Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday - The Lord is Risen. The Lord is Risen, indeed!

The loss of the arms was a huge blow to the Council as was the news that Sir Roger Casement, an Englishman who had been instrumental in securing the arms, had been captured at Banna Strand. MacNeill ordered the Volunteers not to 'move' on Sunday and the Council's plans were thrown into disarray. A conference between Pearse, Plunkett, and Dermot Lynch was called, but Connolly, Clarke and Ceannt, couldn't be reached so the meeting was adjourned, and they all met at Liberty Hall at 8 a.m. They met on the morning of Easter Sunday, at Liberty Hall in Dublin, to discuss their next step. The mood of that meeting was somber - with the loss of the arms all chance of victory seemed to have vanished.

All members of the Military Council were at the 2nd meeting, it lasted till 1 am Easter Sunday. Despite the huge setback the Council leaders decided to carry on. The Rising was now given the 'go-ahead' for the next day - Easter Monday, but could only feasibly (due to the lack of weapons) take place in Dublin. Smaller Risings were still scheduled for Galway and Wexford, however. Pearse ordered the troops for action at noon.

On Easter Sunday, Mrs. Pearse asked her son Padraig to write a poem for her as if she was speaking. Padraig Pearse wrote the poem just hours before his death and it is about the "Brothers Pearse".

MOTHER

I do not grudge them;

Lord, I do not grudge

My two strong sons that I have seen go out

To break their strength and die, they and a few,

In bloody protest for a glorious thing,

They shall be spoken of amoung their people,

The generation shall remember them,

And call them Blessed:

But I will speak their names to my own heart

In the long nights;

The little names that were familiar once

Round my dead hearth.

Lord, thou art hard on mothers;

We suffer in their coming and their going;

And tho' I grudge them not, I weary, weary

Of the long sorrow - And yet I have my joy;

My sons were faithful, and they fought.