True-colour satellite image of Ireland, known in Irish as Éire.

Éire (ⁱ/ˈɛərə/; Irish: [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen)) is the Irish name for the island of Ireland and the sovereign state of the same name.

Etymology[link]

The modern Irish Éire evolved from the Old Irish word Ériu, which was the name of a Gaelic goddess. Ériu is generally believed to have been the matron goddess of Ireland, a goddess of sovereignty, or simply a goddess of the land. The origin of Ériu has been traced to the Proto-Celtic reconstruction *Φīwerjon- (nominative singular Φīwerjū < Pre-Proto-Celtic -jō).^[1] This suggests a descent from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction *piHwerjon-, likely related to the adjectival stem *piHwer- (cf. Sanskrit pīvan, pīvarī and pīvara meaning "fat, full, abounding"). This would suggest a meaning of "abundant land".

This Proto-Celtic form became Īweriū or Īveriū in Proto-Goidelic.^[2] It is highly likely that explorers borrowed and modified this term. During his exploration of northwest Europe (circa 320 BCE), Pytheas of Massilia called the island Ierne (written Ἰέρνη). In his book Geographia (circa 150 CE), Claudius Ptolemaeus called the island Iouernia (written Ἰουερνία). Based on these historical accounts, the Roman Empire called the island Hibernia.

Thus, the evolution of the word would follow as such:

• Proto-Celtic *Φīwerjon- (nominative singular *Φīwerjū)
  • Proto-Goidelic *Īweriū or *Īveriū
    • Old Irish Ériu
      • Modern Irish Éire

Another etymology is from the Gaelic:

• ì (island) + thairr (west) + fónn (land), which together give ì-iar-fhónn, or "westland isle"^[3]

This is similar in meaning to the Norse name for Irish people, "west men", which subsequently gave its name to the Icelandic island of Vestmannaeyjar.

[edit] Difference between Éire and Erin

While Éire is simply the name for Ireland in the Irish language, and sometimes used in English, Erin is a common poetic name for Ireland, as in Erin go bragh. The distinction between the two is one of the difference between cases of nouns in Irish. Éire is the nominative case, the case that (in the modern Gaelic languages) is used for nouns that are the subject of a sentence i.e. the noun that is doing something as well as the direct object of a sentence. Erin derives from Éirinn (pronounced [ˈeːɾʲɪɲ] ( listen)), the Irish dative case of Éire, which has replaced the nominative case in Déise Irish (and some non-standard sub-dialects elsewhere), in Scottish Gaelic (where the usual word for Ireland is Èirinn) and Manx (a form of Gaelic), where the word is spelled Nerin, with the initial n- is probably in origin a fossilisation of the preposition in/an "in" (cf. Irish in Éirinn, Scottish an Èirinn/ann an Èirinn "in Ireland"). The genitive case Éireann is used in the Gaelic forms of the titles of companies and institutions in Ireland e.g. Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail), Dáil Éireann (Irish Parliament) or Poblacht na hÉireann (The Republic of Ireland).

Éire as a state name[link]

Article 4 of the Irish constitution adopted in 1937 states that Éire is the name of the state, except in the English language, where it is Ireland.^[4] The Constitution's English-language preamble also described the population as "We, the people of Éire". Despite the fact that Article 8 designated Irish as the "national" and "first official" language, Éire has to some extent passed out of everyday conversation and literature, and the state is referred to as Ireland or its equivalent in all other languages.

The name "Éire" has been used on Irish postage stamps since 1922;^[5] on all Irish coinage (including Irish euro coins); and together with "Ireland" on passports and other official state documents issued since 1937. "Éire" is used on the Seal of the President of Ireland. Before the 1937 Constitution, "Saorstát Éireann" (the Irish name of the Irish Free State) was generally used.

Irish Oak torpedoed mid-Atlantic, oil by Kenneth King, showing "EIRE" prominently

During the Emergency (as World War II was known), Irish ships had "EIRE" (and the Irish tricolour) painted large on their sides and deck, to identify them as neutrals.

