Patrick Pearse (1879-1916)

Life1879: [Patrick Henry; Padraig Mac Piarais; also Pádraic; pseud. ‘Colm Ó Conaire’]; b. 27 Gt. Brunswick St., Dublin [now Pearse St.]; son of James Pearse, an English mason and monumental sculptor, orig. a Unitarian (converting to Catholicism on his second marriage) who came to Ireland to work on the Pugin Church on Thomas St. and also sculpted the ‘Erin Go Bragh’ pediment of the National Bank, College Green; his mother, Pearse’s second wife, was a native of Co. Meath; br. Willie and two sisters; ed. Westland Row CBS, begins to learn Irish, 1893; joins Central Branch of Gaelic League, Oct. 1896; worked as student-teacher at Westland Row Christian Brothers School, 1896; Royal University Matriculation examination, June 1898; embarked on two-year study for BA, spending the third year at UCD; studied for King’s Inns at TCD; Executive Committee of the Gaelic League, Summer 1898; first visited Aran Islands, 1898; issues Three Lectures on Gaelic Topics (1898); taught weekly Irish class at Newman House under auspices of UCD, 1899, and observed by James Joyce in the classroom (‘Mr Hughes’ in A Portrait); taught at Alexandra College, and Westland Row (CBS ); examiner in Irish history at Clongowes College, 1899; death of his father, Sept. 1900; stone-carving business renamed Pearse & Sons (dissolved 1910);Royal University of Ireland, and King’s Inns; Bar, 1901, did not practice; final exams at the Royal University and at King's Inns, June 1901; 2nd class BA in Irish, English, French (modern languages), and BL, 1901; called to Irish bar; ed. with Tadhg Ó Donnchadha, An tAithriseóir [The Reciter] (2 vols. 1900-02); ed. An Claidheamh Soluis, March 1903-late 1909, publishing his educational views in it; acted for the Gaelic League in his only case as a barrister, 1905; published Poll an Piobaire [The Piper's Cave] (1905); travelled to Belgium to examine system of bilingual education, June 1905 (writing extensively on same in An Claidheamh Soluis); published prose poems as ‘Colm Ó Conaire’, 1906; published Iosagan agus Sgealta Eile [Little Jesus and other Stories] (1907); was among those who objected to The Playboy of the Western World (1907) - later became convinced of his ‘true love of Ireland’ (“From a Hermitage”, 1913); contrib. The United Irishman; lect. in Irish, UCD; fnd. Sgoil Éanna [Scoil Eanna; St. Enda’s] in Cullenswood [House], on Oakley Rd., Ranelagh [finally closed in 1935], his staff including Willie Pearse, Thomas Macdonagh, Joseph Mary Plunkett, and Con Colbert; first advertised in The Leader as ‘Sgoil Ghaedhealach le h-aghaigh Gaedheal Óg/An Irish-Ireland School for Catholic Boys’, issues Iosagán agus Scéalta Eile (1907) and ed., Bruidhean Chaortainn: Scéal Fionnaidhneachtna (1908); wrote ‘Irish-Ireland in atmosphere’, Sept. 1908; ed. Macaoimh at St. Enda’s, 1909-13; produced The Boy Deeds of Cuchulainn, a pageant with schoolboy actors; moved school to The Hermitage, Rathfarnham, formerly the home of Emmet’s sweetheart Sarah Curran, 1910, estab. St. Ita’s for girls; incurred liabilities through over-ambitious expansion of the schools; writes the poem “A Mhic Bhig na gCleas [Little Lad of the Tricks]”, Dec. 1910; writes Iosagán as play (1910); issues play, An Rí (1911); ed. An Barr Buadh, 1912; issues The Murder Machine (1912); welcomed Home Rule, and looked forward to forming an opposition party, 1912, but later became convinced that England would not ‘keep faith’ in the face of Unionist and Orange opposition; his play An Rí produced, 1912; built cottage at Rosmuc in Connemara; attended first meeting of Irish Volunteers, November 11, 1913; swore secret oath of Irish Republican Brotherhood [IBR], December 1913, and soon after joined Supreme Council and Provisional Committee of the Irish Volunteers; issues Direct Method Course in Irish (1913); leaves Ireland for America via Cobh on fund-raising trip for St Enda’s, February-May, 1914; lectured in New York on ‘Robert Emmet and the Ireland of Today’ (2 & 9 March 1914); contrib. to Irish Freedom, ed. Bulmer Hobson; published there ‘From a Hermitage’ (June 1913-Feb. 1914); received arms from Childer’s boat the Asgard, Summer 1914; appt. Director of Military Organization for Volunteers, Dec. 1914; issuedAn Sgoill: And How Does She Stand? (1914) and Suantraidhe agus Goltraidhe [Songs of Sleep and Sorrow] (1914); ed., Specimens from an Irish Anthology (1914); appt. Commandant (unattached to any battalion), March 10, 1915; organises drilling; gave oration at O’Donovan Rossa’s grave, Glasnevin Cemetery, 1 Aug, 1915, declaring that this generation had renewed its baptismal vows in the Fenian faith’ (‘While Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace’); drew up political constitution of Gaelic League at 1915 Ard Fheis, at which the IRB achieved dominance by strategy of issuing proxy votes to non-Irish speaking IRB-men (e.g., 50 in Dundalk); issues The Singer (1915), in which McDara resisted ‘the Gaul’; issued Songs of the Irish Rebels (1915); Eoin (1915), play, and Ghosts (1915); joined eleven-man IRB Supreme (Military) Council, Sept. 1915; plans 1916 Rising; professed that ‘the old heart of the earth needed to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefields’, Dec. 1915; last public speech, Christmas Day, 1915, alluded to ‘the power of the ghosts of the nation’; urged his publisher to rush publication of his collected works, telling him he would ‘shortly know the reason’; issued The Master (1915);issued pamphlets “The Separatist Idea”, “The Spiritual Nation”, and “The Sovereign People” [‘the right of property is not good against the common welfare of the people’]; gives ‘General Orders’ for manoeuvres, 3 April, 1916; signed the Proclamation first, along with six other IRB members; appt. commander-in-chief of Provisional Republic forces at GPO, Monday, 25 April 1916 (Easter); assembles Volunteers and Citizen Army (under Connolly) at General Post Office; as Commandant General and Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Irish Republic and President [var. Chairman] of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic; read the Proclamation on the steps of GPO; surrendered in Moore St. to Brigadier-Gen. Lowe in Parnell St., 3.30 p.m., 29 April (Friday), and insisted on handing over his dress-sword; held at Arbour Hill Barracks and later at Richmond Barracks, where he is tried by court-martial declaring: ‘We seem to have lost. We have not lost. To refuse to fight would have been to lose; to fight is to win. We have kept faith with the past, and handed on a tradition to the future’; condemned to death by court martial, Gen. Blackadder presiding, and executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Gaol, 3.30 a.m., 3 May 1916, together with his brother Willie; buried in quick lime in Arbour Hill; An Mháthair agus Sgéalta Eile [The Mother ...] (1916), issued posthumously; Collected Works edited by Desmond Ryan, 1917-22; P. S. O’Hegarty prepared a bibliography in 1931; latterly charged of pre-empting of Christian sacrifice for political purposes by by Fr. Francis Shaw (1972), and of Liebestod and latent homosexuality by by the biographer Ruth Dudley Edwards (1977); a film by Louis Marcus (Revival: Pearse’s Concept of Ireland, 1979) was commissioned by the Dept. of Taoiseach under Jack Lynch. IF DIB DIW DIH DIL KUN FDA OCIL

