{"id":115692,"date":"2016-03-27T07:49:24","date_gmt":"2016-03-27T11:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=115692"},"modified":"2022-10-13T11:33:02","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T15:33:02","slug":"the-easter-rising-100-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=115692","title":{"rendered":"The Easter Rising: 100 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nRead the full text here<\/a>. I have that framed on my wall. (I love that women are addressed directly, not just assumed to be included in the word “men”.) <\/p>\n

\n\"IrishTimes1916\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All of the men men who signed the Proclamation of the Irish Republic were executed. I’ve been watching footage of the centenary celebration in Dublin<\/a> happening at this moment in front of the GPO and it’s incredibly moving. <\/p>\n

\n\"FT5S+1916+Rising+GPO+Easter+rising\"<\/a>
\nThe GPO, O’Connell Street<\/i><\/p>\n

Here is William Butler Yeats’ poem Easter, 1916<\/i>. <\/p>\n

Easter 1916<\/big><\/p>\n

I have met them at close of day
\nComing with vivid faces
\nFrom counter or desk among grey
\nEighteenth-century houses.
\nI have passed with a nod of the head
\nOr polite meaningless words,
\nOr have lingered awhile and said
\nPolite meaningless words,
\nAnd thought before I had done
\nOf a mocking tale or a gibe
\nTo please a companion
\nAround the fire at the club,
\nBeing certain that they and I
\nBut lived where motley is worn:
\nAll changed, changed utterly:
\nA terrible beauty is born.<\/p>\n

That woman’s days were spent
\nIn ignorant good-will,
\nHer nights in argument
\nUntil her voice grew shrill.
\nWhat voice more sweet than hers
\nWhen, young and beautiful,
\nShe rode to harriers?
\nThis man had kept a school
\nAnd rode our winged horse;
\nThis other his helper and friend
\nWas coming into his force;
\nHe might have won fame in the end,
\nSo sensitive his nature seemed,
\nSo daring and sweet his thought.
\nThis other man I had dreamed
\nA drunken, vainglorious lout.
\nHe had done most bitter wrong
\nTo some who are near my heart,
\nYet I number him in the song;
\nHe, too, has resigned his part
\nIn the casual comedy;
\nHe, too, has been changed in his turn,
\nTransformed utterly:
\nA terrible beauty is born.<\/p>\n

Hearts with one purpose alone
\nThrough summer and winter seem
\nEnchanted to a stone
\nTo trouble the living stream.
\nThe horse that comes from the road.
\nThe rider, the birds that range
\nFrom cloud to tumbling cloud,
\nMinute by minute they change;
\nA shadow of cloud on the stream
\nChanges minute by minute;
\nA horse-hoof slides on the brim,
\nAnd a horse plashes within it;
\nThe long-legged moor-hens dive,
\nAnd hens to moor-cocks call;
\nMinute by minute they live:
\nThe stone’s in the midst of all.<\/p>\n

Too long a sacrifice
\nCan make a stone of the heart.
\nO when may it suffice?
\nThat is Heaven’s part, our part
\nTo murmur name upon name,
\nAs a mother names her child
\nWhen sleep at last has come
\nOn limbs that had run wild.
\nWhat is it but nightfall?
\nNo, no, not night but death;
\nWas it needless death after all?
\nFor England may keep faith
\nFor all that is done and said.
\nWe know their dream; enough
\nTo know they dreamed and are dead;
\nAnd what if excess of love
\nBewildered them till they died?
\nI write it out in a verse –
\nMacDonagh and MacBride
\nAnd Connolly and Pearse
\nNow and in time to be,
\nWherever green is worn,
\nAre changed, changed utterly:
\nA terrible beauty is born.<\/p>\n

\n