Pearse, Patrick Henry

(1879-1916)

   Pádraig Mac Piarais was born in Dublin, the son of a sculptor. He graduated B.A. from University College, Dublin, in 1901, then studied law at the same college. A member of the Gaelic League from the age of sixteen, from 1903 to 1909 he was editor of the league's weekly newspaper, An Claidheamh Soluis (The Sword of Light). The aim of the paper was to promote the Irish language as a weapon against British domination, and to his end in 1908 he founded St. Enda's College near Dublin. He was commander in chief of the Irish forces in the antiBritish Easter Rising that began on Monday, April 24, 1916. The revolt was crushed; he surrendered to the British on the 29th; he was tried by courtmartial, and shot by a firing squad at Kilmainham Jail, Dublin. More than any other man, Pearse was responsible for establishing the republican tradition in Ireland. Some of his poems: "Christmas 1915," "I Am Ireland," "Ideal," "Prayer to Mother Mary," "Tara is Green," "The Fool," "The Mother," "To Death."

   Sources: An Anthology of Irish Verse: The Poetry of Ireland from Mythological Times to the Present. Padraic Colum, ed. Liveright, 1948. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Ireland in Poetry. Charles Sullivan, ed, Harry N. Abrams, 1990. Lyra Celtica: An Antholog y of Representative Celtic Poetry. E.A. Sharp and J. Matthay, eds. John Grant, 1924. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Penguin Book of Irish Verse. Brendan Kennelly, ed. Penguin Books, 1981.