Padraic Pearse remembered

Padraic Pearse.

Padraic Pearse, an iconic figure among the 1916 leaders, was executed on this day in 1916 along with Thomas MacDonagh and Tom Clarke. Sam O’Reilly was in the GPO with Pearse during the fighting and in 1980 was interviewed by the Echo’s Mike McCormack. Here is an edited extract of that interview in which O’Reilly recalls Pearse, the patriot and the man.
IE: When did you meet him personally for the first time?
SO: Oh, I met him several times. The volunteer officers used to meet in Dawson Street. Once, on the night that Asquith (British Prime Minister) came over to Dublin to have a meeting in the Mansion House, the IRB and the Irish Volunteers decided to take over the Mansion House. The Officers were in Dawson Street with a large group of us and among them was Pearse, MacDermott, Clarke and Sean Heuston, who was a very close friend of mine. We had planned to take over the Mansion House before the English meeting. When we went over to inspect the Mansion House we found that the British had it occupied. They were inside with fixed bayonets, so we didn’t take it.
IE: Did they know that you were coming?
SO: No, they were just there to make sure that nothing happened to Asquith. He was in Dublin to encourage the Irish to join the British Army in the First World War. At that time, Lord French was after losing 80,000 men in one day trying to break through the German lines.
IE: Then it is accurate to say that you were a personal friend of Pearse’s?
SO: Oh, absolutely. He stayed the night with me on occasion.
IE: What kind of a man was he?
SO: He was a very unassuming person.
IE: What did he enjoy talking about, what was his favorite topic of conversation?
SO: He loved history. He knew the history of Ireland backwards and forwards. The enslavement of Ireland as he called it, and so it was enslaved, but he could talk on that forever.
IE: You had told us once that Connolly was always smiling. How would you compare Pearse’s personality? Was he happy, serious, or moody?
SO: He was a very pleasant person. I’ll tell you something, there was a group of Volunteers called Pearse’s Own, that’s how much they thought of him.
IE: We read a book called The Irish Republic in which Pearse’s Own was described as a group of Irishmen who had returned from England to join the Volunteers because they didn’t want to fight for England.
SO: No, not at all. Pearse’s Own was made up of the students of St. Enda’s who were in the Volunteers. There were those like Eamonn Bulfin from Argentina, Jack Kilgallen from Far Rockaway and many others, but they were all his students.
IE: Then, he was very popular. But with so much on his mind, the seriousness of his plans and the position he held, he must have been a very somber person.
SO: You have to read some of his plays and you will see his sense of humor. He was always a happy person.
IE: When did you see him happiest?
SO: He was never happier than when he gave the oration at O’Donovan Rossa’s grave. He had been down in Galway when he got word about it. Do you know why he used to go to Galway?
IE: Yes, to be among the Gaelic speakers.
SO: That’s right. That was the Gaeltacht and most of the people were descendants of those who got chased out of Northern Ireland and they spoke Gaelic all the time. Pearse loved Gaelic. Well, when Rossa’s body came back, there was a group of us that used to live near Father Matthew Park and we formed his bodyguard at the City Hall. We had to parade up to the grave. Tommy MacDonagh had charge of the parade because he had experience in parading having served sometime in the French Foreign Legion. We walked up to Glasnevin and ‘A’ Company formed a guard from the gates to the plot while ‘B’ Company, which I was in, formed a guard around the grave. Pearse was standing across the plot from me when he gave his speech. I think it was the greatest speech he ever gave.
IE: Where did they go after the ceremony?
SO: They came down to Father Matthew Park and it was from there that Tom Clarke asked Monteith to go to Germany.
IE: Let’s get to the GPO. Some writers say that as Pearse marched on the GPO that morning, he knew that he was going to his death. Did he, in fact, know that?
SO: Why sure. Oh yes. Sure they did. A lot more knew it too.
IE: Tell us about Pearse in the GPO?
SO: Just before we left there, when the post office was on fire, I was talking to Pearse and Connolly. Pearse put his arm around my shoulder and said, “When we came out on Monday, we hoped and prayed that it would last for 24 hours and the whole world would know. But, this has been the only successful rising since the British first took Dublin. It’s greater by far than Emmet’s rising.
IE: Was he upset at that time? After all, everything had gone wrong.
SO: No, not at all. When everyone had left the Post Office and there was nobody left but he and I. He asked me to go back in the building to make sure nobody was asleep upstairs and he said he would wait for me ‘til I got back.
IE: Then he and you were the last two to leave the GPO?
SO: Yes.
IE: What was Pearse like the last time you ever saw him?
SO: He was as calm as ever. The last time I saw him I was standing at the door with Sean MacDermott as Pearse walked out to surrender. He was always calm.
IE: Wasn’t he even mad at MacNeill for calling off the Rising?
SO: You had to know him. He wasn’t mad. He said MacNeill had done what he thought was best for Ireland.
IE: And you never saw Pearse again?
SO: No.
IE: Often, during the course of our conversation, Sam would close his eyes and lean back as if he were again in 1916 Dublin, seeing the faces and friends he held so dear so very long ago. It was obvious during the telling, that he was very close to some of those who were so brutally slain.

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