In 1922–1938 the international plate on Irish cars was "SE". From 1938 to 1962 it was marked "EIR", short for Éire. In 1961 statutory instrument no. 269 allowed "IRL",^[6] and by 1962 "IRL" had been adopted. Irish politician Bernard Commons TD suggested to the Dáil in 1950 that the government examine "the tourist identification plate bearing the letters EIR ... with a view to the adoption of identification letters more readily associated with this country by foreigners".^[7] "EIR" is also shown in other legislation such as the car insurance statutory instrument no. 383 of 1952 and no. 82 of 1958.^[8][9]

Under the 1947 Convention Irish-registered aircraft have carried a registration mark starting "EI" for Éire.

From January 2007, the Irish government nameplates at meetings of the European Union have borne both Éire and Ireland, following the adoption of Irish as a working language of the European Union.

Use of Eire in Britain and the USA[link]

In 1938 the British government provided in the Eire (Confirmation of Agreements) Act 1938 that British legislation could henceforth refer to the Irish Free State as "Eire" (but not as "Éire"). The 1938 Act was repealed in 1981, and the term is now rarely used in modern British English.^[10] It is still seen on some airport signage in 2011: Liverpool John Lennon Airport has an arrivals area for "Eire and Channel Islands".

"Eire" is generally deplored by Irish language speakers, partly because it is a misspelling and partly because "eire" can also mean a burden, load or encumbrance, giving a slightly pejorative nuance to the name of the island and/or the state.^[11]

Founded in 1937, the Eire Society of Boston is an influential Irish-American group.^[12]

Other uses[link]

Éire has also been incorporated into the names of Irish commercial and social entities, such as Eircom Group plc (formerly "Telecom Éireann") and its former mobile phone network, Eircell.^[13] In 2006 the Irish electricity network was devolved to EirGrid. The company "BetEire Flow" (eFlow), named as a pun on "better", is a French consortium running the electronic tolling system at the West-Link bridge west of Dublin.^[14] According to the Dublin Companies Registration Office in 2008, over 500 company names incorporate the word Éire in some form.^[15]

Sometimes the incorporation is humorous or ironic, such as the pop group named "ScaryÉire",^[16] or Cormac Ó Gráda's "Éirvana" paper in 2007 on the Celtic Tiger economy.^[17]

Footnotes[link]

Bibliography[link]

Look up Éire in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Noel Browne, Against the Tide
• Constitution of Ireland (1937)
• Stephen Collins, The Cosgrave Legacy
• Tim Pat Coogan, De Valera (Hutchinson, 1993)
• Brian Farrell, De Valera's Constitution and Ours
• F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland since the Famine
• David Gwynn Morgan, Constitutional Law of Ireland
• Tim Murphy and Patrick Twomey (eds.) Ireland's Evolving Constitution: 1937–1997 Collected Essays (Hart, 1998) ISBN 1-901362-17-5
• Alan J. Ward, The Irish Constitutional Tradition: Responsible Government and Modern Ireland 1782–1992 (Irish Academic Press, 1994) ISBN 0-7165-2528-3

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2010)

Phil Coulter (born 19 February 1942) is a musician and producer. His career has spanned four decades and he is one of the biggest record sellers in Ireland.^{[citation needed]} The Derry composer was awarded the Gold Badge from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) in October 2009.

Coulter has won 23 Platinum Discs, 39 Gold Discs, 52 Silver Discs, two Grand Prix Eurovision awards; five Ivor Novello Awards, which includes Songwriter of the Year; three American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awards; a Grammy Nomination; a Meteor Award, a National Entertainment Award and a Rose d’or d’Antibes.^[1]

Early years[link]

Coulter is from Derry in Northern Ireland where his father was a Royal Ulster Constabulary police officer, one of the 10% Catholic constables in the force.^{[citation needed]} He grew up with his two brothers and two sisters.

