:23I find Arbour Hill a pretty moving sort of place,
0:52:23 > 0:52:26and I wondered whether you'd ever seen these.
0:52:26 > 0:52:30These are British sketch maps made as the bodies were brought here.
0:52:30 > 0:52:34This one points to where the graves are.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38This one lists the exact positions of certain bodies.
0:52:38 > 0:52:42- Had you ever seen those before? - I've never seen these before,
0:52:42 > 0:52:44and I'm sure most Irish people haven't either.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47- What's your reaction to them? - Well, it's poignant,
0:52:47 > 0:52:49and in more ways than one.
0:52:49 > 0:52:53Sad to think of the dead men, but also, there seems to be
0:52:53 > 0:52:57a kind of military mind trying to control,
0:52:57 > 0:52:58create the illusion of control
0:52:58 > 0:53:01where perhaps most control is already lost.
0:53:01 > 0:53:05You have written of the rebellion as being
0:53:05 > 0:53:08a kind of street drama, you referred to the fact that
0:53:08 > 0:53:12some of the rebels wore costumes, carried sabres.
0:53:12 > 0:53:14Why do you think of it as a street drama?
0:53:14 > 0:53:16Why would they want it to be a street drama?
0:53:16 > 0:53:18They take over the Post Office,
0:53:18 > 0:53:21which is disastrous from a military, strategic viewpoint,
0:53:21 > 0:53:24as Michael Collins warned them at the time,
0:53:24 > 0:53:25because it's exposed on all sides,
0:53:25 > 0:53:28but it's brilliant as street theatre.
0:53:28 > 0:53:30It cuts across the life of the capital city,
0:53:30 > 0:53:34it seizes the main building, and it paralyses communications.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37It makes everyone attend.
0:53:37 > 0:53:40And at the end of week, Pearse symbolically hands over his sword
0:53:40 > 0:53:42to the British officer.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46It's almost a gesture from... the age of opera, if you like.
0:53:52 > 0:53:53General Maxwell believed that
0:53:53 > 0:53:56he'd brought the curtain down on this production,
0:53:56 > 0:54:00and he was sure there would be no repeat performance.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03He thought the Rising could be a blessing in disguise.
0:54:05 > 0:54:07We were talking about theatricality,
0:54:07 > 0:54:09and I was struck by this document too.
0:54:09 > 0:54:11It is the rubric for the executions.
0:54:11 > 0:54:16And this has a certain theatricality as well.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20"The rifles of the firing party will be loaded by other men,
0:54:20 > 0:54:24"one rifle with a blank cartridge, 11 with ball.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27"The men will not be told which one is blank.
0:54:27 > 0:54:29"Once a prisoner has been shot,
0:54:29 > 0:54:31"a medical officer will see that he is dead.
0:54:31 > 0:54:33"The body will immediately be removed.
0:54:33 > 0:54:35"A label will be placed on the breast."
0:54:35 > 0:54:37I mean, this is theatricality as well, isn't it?
0:54:37 > 0:54:40It's incredibly deliberated.
0:54:40 > 0:54:43It is a production, like the Rising itself,
0:54:43 > 0:54:45and maybe a counter-production -
0:54:45 > 0:54:48not quite as effective, but interesting in its way.
0:54:48 > 0:54:51But I think it may also be rooted, as I say,
0:54:51 > 0:54:53in this fear that they're losing control.
0:54:53 > 0:54:57And also, maybe, I've read accounts, for instance,
0:54:57 > 0:55:00of the men who actually carried out the executions,
0:55:00 > 0:55:03and one of them reported back that they all died bravely,
0:55:03 > 0:55:05but MacDonagh died like a prince.
0:55:05 > 0:55:07There's a sense in which, which you often get with soldiers,
0:55:07 > 0:55:09that when they're asked to kill someone,
0:55:09 > 0:55:13they actually kind of admire some of the people they're asked to kill,
0:55:13 > 0:55:14and don't really want to.
0:55:14 > 0:55:17And that's why I say the British official mind was conflicted.
0:55:24 > 0:55:26Maxwell and his firing squads
0:55:26 > 0:55:30had a dramatic effect on Irish public opinion.
0:55:30 > 0:55:32The executioners' bullets
0:55:32 > 0:55:35and the dark shadows of martial law over Ireland
0:55:35 > 0:55:40transformed the villains of Easter Monday into national heroes.
0:55:40 > 0:55:44In the years after the Rising, the Irish Parliamentary Party
0:55:44 > 0:55:48continued the political fight to secure home rule,
0:55:48 > 0:55:50but they were swept aside by Sinn Fein
0:55:50 > 0:55:54in the general election of 1918.
0:55:54 > 0:55:58The Rising changed the nationalist consensus in favour of home rule
0:55:58 > 0:56:02into a widespread demand for an Irish republic.
0:56:02 > 0:56:06The rebels had set Irish history on a different course,
0:56:06 > 0:56:11and within five years, the island would be split in two.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13The gun was about to replace the ballot box.
0:56:13 > 0:56:17Ireland had changed utterly.
0:56:18 > 0:56:19GUNSHOTS
0:56:21 > 0:56:25What I take from these eloquent documents gathered along my journey
0:56:25 > 0:56:30is that the disaster suffered by Britain in Ireland in 1916
0:56:30 > 0:56:33was caused by the government's neglect.
0:56:33 > 0:56:37It failed to read Irish minds,
0:56:37 > 0:56:41or to counter the build-up of military activity
0:56:41 > 0:56:43first in the North and then in the South.
0:56:43 > 0:56:48And following the Rising, it failed to control General Maxwell.
0:56:48 > 0:56:53Asquith learned about key decisions, like the declaration of martial law
0:56:53 > 0:56:56or the execution of rebel leaders, after the event.
0:56:56 > 0:56:59And it strikes me, as a former politician,
0:56:59 > 0:57:02that the government, distracted by world war,
0:57:02 > 0:57:07failed to apply its political nous to Ireland.
0:57:10 > 0:57:14I'm convinced that the rebels made the modern history of this country.
0:57:14 > 0:57:19Without the Rising, Ireland would not have won her independence,
0:57:19 > 0:57:23her freedom, when she did and as she did.
0:57:23 > 0:57:26But I fear that the ferocity of the Rising,
0:57:26 > 0:57:29and of its suppression by the British, set the standard,
0:57:29 > 0:57:32and that the violence that has plagued this island
0:57:32 > 0:57:37during the last century is also part of their bequest.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41And the rebel dream of an Ireland united North and South
0:57:41 > 0:57:46is no closer today than it was at Easter 1916.