Ireland an Island of Literature, music and the arts. So then it is not Surprising that almost all of the 1916 leaders were poets or were involved in journalism

Tom Clarke:                        Poet, Retailer, Founder of Newspaper Irish Freedom
PH. Pearse                          Poet, Playwright, Journalist, Teacher and Lawyer
James Connolly                 Socialist, Worker’s Rights Activist, Trade Union Leader
Thomas MacDonagh       Poet, Playwright, Educationalist, Revolutionary Activist. 
Seen Mac Diarmada        Promoter of Irish Language and Gaelic Revival, Poet Barrister, Nationalist.
Joseph Mary Plunket      Poet, Journalist and Theatre Enthusiast.
Éamonn Ceannt         Accountant, Musician, Athlete, Promoter of Gaelic Revival     

      

Poetry Written 2016

Remembering-1916

End of 1916 Easter Rising April 29th 1916
Devastating consequences, many injured and killed including children
All 1916 leaders were charged with treason, executed in Kilmainham Gaol in the following weeks.
All buried in Arbour Hill Cemetery in lime laced graves.
Joseph Mary Plunkett, married his childhood sweetheart in the prison chapel hours before his death .

Dublin and the whole country was plunged to a sad darkness in the aftermath of the Rising and the names of rhe executed leaders are forever etched on the minds of the Irish Nation

A Terrible Beauty is Born

Easter, 1916
By WB Yeats

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our wingèd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of all.