A collection of poems of revolution and dreams and visions of freedom and nationhood for Ireland - focusing on before, during and after the 1916 Rising.
Category: 1916 Easter Rising, Poetry, Top 10 Beautiful Gifts
‘A terrible beauty is born’
WB Yeats’s poignant words have come to immortalise the complex legacy of the Easter Rising, 1916. The poetry that emerged at this time of upheaval in Ireland gave voice to the thoughts of a generation. Yeats’s poem, ‘Easter 1916’, sits alongside selected works of other major poets of the era. These include Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett, who were executed for their part in the Rising.
In the aftermath of the Rising an outpouring of poetry also expressed the shock and grief of literary figures such as Padraic Colum, Francis Ledwidge, Eva Gore-Booth, James Stephens, Dora Sigerson Shorter and Seán O’Casey. Rebels, soldiers, honorary Irishmen, sympathisers and exiles all held up a mirror, in verse, to the events, beliefs and desires bound up in 1916.
Mairéad Ashe FitzGerald grew up in County Clare. She was a graduate of NUI Galway and University College Dublin where she studied Archaeology. Mairéad taught Irish and History before working in publishing for many years. Being invited by OBP to write books allowed her to indulge her passion for research into Ireland's history, archaeology and literature. Mairead died in March 2022.
from the moment you pick up this book, you know it’s a sacred object
beautifully presented
there is no shortage of books with information and background on the events and personalities involved in the Rising of 1916. As Ireland prepares to celebrate the centenary, there will be no doubt be more books, some praising those involved, some with a more critical view of the event. But for an emotional response, for something that may persuade us what happened was the outcome of good intentions and high nobility, we need to turn to the poets and how they perceived it … a beautifully produced little book that makes the point more powerfully than a dozen treatises
it falls within a range of titles released this month by the publisher inspired by 1916, which include Inside the GPO 1916 – A First-Hand Account and a collection entitled The 16 Lives Series, which offers a set of biographies of the 16 men executed in Easter Rising
