1. Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 by
Peter De Rosa
A Must Read For Anyone With An Ounce Of Irish Interest!
A WORK OF GREAT DRAMATIC POWER climaxing in the final hundred
pages where he writes a full, searing narrative of the patriot leaders last
days . . . Its powerful stuff.
--The Sunday Press (Ireland)
On Easter Monday of 1916, a thousand Irish men and wo men, armed with
pikes and rifles, took over the center of Dublin and proclaimed a republic. It
was a rash, doomed, symbolic uprising, and the rebel leaders knew it.
Crack British troops killed and wounded hundreds of the rebels in the week
of fighting, and British artillery shells left Dublins city center in ruins.
But the Rising of 1916 was not in vain. The short-lived insurrection and the
subsequent executions of sixteen rebel leaders galvanized the Irish
people. The overthrow of seven centuries of British rule in Ireland began
on Easter Monday, 1916.
In Rebels, Peter de Rosa, author of the bestselling Vicars of Christ, tells
the story of the 1916 Rising in all its terror and beauty. With the dramatic
flair of a novelist and the scrupulous accuracy of a professional historian,
de Rosa brings to life the people, passions, politics, and repercussions of
this historic event.
Personal Review: Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 by Peter De
Rosa
The Easter Rebellion is the subject of this engrossing book. What makes
the tale more interesting than so much of the patriotic gloss that has been

2. so often repeated is the fact that the rising was so poorly planned that it
was nothing short of a miracle that it proved to be ultimately successful in
many of its long term aims.
Apart from the seizure of the General Post Office in Dublin, the rebels were
unable to secure most of their objectives. British forces were able to
suppress the revolt within a week. Due to disputes and internal squabbles
between competing factions, many Irish militias simply refused to take any
active role in the rising and the rebels in the GPO were hopelessly
outnumbered from the start.
The revolt may have proven to have been unnecessary had Britain not
chosen to suspend Irish Home Rule for the duration of W orld War One.
John Redmond's long awaited legislation was enacted and then
immediately placed on indefinite hold. Had Home Rule been permitted, it is
quite possible that Ireland might be a member of the British
Commonwealth of Nations today. Britain's refusal to implement Home
Rule, despite its Parliamentary approval, gave rebel leaders the
opportunity to plot a course for independence.
With British Army fully engaged on the Western Front, it was thought that
assistance could be readily obtained from the Central Powers to arm the
rebels. Roger Casement spent months in Berlin where he took part in a
series of unproductive meetings with skeptical representatives of the
Kaiser. An open revolt in Dublin would be a useful diversion, but the
Germans were wary about committing significant resources to such a plan
and to a motley crew of disorganized and impoverished revolutionaries.
Casement's efforts to raise a revolutionary brigade composed of captured
Irish colonials who were being held as British prisoners of war in German
camps proved to be futile as these soldiers overwhelmingly refused to
defect. The promised weapons offered by Imperial Germany turned out to
be a cargo of antiquated army surplus, including some obsolete cannons
and mortars that probably dated back to the Franco-Prussian War. A single
ship was provided to deliver the arms to the Irish coast.
After the disguised ship skillfully evaded the British naval blockade, the
entire shipment was captured on the beach within mere minutes of its
unloading. Casement, himself, was placed under arrest almost as soon as
he arrived on shore. His betrayal was the work of a paid informer, a
homosexual renter, who had been communicating with the English about
Casement's activities and the shipment of arms for weeks.
Initially, many Dubliners had been enraged at the rebels both for the
disruption of their daily lives and the destruction that had been visited upon
their city. When the British imposed a brutal state of martial law, which
included the summary execution of most of the captured rebels, Irish public
sentiment changed abruptly. The rebels were no longer reviled as damned
fools, but considered as martyrs to the cause of Irish freedom. Padraic

3. Pearse had been vindicated. Out of the blood sacrifice of the rising on
Easter Monday came heavy handed British reprisals which reignited the
spirit of revolt on the part of the Irish people.
While not a historical novel, the book does contain some fictionalized
dialogue mixed with actual quotations. This does not detract from
fascinating and sometimes hilarious account of cowardice, heroism,
idealism and stupidity that attended the birth of the Republic of Ireland.
For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 by Peter De Rosa 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest
Price!