Easter Rising 1916: The Trials

Description

This book, the companion to The Trials of Civilians by Military Courts: Ireland 1921, is a fascinating and comprehensive study of the trials during May 1916, following the Easter Rising. There were 160 trials conducted in a two-week period between the 2^nd and 16^th May 1916. During this period, of the 93 death sentences handed out, 15 were carried out, and nearly 2,000 men and women deported to England. It was not until the turn of this century that the Public Records Office released the trial records relating to the executed prisoners.

Written by an expert legal historian, this book offers an unsentimental reappraisal of the trials and the trial regime, and includes previously unpublished trial records of men such as Harry Boland, Desmond Fitzgerald, George Plunkett and William Partridge as well as many of the footsoldiers who were sentenced to death. The process of execution is also examined, bringing to light the dark occasions when executions were botched and covered up.

This powerful analysis of an uncomfortable moment in history when the rule of law gave way to political imperatives is seen through a variety of previously unpublished trial records and the systematic collating of accounts given by prisoners. The result is a fascinating insight into a little-known aspect of the 1916 Rebellion and its dramatic aftermath.

Table of Contents

1. Buried in the Archives
2. Rebellion and Surrender
3. Trial and Punishment
4. The Trial Regime
5. Pre-Trial Process
6. The Trials
7. Post Trial – Confirmation, Promulgation and Execution
8. Due Process
9. The GPO
10. P.H. Pearse
11. Tom Clarke
12. Joseph Plunkett
13. George Plunkett
14. Jack Plunkett
15. William Pearse, J.J Walsh, John Dougherty (McGallogly), John McGarry
16. Harry Boland
17. Sean MacDiarmada
18. James Connolly
19. Desmond Fitzgerald
20. The Four Courts
21. Ned Daly
22. O’Donovan and Shouldice
23. James Dempsey
24. The Mendicity
25. J.J. Heuston, William O’Dea, Patrick Kelly, James Crenigan
26. Jacobs Factory
27. Thomas MacDonagh
28. Michael O’Hanrahan
29. John MacBride
30. James Melinn
31. The South Dublin Union
32. Liam Cosgrave
33. Eamonn Ceannt
34. Con Colbert
35. Philip Cosgrave
36. Gerald Doyle
37. William Corrigan
38. James Burke
39. Saint Stephen’s Green
40. Countess Markievicz
41. Michael Mallin
42. William Partridge
43. Boland’s Mill
44. Ashbourne
45. The Trials in the Provinces
46. Thomas Kent
47. Postscript

About the Author

Séan Enright was called to the Bar at Middle Temple (1982) and at King’s Inn (1993). He practiced at the Bar of London for many years and is now a Circuit Judge.