Patrick Pearse is supposed to have read the Proclamation on the steps of the GPO but, as the children of a school just a stone's throw away pointed out this week, the GPO has no steps. We have been misled all these years.
In an attempt to channel its inner School Around The Corner, The Irish Times assembled this group of children from the Montessori Education Centre on North Great George's Street to discuss the events of 1916.
It did not take long before the group of seven – Molly (nine), Yves (nine), Pearse (10) and Rosie (10), and Rory (12) and Juliette (7) – dropped their historical bombshell. “Everybody says he read the Proclamation on the steps of the GPO but there were no steps so he just read it outside,” Pearse says. His schoolmates nod in agreement.
Immersed
Like children across
Ireland
, they have been immersed in the Rebellion for months. Projects and proclamations have been written and key 1916 locations visited. Their school has been bringing history to life and the children display a keen understanding of what went on during Easter Week 1916 and the impact it had in shaping 21st-century Ireland.
When asked what prompted Pearse to storm the GPO, the other Pearse has his answer ready. “They wanted to be free. They didn’t think it was fair that Britain was ruling over Ireland. They wanted to have their own country and they didn’t want their country ruled by somebody else.”
On their favourite rebels, Yves doesn’t hesitate. “I like them all but Patrick Pearse I like the most because he had a cane with a sword in it.”
Rosie picks Connolly. "I thought he was very nice and I thought he had a lot to say and a lot to do and I like the way he was from Scotland but still fought for us."
Rory goes for Pearse, too, “because he was the main leader”, as does Pearse – and not just because of the shared name. “I just think he was very interesting and when I was doing my project I had a lot to write about him. “
"My favourite was Eamon de Valera, " says Molly somewhat controversially. Why? "Because he was the only one who was not executed," she says. "And he became both taoiseach and president of Ireland."
We tend to place a lot of focus on the men of 1916 but in this classroom the women are given equal billing. “They had to make weapons for the people who were out fighting so if it wasn’t for them then everyone who was fighting probably wouldn’t have weapons,” Juliette says.
Despite making a schoolboy error by digging trenches in the line of fire, Countess Markievicz is highly regarded. "She was fighting for Ireland and she was a very brave woman to be working with all the men," says Rosie.
“She was second in command at Stephen’s Green. She wasn’t executed - because she was a woman. And she was the first woman in Government,” adds Molly.
“The women were a lot more helpful than most of the men because most of them were a lot braver and they were very, very good,” Pearse says.
While the rebels were defeated and the leaders executed, they ultimately triumphed. “Everyone started saying we are not going to let them get executed for nothing,” says Juliette.
“It made people think more about wanting freedom from Britain,” agrees Rory.
The conversation turns to life in 1916. “It was very hard with the war going on,” Pearse says. “Children went to school every day but there weren’t cars or anything and they didn’t have much of what we have now. And there was a big war going on so it wouldn’t have been any fun.”
Was it worth it? They all nod. “They had that war but they didn’t win it but a few years later they had an agreement for this part of Ireland to be free,” says Juliette.
“Ireland has its own government and we can decide who the head is,” agrees Rory.
"Ireland is a better place," says Rosie, before adding, "but we are not as rich as England and if we had more money we could help with more things like homelessness."
Homelessness came up on Proclamation Day too.The schoolchildren called for an end to homelessness. Their proclamation wants an end to littering, diseases and “for Ireland to stay its own country in the next 100 years”.
It’s hard to argue with that.