Coulter's father, also called Phil, encouraged music in the house. He played the fiddle whilst his wife played the upright piano. The younger Coulter recalls this piano, made by Challen, as "the most important piece of furniture in the house". “I always stayed away from the fiddle, having inflicted enough pain on my family with the piano,” he laughed. Coulter confesses that he came close to abandoning the piano at an early age. “The truth is I hated the piano at first. I’d love to say I was a natural but I wasn’t. I hated playing it and I hated my music teacher. My father, who was a canny man, told me, ‘We have to scrimp and save to pay for these lessons, you might as well give them up.’ “It wasn’t long before I gravitated back to the piano, trying to play the songs that I was listening to on the radio. I always wondered what my left hand was supposed to be doing though. But after two or three years at St. Columb’s College I began thinking of the piano as an extension of myself.”^{[citation needed]}

One of Coulter's most popular songs, "The Town I Loved So Well", deals with the embattled city of his youth, filled with "that damned barbed wire" during the Troubles. 'It is the one I anguished most over, the one which had to earn respect and perhaps the most auto-biographical tune I have ever written’ “The roots of that song go very, very deep, it took time for it to win respect and integrity. That song defines an era and a place that is very dear to my heart.”^{[citation needed]}

Education[link]

Coulter spent his secondary school years at St. Columb's College. He later studied music and French at the Queen's University of Belfast (QUB). Coulter has received honorary doctorates from the University of Ulster and Dublin Institute of Technology.

Beginnings of a career in music[link]

He started his first band at Queen's University, playing early rock and roll music despite studying classical music. Coulter was also founder of the Glee Club, which staged music events for the university. By 1964, his final year at university, Coulter had already written a couple of hit songs in Ireland and he moved to London, where his first job was as an arranger/songwriter with a music publisher in Denmark Street. From here he was hired to work with name acts including Billy Connolly, Van Morrison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Tom Jones.

Songwriting partnership with Bill Martin[link]

In the late 1960s Coulter formed a long-lasting writing partnership with Bill Martin. They wrote Sandie Shaw's 1967 Eurovision-winning entry, "Puppet on a String", which would go on to become an international hit with more than 100 cover versions. They had a second hit the next year with a song for Cliff Richard called "Congratulations", which finished second at Eurovision. A Spanish documentary in 2008 however revealed that Cliff Richard had been robbed of victory after General Francisco Franco fixed the vote.^[2] Seven years later Coulter found himself back on the Eurovision stage when he co wrote, together with Pierre Cour, the song "Toi" for Luxembourg: the song, which was performed by Coulter's future wife Geraldine, came fifth in Stockholm. Coulter and Martin later wrote the song "Shine It On", which would finish third in the 1978 heat of A Song for Europe, performed by the Glaswegian performer "Christian".

The duo wrote numerous hit songs for a variety of popular singers in the 1960s and 1970s, including "My Boy" for Elvis Presley and many of the Bay City Rollers' hits: they also contributed incidental music to the 1967 Spider-Man television series.

Sideman and producer[link]

As well as writing hit singles, Coulter produced three ground-breaking albums with Planxty, which would have an influence on modern Irish music. Christy Moore wrote:

"With no competition he gave us a shite contract and we signed everything away. All that said, 30 years on this album sounds good. He produced it well and ... (he had) the foresight and wherewithal to record the band at a time when no one else was listening.^[3]

In addition to writing hits for the Bay City Rollers, Coulter also wrote songs for several other teenybop bands of the 1970s, including Kenny and Slik, and appeared as a production credit on "Automatic Lover" by Dee D. Jackson.

Coulter produced, arranged and wrote most of the late Joe Dolan 1983 album, Here and Now. The album featured several hit singles, including the Irish Top Ten hit "Deeper and Deeper" which remained a staple in Dolan's live sets and was also one of the last songs he performed before he became ill on stage during what turned out to be his last ever show in Abbeyleix. The album was released in South Africa as "Yours Faithfully" where it went to number one within one week of release.^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, Coulter joined with Sharon Browne, one of the originators of the successful Celtic Woman production, to collaborate on formation of a male version of that production called "Celtic Thunder". A stage production at The Helix in Dublin was released on DVD as Celtic Thunder: The Show and went to the top of the Amazon and Billboard Top World Albums chart in 2008. Many of the tracks in the show, such as "That's a Woman" and "Heartbreaker", were written by Coulter.

Solo success[link]

In 1984 Coulter launched himself as an artist in his own right and began by releasing a solo instrumental album called Classic Tranquility. His follow-up, Sea of Tranquility, became the second-best selling album of all time in Ireland.^{[citation needed]} It peaked at #46 in the UK Albums Chart, and remained in the chart for fourteen weeks.^[4] The follow-up album, Phil Coulter's Ireland reached #86 in the UK.^[4] He moved from London back to Ireland, where he established his music publishing company on the grounds of his house in Bray, south of Dublin. Coulter's official website notes that he has some 23 platinum records, 39 gold and 52 silver albums. He also keeps one of the walls of his office blank, "to remind me that there’s still room for a lot more."^[5]

In 2001 he was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "New Age" category for his album Highland Cathedral. At the age of 67, he continues to be a popular performer in his native country and around the world in places such as The White House and Carnegie Hall.

Politics[link]

In 2002, Coulter was encouraged by the Save the Swilly organisation to run for Dáil in order to protect Lough Swilly from aquacultural destruction. After some deliberation, he concluded that work and family commitments would not allow him the time necessary to fill the political position. Some^[who?] say that the passing of his priest brother Joseph at that time had a significant influence on his decision.^{[citation needed]}

Sport[link]

Coulter is a former president of Derry City Football Club and is known to be a supporter of the club, having attempted to help the club with its financial problems in the early 2000s. He has also helped Derry City's local rivals, Finn Harps, in their time of need.

In 1995, the Irish Rugby Football Union commissioned Coulter to write a politically neutral anthem for the Ireland national rugby union team, which represents both Northern Ireland and Ireland. The result was "Ireland's Call", which is played alongside of, and in some cases instead of, Amhrán na bhFiann. As well as being used by both the Ireland national rugby union team and the junior national teams, "Ireland's Call" has since also been adopted by the Ireland's national hockey, cricket and rugby league teams.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Phil Coulter discography at Discogs

Patrick Henry Pearse Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais
Born	(1879-11-10)10 November 1879 Dublin, Ireland
Died	3 May 1916(1916-05-03) (aged 36) Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, Ireland
Allegiance	Irish Republican Brotherhood Irish Volunteers Irish Republican Army[1]
Years of service	1913–1916
Rank	Commander-in-chief Supreme Council IRB Military Committee IRB
Campaign	Easter Rising
Other work	Educator, Principal, Barrister, Republican activist, Poet

Patrick Henry Pearse (also known as Pádraig Pearse; Irish: Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais; An Piarsach; 10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916) was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. He was declared "President of the Provisional Government" of the Irish Republic in one of the bulletins issued by the Rising's leaders, a status that was however disputed by others associated with the rebellion both then and later. Following the collapse of the Rising and the execution of Pearse, his brother (Willie Pearse), and fourteen other leaders, Pearse came to be seen by many as the embodiment of the rebellion.

Early life and influences[link]

27 Pearse Street, birthplace of Patrick and Willie Pearse

Patrick Pearse and his brother Willie were born at 27 Great Brunswick Street,^[2] the street that is named after them today.^[3] It was here that their father, James Pearse, established a stonemasonry business in the 1850s,^[4] a business which flourished and provided the Pearses with a comfortable middle-class upbringing.^[5] Pearse's father was a mason and monumental sculptor, and originally a Unitarian from Birmingham in England.^[6]

The home life of Patrick Pearse was one where he was surrounded by books.^[7] His father had very little formal education, but he was a self-educated man.^[8] He had two children from his first marriage, Emily and James (two other children died in infancy). His second wife, Margaret Brady was a native of Dublin, but her father's family were from County Meath and were native Irish speakers. The Irish-speaking influence of Pearse's great-aunt Margaret, together with his schooling at the CBS Westland Row, instilled in him an early love for the Irish language.

In 1896, at the age of sixteen, he joined the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge), and in 1903 at the age of 23, he became editor of its newspaper An Claidheamh Soluis ("The Sword of Light").

Pearse's earlier heroes were the ancient Gaelic folk heroes such as Cúchulainn, though in his 30s he began to take a strong interest in the leaders of past republican movements, such as the United Irishmen Theobald Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet. Both had been Protestant, but it was from such men as these that the fervently Catholic Pearse drew inspiration for the rebellion of 1916.

In 1900, Pearse was awarded a BA in Modern Languages (Irish, English and French) by the Royal University of Ireland, he had studied for two years privately and for one at University College Dublin. In 1900 he was also awarded the degree of Barrister-at-Law from the King's Inns^[9], and was called to the bar in 1901.

St Enda's[link]

As a cultural nationalist educated by the Irish Christian Brothers, like his younger brother Willie, Pearse believed that language was intrinsic to the identity of a nation. The Irish school system, he believed, raised Ireland's youth to be good Englishmen or obedient Irishmen, and an alternative was needed. Thus for him and other language revivalists, saving the Irish language from extinction was a cultural priority of the utmost importance. The key to saving the language, he felt, would be a sympathetic education system. To show the way, he started his own bilingual school, St. Enda's School (Scoil Éanna) in Rathfarnham, County Dublin, in 1908. Here, the pupils were taught in both the Irish and English languages.

With the aid of Thomas MacDonagh, Pearse's younger brother Willie Pearse and other (often transient) academics, it soon proved a successful experiment. He did all he planned, and even brought students on field trips to the Gaeltacht in the west of Ireland. Pearse's restless idealism led him in search of an even more idyllic home for his school. He found it in the Hermitage, Rathfarnham, where he moved St. Enda's in 1910. Pearse was also involved in the foundation of St. Ita's school for girls, a school with similar aims to St. Enda's.

However, the new home, while splendidly located in an 18th-century house surrounded by a park and woodlands, caused financial difficulties that almost brought him to disaster. He strove continually to keep ahead of his debts while doing his best to maintain the school. In February 1914, he travelled to the USA to raise money for his ailing school where he met John Devoy and Joseph McGarrity both of whom were impressed by his fervour and supported him in raising sufficient money to secure the continued existence of the school.

The Volunteers and Home Rule[link]

In April 1912, the prospect of self-government for Ireland under a new Home Rule for Ireland Bill became reality, as John Redmond leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, who held the balance of power in the House of Commons committed the government of the United Kingdom to introduce the Bill. Pearse’s attitude towards the Bill was remarkably ambivalent.

Pearse moved from welcoming the Bill, asking all sides to support Redmond’s praiseworthy achievement to demanding a better Bill with the public warning Let the Gall understand that if we are cheated this time there will be red war in Ireland.^[10] Pearse was one of four speakers, including Redmond, Joseph Devlin MP, leader of the Northern Nationalists, and Eoin MacNeill a prominent Gaelic Leaguer, who addressed a large Home Rule Rally in Dublin on a public platform at the end of March 1913. Speaking in Irish Pearse threatened revolution if the Bill were not enacted.^[11]

In November 1913 Pearse was invited to the inaugural meeting of the Irish Volunteers, formed to enforce the implementation of the Third Home Rule Act passed by the House of Commons in the face of opposition from the Ulster Volunteers. In an article entitled “The Coming Revolution” (November 1913) Pearse wrote

The bill just failed to pass the House of Lords, but the Lord’s diminished power under the Parliament Act 1911 meant that the bill could only be delayed and was finally placed on the statute books with Royal Assent in September 1914, but suspended for the duration of World War I, whose context set the backdrop for events to follow.

John Redmond, leader of the IPP, feared his “national authority” might be circumvented by the Volunteers and decided to control the new movement. Despite opposition from the Irish Republican Brotherhood members, the Volunteer Executive agreed to share leadership with Redmond and a joint committee was set up. Pearse was opposed to this and was to write:^[12]

The Volunteers split, one of the issues being support for the Allied and British war effort, a majority following Redmond in the National Volunteers in the belief that this would ensure Home Rule on their return. Pearse, exhilarated by the dramatic events of the European war wrote in an article written in December 1915 on patriotism:

The IRB and the Irish Republic[link]

Proclamation of the Irish Republic, read by Pádraig Pearse outside the GPO at the start of the Easter Rising, 1916.

In December 1913, Bulmer Hobson swore Pearse into the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB),^[14] an organisation dedicated to the overthrow of British rule in Ireland and its replacement with an Irish Republic. He was soon co-opted onto the IRB's Supreme Council by Tom Clarke.^[15] Pearse was then one of many people who were members of both the IRB and the Volunteers. When he became the Volunteers' Director of Military Organisation in 1914^[16] he was the highest ranking Volunteer in the IRB membership, and instrumental in the latter's commandeering of the remaining minority of the Volunteers for the purpose of rebellion. By 1915 he was on the IRB's Supreme Council, and its secret Military Council, the core group that began planning for a rising while war raged on the European Western Front.

On 1 August 1915, Pearse gave a now-famous graveside oration at the funeral of the Fenian Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. It closed with the words:

Easter Rising and death[link]

Pearse, given his speaking and writing skills, was chosen by the leading IRB man Tom Clarke to be the spokesman for the Rising. It was Pearse who, in behalf of the IRB shortly before Easter in 1916, issued the orders to all Volunteer units throughout the country for three days of manoeuvres beginning Easter Sunday, which was the signal for a general uprising. When Eoin MacNeill, the Chief of Staff of the Volunteers, learned what was being planned without the promised arms from Germany, he countermanded the orders via newspaper, causing the IRB to issue a last minute order to go through with the plan the following day, greatly limiting the numbers who turned out for the rising.

When the Easter Rising eventually erupted on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, there never was any plan for a military victory in the minds of the leaders. It was Pearse who proclaimed a Republic from the steps of the General Post Office and headquarters of the revolutionaries. After six days fighting, heavy civilian casualties and great destruction of property, Pearse issued the order to surrender along with the remaining leaders.

Pearse and fourteen other leaders, including his brother Willie, were court-martialled and executed by firing squad. Sir Roger Casement, who had tried unsuccessfully to recruit an insurgent force among Irish-born prisoners of war from the Irish Brigade in Germany, was hanged in London the following August. Thomas Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh and Pearse himself were the first of the rebels to be executed, on the morning of 3 May 1916. Pearse was 36 years old at the time of his death.

Sir John Maxwell, the General Officer commanding the British forces in Ireland, sent a telegram to H.H. Asquith, then Prime Minister, advising him not to return the bodies of Pádraig and Willie Pearse to their family, saying: "Irish sentimentality will turn these graves into martyrs’ shrines to which annual processions will be made which would cause constant irritation in this country.^[17]

Maxwell also suppressed a letter from Pearse to his mother,^[18] and two poems dated 1 May 1916. He submitted copies of them also to Prime Minister Asquith, saying that some of the content was "objectionable."^[17]

In addition that document used the term "President of the Provisional Government", not "President of the Republic". A "President of a government" is akin to a prime minister, not a president of a state.^[19] Pearse and his colleagues also discussed proclaiming Prince Joachim (the Kaiser's youngest son) as an Irish constitutional monarch, if the Central Powers won the First World War, which suggests that their ideas for the political future of the country had to await the war's outcome.^[20]

Writings[link]

Bust of Pádraig Pearse in Tralee, County Kerry.

Pearse wrote stories and poems in both Irish and English. His best-known English poems include "The Mother", "The Fool" and "The Wayfarer".^[21] He also penned several allegorical plays in the Irish language, including The King, The Master, and The Singer. His short stories in Irish include Eoghainín na nÉan ("Eoineen of the Birds"), Íosagán,"An Gadaí" Na Bóithre ("The Roads"), and An Bhean Chaointe ("The Keening Woman"). These are translated into English by Joseph Campbell (in the Collected Works of 1917).^[22] Most of his ideas on education are contained in his famous essay "The Murder Machine". He also authored many essays on politics and language, notably "The Coming Revolution" and "Ghosts".

Pearse is closely associated with the song, "Oró Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile", for which he composed additional lyrics.

Reputation[link]

Largely, as a result of a series of political pamphlets Pearse wrote in the months leading up to the 1916 Rising, he soon became recognised as the voice of the 1916 Rising. In the middle decades of the 20th century, Pearse was idolised by Irish nationalists as the supreme idealist of their cause. However, with the outbreak of conflict in Northern Ireland in 1969, Pearse's legacy was used by the Provisional IRA. Pearse's reputation and writings were subject to criticism by some historians who saw him as a dangerous, fanatical, psychologically unsound individual under ultra-religious influences. As Conor Cruise O'Brien, onetime Labour TD and former unionist politician, put it in writing: "Pearse saw the Rising as a Passion Play with real blood."

Others defended Pearse, suggesting that to blame him for what was happening in Northern Ireland was unhistorical and a distortion of the real spirit of his writings. Though the passion of those arguments has waned with the continuing peace in Northern Ireland following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, his complex personality still remains a subject of controversy for those who wish to debate the evolving meaning of Irish nationalism.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern described Pearse as one of his heroes and displayed a picture of Pearse over his desk in the Department of the Taoiseach.^[23]

His former school, St. Enda's, Rathfarnham, on the south side of Dublin, is now the Pearse Museum dedicated to his memory. Cullenswood House, the old Pearse family house in Ranelagh, where Padraig first founded St. Enda's, today houses a primary Gaelscoil (school for education through the Irish language) called Lios na nÓg, part of a community-based effort to revive the Irish language. In Ballymun the Patrick Pearse Tower was named after him. It was the first of Ballymun's tower blocks to be demolished in 2004.^{[citation needed]}

Pearse's mother Margaret Pearse served as a TD in Dáil Éireann in the 1920s. His sister Margaret Mary Pearse also served as a TD and Senator.

Commemoration[link]

Pearse Street was renamed in honour of the Pearses. Westland Row Station in Dublin was renamed as Pearse Station in 1966 after Pearse and his brother Willie. The Ten shilling coin minted in 1966 featured the bust of Patrick Pearse. The coin is unique among Irish coinage in that it is the sole coin to feature the bust of anyone associated with Irish history or politics.

Footnotes[link]

Sources[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Author:Patrick Pearse

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Patrick Pearse

• Joost Augusteijn, Patrick Pearse, 2009.
• Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins. Hutchinson, 1990.
• Ruth Dudley Edwards, Patrick Pearse: the Triumph of Failure. London: Gollancz, 1977.
• F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine. London: Collins/Fontana, 1973.
• Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic. Corgi, 1968.
• Arthur Mitchell & Pádraig Ó Snodaigh, Irish Political Documents 1916–1949. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1985
• Sean Farrell Moran, "Patrick Pearse and the Politics of Redemption: The Mind of the Easter Rising 1916." Washington, Catholic University Press, 1994
• Mary Pearse, The Home Life of Pádraig Pearse. Cork: Mercier, 1971.
• Patrick Pearse, Short Stories. Trans. Joseph Campbell. Ed. Anne Markey. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2009

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Patrick Pearse

• Patrick's census information from 1911 while he was still teaching in St. Enda's School
• Patrick's census form part-A
• The Murder Machine – Pearse's groundbreaking article on Montessori education
• 1916 Walking Tour piece on Pearse
• The Poetry of Pádraig Pearse
• ^[dead link] Music Video for the song Pádraig Pearse by the Wolfe Tones

Roger Cole is the founder and chairman of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA). He is an active member of the Irish Labour Party which he joined in 1967 and was on the national executive of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. ^[1]

He has stood for election for the Labour Party in Dún Laoghaire in the local elections, unsuccessfully.^[2]

He has campaigned against the Iraq War and the use by the US military of Shannon Airport. He has spoken on behalf of the PANA at Oireachtas committees, the National Forum on Europe^[3][4] and in the media.

He has campaigned against European Union (EU) militarisation and EU treaties such as the Treaty of Nice, which extend the EU powers into security and military matters.^[5]

He recently represented PANA at the hearings of the sub-committee on Ireland's Future in the European Union set up in the aftermath of the 'no' vote in the first referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon.^[6]

References[link]

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