A major piece of research by Glasnevin Cemetery has determined that 485 people were killed in the Easter Rising. The study is an attempt to definitively calculate the numbers who died either during Easter week or as a result of the Rising.
Civilians constituted the majority of casualties, with 184 killed during Easter week. Determining these casualties had been difficult, with only those recorded in at least three different sources included on the list.
A quarter of those who died were British soldiers (107) while the rebel forces accounted for 16 per cent of fatalities (58). Four per cent of the casualties were with the police (13), with eight men killed at Ashbourne on April 28th. Almost one in five of those killed were under the age of 19. Many more, including the 15 executed leaders of the Rising, died after Easter week.
The names will be engraved on a new memorial at Glasnevin Cemetery that will be unveiled during the centenary of the Rebellion. They will also be recorded in a new book to be published shortly.
The numbers of civilians killed each day steadily increased, peaking on the final day of the rebellion, April 29th, 1916, when 45 died. This was also the most violent day during which 78 people – civilians and others – died.
The Battle of Mount Street Bridge on April 26th was the worst for the British army, where it lost 30 men. Most were attached to the Sherwood Foresters who had just arrived in the city.
The rebels also suffered their worst casualties on this day, with 13 men killed.
The names of all those who died have been collated into an online 1916 Easter Rising Necrology compiled by the Glasnevin Trust. It is the first time a list of this scale has been collated and made available online.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny said at the launch that the research would allow us to “remember and honour every individual who lost their life during the 1916 Rising. It brings home to us the very real impact that the events of Easter 1916 had on ordinary members of the public as well as those directly involved in the Rising itself.”
Glasnevin Trust is asking the public who may have relatives killed in the Rising to contribute to the necropoly. See glasnevintrust.ie for more information.
