Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks 1966 – Dé Luain By Eoghan Ó Tuairisc (1919-82)
The author’s depiction of the leaders of the 1916 Rising is analytic and dispassionate, and it avoids glorification or condemnation
Recalling the Rising: President Éamon de Valera at the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of 1916, where the atmosphere was largely one of uncomplicated celebration. Photograph: The National Photographic Archive
The poet and writer Eoghan Ó Tuairisc
Eoghan Ó Tuairisc liked to remark that his father was “out” in 1916, but not in the GPO. In fact his father, a cobbler in Ballinasloe, where Ó Tuairisc grew up as Eugene Rutherford Watters, was in the Connaught Rangers, and was wounded in the Battle of the Somme. This family history feeds in to the remarkably nuanced account of the Rising in Ó Tuairisc’s historical novel, Dé Luain, that focuses on the 12 hours leading up to the reading of the Proclamation of the Republic by Patrick Pearse on Easter Monday. Though Ó Tuairisc belonged to a generation brought up to consider 1916 a sacred event (he recalled in 1981 having been inducted into “the faith of Pearse” from his first day in primary school), his depiction of the 1916 leaders is dispassionate and analytic, and avoids either glorification or condemnation.