Works
[As Padraig Mac Piarais,] ‘Here, at last, is literature’, in An Claidheamh Soluis (24 Méan Fómhair 1904), p.1; ‘Léirmheas’, in An Claidheamh Soluis (21 deirdeadh Fómhair 1904), p.5; ‘Nua Litridheact’, in An Claidheamh Soluis (19 Bealtaine 1906), p.1; ‘About Literature’, in An Claidheamh Soluis (26 Bealtaine [May] 1906) [p.6]; ‘Literature, Life, and Orieachtais Competitions’, in An Claidheamh Soluis (2 Meitheamh 1906), p.1; Iosagán agus Sgéalta Eile (1907), rep. as Iosagan and Other Stories (Dublin: Maunsel 1918); Pádraig Mac Piarais [Patrick Pearse], ed., Bruidhean Chaorthainn (1908); Suantraidhe agus Goltraidhe [Songs of Sleep and Sorrow] (1914); The Singer (1915); The Mother and Other Stories (1916).

Collected and Posthumous Editions, Collected Works of P. H. Pearse: Plays, Stories, Poems (Dublin: Maunsel 1917; pre. 1918) [var.: rep. as Poems]; [Desmond Ryan, ed.,] Political Writings and Speeches (Dublin: Talbot Press 1918); Collected Works of Padraic H. Pearse, 5 vols. (Dublin 1924); Collected Works of P. H. Pearse: Political Writings and Speeches (Dublin, Cork & Belfast: Phoenix Publ. Co. [1952]; 1962); Poems (Dublin: Talbot 1958); Séamus Ó Buachalla, ed., The Literary Writings of Patrick Pearse (Cork: Mercier 1979); Ó Buachalla, ed., The Letters of P. H. Pearse (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980) [complete]; Cathal Ó Háinle, ed., Gearrscéalta an Phiarsaigh (Helicon 1979); Ciarán Ó Coigligh, ed., Filíocht Ghaeilge Phádraig Mhic Phiarais (Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar 1981); also Padraic Pearse, Selected Poems (New Island 1993). NOTE, Mary Brigid Pearse, The Home Life of Patrick Pearse (Dublin 1934), contains an autobiographical fragment (pp.13-40).

Séamus Ó Buachalla, ed., The letters of P.H. Pearse, a foreword by F. S. L. Lyons (1980); Séamas Ó Buachalla, [sel. & ed.], Na scríbhinní liteartha le Pádraig Mac Piarais scríbhinní i nGaeilge (1979); Séamas Ó Buachalla, ed., The literary writings of Patrick Pearse writings in English (1979); Also, The murder machine and other essays by Padraic Pearse [new edn.] (1976); Desmond Maguire, sel. Short Stories of Padraic Pearse (1976) [adapted]; Pat Cooke, Scéal Scoil Éanna: The story of an educational adventure (c.1986). (UUC Library.)

[ top ]

Criticism
Desmond Ryan, ed., The Story of a Success, being a record of St. Enda’s College (1917); Ryan, The Man Called Pearse, (1919).

Desmond Ryan, Patrick Pearse (Dublin 1932), xiii, 440pp. [adapted from the French of L[ouis] N. Le Roux and revised by the author].

Séamus Ó Searcaigh, Padraig Mac Piarais (Baile Atha Cliath: Oifig an tSolathair 1938).

Desmond Ryan, The Sword of Light (1939).

Raymond J. P. Porter, P. H. Pearse (NY: Twayne 1973).

Ruth Dudley Edwards, Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure (London: Gollancz 1977).

Seamus Deane, ‘Pearse, Writing and Chivalry’ in Celtic Revivals, Essays in Modern Irish Literature 1880-1980 (London: Faber & Faber 1985), pp.63-74.

Séamus Ó Buachalla, ed., A Significant Irish Educationalist (Dublin & Cork; Mercier Press 1980).

Brian P Murphy, Patrick Pearse and the Lost Republican Ideal (Dublin: James Duffy 1992), 246pp.

Seán Farrell Moran, Patrick Pearse and the Politics of Redemption: The Mind of the Easter Rising, 1916 (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America Press 1994), 233pp. [panned by Breandan O Cathaoir, Irish Times 3.9.1994].

Seán Farrell Moran, ‘Patrick Pearse and the European Revolt against Reason’, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 50, No. 4. (Oct-Dec. 1989), pp. 625-43.

Seán Farrell Moran, Patrick Pearse and the politics of redemption the mind of the Easter Rising, 1916 (1994); Elaine Sisson, Pearse’s Patriots: St Enda’s and the Cult of Boyhood (Cork UP 2004), 244pp. [16 pp. photos].

See also P. S. O’Hegarty, The Victory of Sinn Féin (1924) & P. S. O’Hegarty, “Bibliography of Patrick Pearse”, in Dublin Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 3.

Martin Williams, ‘Ancient Mythology and Revolutionary Ideology in Ireland, 1878-1916’, in Historical Journal, vol. XXVI, No. 2 (1983), pp.307-28.

William Irwin Thompson, The Imagination of An Insurrection, Dublin, Easter 1916: A Study of an Ideological Movement (OUP 1967; Harper & Row 1972).

G. F. Dalton, ‘The Tradition of Blood Sacrifice to the Goddess Eire’, in Studies, vol. LXVII, pp.343-54.

Frank Sewell, ‘Between Two Languages: Poetry in Irish, English and Irish English’, in Matthew Campbell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary Irish Poetry (Cambridge UP 2003), pp.149-68, espec. p,150ff.

W. P. Ryan, The Pope’s Green Island (1912), pp. 181, 291-98.

Frederick Ryan, The United Irishman, rep. in Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 1992, Vol. 2, p.1000.)

James Stephens, The Insurrection in Dublin; cited in P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland, 1994, p.282).

W. B. Yeats, The Statues (1938), in Michael Robartes and the Dancer, 1931; Collected Poems, 206.

W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions, 1961, pp.515-16.)

Arnold Bax, Farewell, My Youth (Longmans, Green 1943), pp. 103-105.

St John Ervine, Changing Winds (Dublin: Maunsel 1917), pp.508-09.

AE [George Russell], The Living Torch, ed. Monk Gibbon, pp.134-44, quoted in Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland, 1995, p.196-97.)

Sean O’Casey, Juno and the Paycock, adding: ‘... as long as she’s a son left to pull a trigger’. But note that Sean O’Casey paid grudging tribute to Pearse in Drums Under the Window (Pan ed., 1980, pp.616-18, 662).

Eavan Boland, ‘Aspects of Pearse’, in Dublin Magazine (Spring 1966).

Denis Johnston remarked on the curious promotion of Pearse to Commander in Chief during the fighting in 1916 in his Introduction to ‘The Scythe and the Sunset’ (Collected Plays; and rep. in Dublin Magazine, Spring 1966.)

Fr. Francis Shaw, SJ, ‘The Canon of Irish History - A Challenge’, Studies LXI, No. 242, Summer 1972 [pp.113-52], p.149.)

Joseph Lee, The Modernisation of Ireland (Cambridge UP 1973), pp.141-48.

Joseph Lee, Ireland 1912-1985 (1989), p.25.

Patrick Sheeran (Novels of Liam O’Flaherty, Wolfhound Press 1976), pp.24-41.

Peter Costello, The Heart Grown Brutal: The Irish Revolution in Literature from Parnell to the Death of W. B. Yeats 1891-1939 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1977), p.90.

Dervla Murphy, A Place Apart (London: Routledge 1978), p.28.

Richard Kearney, ‘Myth and Terror’, in The Crane Bag, 2. 1&2 (1978), pp.273-87, rep. in Crane Bag Book (1982), pp.273-87.

Declan Kiberd, ‘Writers in Quarantine?: The Case for Irish Studies’, in Crane Bag, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1979), pp.9-21 rep. in Crane Bag Book of Irish Studies (Dublin: Blackwater Press 1982); pp.341-53.

Declan Kiberd, ‘Editorial’, The Crane Bag: Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1981).

Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland (London: Jonathan Cape 1995).

D. G. Boyce, ‘Separatism and the Irish National Tradition’, in Colin H. Williams, ed., National Separatism (Cardiff: Wales UP 1982), pp.75-6.

Seamus Deane, Heroic Styles: The Tradition of an Idea [Field Day Pamphlet, No. 4] (Derry: Field Day 1984).

Richard Kearney, Myth and Motherland [Field Day Pamphlet No. 5} (Derry: Field Day Co. 1984).

R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland (London: Allen Lane 1988), p.149.

Roy Foster, Paddy and Mr Punch (Allen Lane 1993), p.14.

Eugene McCabe, Selected Poems of Patrick Pearse (1993), Preface.

Conor Cruise O’Brien, Ancestral Voices, Religion and Nationalism in Ireland (Dublin: Poolbeg 1994), p.98ff, 101, 103, 107, 108.

Liam de Paor, ‘The Great War’, Landscapes with Figures (Dublin: Four Courts 1998), p.146.

Elaine Sisson, Pearse’s Patriots: St. Enda’s and the Cult of Boyhood (Dublin: Four Court’s Press 2004).

[ top ]

Notes
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists The Mother, done into English by Rev. T. A. Fitzgerald OFM, with foreword by Helena Concannon, MA, with photos of author and his mother (Dundalgan 1916); Collected Works, Vol. 1, Poems, Plays, and Stories, intro. Rev. P. Browne, Maynooth, trans. Joseph Campbell (Maunsel 1917).

Robert Hogan, ed., Dictionary of Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1979), article cites eight dramatic works, 1909-1916, six for Scoil Eanna, incl. a pageant of Táin Bó Cuailgne, a passion play, and four one-acts; Iosagán and Other Stories, (1907),; in Irish The Singer, play advocating blood-sacrifice (1915); The Mother and Other Stories, (1916); 12 Gaelic lyrics in Suantraidhe agus Goltraidhe [Songs of Sleep and Sorrow] (1914). ‘In four stories of the second collection [The Mother &c.], Pearse moved from the child’s world, which had dominated Iosagán, to that of the adult, exhibiting improved technique, increased control of structure and form, and a deeper awareness of life’s struggles.’ Further, his Irish stories help to establish a prose style based in spoken rather than archaic, literary Gaelic.

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2, selects The Murder Machine; O’Donovan Rossa, Graveside Panegyric; The Sovereign People [288-95]; The Coming Revolution; ‘I Am Ireland’, ‘The Rebel’ [556-59]; Collected Works, ‘The Fool’, ‘The Mother’, ‘The Christmas’, ‘The Wayfarer’, ‘To My Brother’, ‘Why Do Ye Torture Me?’, ‘Long To Me Thy Coming’, ‘A Rann I Made’, ‘Christ’s Coming’ [758-79]; and references. NOTE, he quotes St. Colmcille, "if I die it shall be from the excess of the love I bear the Gael." [292]. BIOG, 561 [as supra], FDA3 selects from An Mháthar agaus Sgéalta Eile/The Mother and Other Stories, ‘An Deargadaol’/’The Deeargadaol’, ‘Suantraidhe agus Goltraidhe’; REFS & REMS, 160n. 457. 480, 502, 503, 506-9; 538. 547. 565-66, 568, 572. 580. 583, 590-5, 600-01, 682, 683, 734, 746, 747, 810, 815, 816; 1024, 1266n, 1309, 1310. BIOG & WORKS, 932 [as supra]. NOTE, bio-bibliographical entries distributed between FDA2 and FDA3, with some difference, e.g., FDA2, ‘died at the hands of an English firing squad’, allowing for emphasis on the effect of his editorship on modern Irish.

Dictionary of National Biography has no entry prior to Missing Persons (1992), where a new entry is provided by Ruth Dudley Edwards.

Joseph Lee, Ireland 1912-1985, Politics and Society (1989), p.37n., bibliographical citations: Séamus Ó Buachalla, ed., The Letters of P. H. Pearse (Colin Smythe 1980) [complete]; Ó Buachalla has assembled Pearse’s educational writings, scattered and often anonymous, as A Significant Irish Educationalist (Dublin & Cork 1980), and summarised the result in Ó Buachalla, ‘An Piarsach mar Oideachasoir’, Feasta, 2, 5 (1976); R. D. Edwards, Pearse, The Triumph of Failure [1977], remains the only historically satisfying biography.

Hyland Books (Cat. 214) lists Pearse, The Spiritual Nation [Tracts for the Times No.12] ([Feb.] 1916), 18pp.; Desmond Ryan, trans. Louis le Roux, Patrick H Pearse (1932).

British Library holds [1] Poems of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. Thomas MacDonagh, P. H. Pearse ... Joseph Mary Plunkett, Sir Roger Casement. Edited by P. Colum and E. J. O’Brien. New and enlarged edition. pp. xxxv. 71. Small, Maynard & Co.: Boston, 1916. 8o.; [2] [Based on MSS. 23. M. 19. and 23. A. 49. in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy.]. pp. iii. 72. 1906. 8o.; [3] pp. viii. 61. 1912. 8o.; [4] pp. 117. 1918. 8o.; [5] The Stories of Padraic Pearse dramatised by M. H. Gaffney, etc. [Including three plays written by Pearse.]. pp. 228. Talbot Press: Dublin, Cork,; [1935.] 8o.; [6] [L’Irlande militante.] Patrick H. Pearse. Adapted from the French of L. N. Le Roux and revised by the author. Translated ... by Desmond Ryan.; [With a portrait.]. pp. xiii. 440. Talbot Press: Dublin, 1932. 8o.; [7] L’Irlande militante. La vie de Patrice Pearse. Avec une introduction historique et 15 photographies [including portraits]. pp. 335. Rennes, 1932. 8o.; [8] 1900.; [9] (Patrick H. Pearse: storyteller.) Irish and English. pp. 81. Talbot Press: [Dublin, 1920.] 8o.; [10] [With plates, including portraits.]. pp. x. 262. 1938. 8o. 11] Collected Works of Pádraic H. Pearse. Phoenix Publishing Co.: Dublin, [1917?] 8o.; [12] Collected Works of Padraic H. Pearse. [With an introduction by P. Browne. Translations from the Irish by Joseph Campbell.]. Maunsel & Co.: Dublin & London, 1917-1922. 3 vol. 8o.; [13] From a hermitage. Dublin: "Irish Freedom" Office, 1915. pp. 27. 22 cm.; [14] Ghosts. pp. 20. Whelan & Son: Dublin, 1916. 8o.; [15] How does she stand? Three addresses. Dublin: "Irish Freedom" Office, 1914. pp. 16. 22 cm.; [16] How does She stand? Three addresses ... Second edition. (Reprinted from verbatim reports in the Gaelic American.). pp. 16. "Irish Freedom" Office: Dublin, 1915. 8o.; [17] In First Century Ireland. pp. 43. Talbot Press: Dublin & Cork, [1935.] 8o.; [18] Iosagan and other stories. Translated by Joseph Campbell. Dublin: Maunsel & Co., 1918. pp. 229-308. 20 cm.; [19] Ó pheann an Phiarsaigh i téacsanna a togadh as an saothar liteartha a rinne Pádraig Mac Piarais. (Eagrán caighdeánach scoile.-Eagarthóir, M. Ó. Siochfhradha.). Áth Cliath: Comhlacht Oideachais na hÉireann, [1966]. pp. 111; illus., port. 19 cm.; [20] Poems. Dublin & London: Maunsel & Co., 1918. pp. 311-341. 19 cm. [21] The murder machine. Dublin: Whelan & Son, 1916. pp. 20. 22 cm.; [22] The Separatist Idea. [Another copy.]. pp. 20. Whelan & Son: Dublin, 1916. 8o.; [23] [The Singer.] pp. 49. 1937. 8o.; [24] The Singer, and other plays. (Reprint.) [The editor’s postscript signed: D. R.]. pp. 123. viii. Talbot Press: Dublin, 1960. 8o.; [25] The singer and other plays. By Padraic Pearse. [With a "Chronological note" signed: D. R., i.e. Desmond Ryan.]. Dublin & London: Maunsel & Co., 1918. pp. 123. iv. 19 cm.; [26] The Sovereign People. pp. 20. Whelan & Son: Dublin, 1916. 8o.; [27] The Spiritual Nation. pp. 18. Whelan & Son: Dublin, 1916. 8o.; [28] The Story of a success ... Being a record of St. Enda’s College, September, 1908, to Easter, 1916. