This Easter will mark the 110th year since the Easter Rising of 1916. Patrick Pearse read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic outside the GPO in Dublin on Easter Monday that year – an event that began events leading to our partial independence in the 26 counties a short time later.
Not generally known is that County Galway played its heroic part in the 1916 Rising: Galway was the second largest uprising outside of Dublin in a limited number of other places to rebel. About 500-600 Irish Volunteers and IRB, led by Liam Mellows, effectively liberated 60 square miles of the county from British rule for less than a week.
This information and much more can be learned by taking Galway City Tourist Guide, Jim Ward’s special ‘Galway 1916 Tour’, with his business, Galway Trails. Jim’s late grandfather, also Jim or James Ward, was an Irish Volunteer with Mellows in 1916, and subsequently interned in the notorious Frongoch Internment Camp in North Wales. Jim never saw his grandfather who died a young man.
‘He was marked afterwards as a 1916 man, and when the Tans would come looking for him, he had to go on the run and hide in all weathers. It was the result of this hardship that eventually led to his death in 1954.”
Jim’s 1916 Tour brings you to all the ‘theatres of action’ in the county in Easter Week. But Jim, who is also a writer and novelist (his debut novel, No Ordinary Bread, was launched last year to critical acclaim – The Irish Times describing it as ‘ambitious’ and a ‘fine first novel’ ) has news to celebrate:
Culture Matters, the English left-wing publication has commissioned a collection of Jim’s short stories with a ‘1916 theme.’ This doesn’t mean that all the stories are set 110 years ago like Pádraig Ó Conaire’s Seacht mBua an Éirí Amach was. S
“They are mostly all contemporary with some link to 1916 running through them.”
This project arose when Jim was researching another book: A Short History of the Easter Rising Outside of Dublin, and Culture Matters offered him the short stories’ deal.
‘There were about 4-5 significant conflicts outside Dublin then’ says Jim, ‘and I want to record them in one publication. All the other 1916 literature out there is Dublin focused.’
The 1916 Rising and the execution of its leaders led to the War for Independence, the First Dáil and the Declaration of Independence and Democratic Programme. It paved the way for the partial independence of the Free State in 1921.
“Some say we still have yet to attain the Irish Republic proclaimed by Pearse, Connolly and others in 1916,” he said.
Learn more with Jim Ward’s Galway 1916 Tour at https://galwaytrails.ie/galway-1916-tour/
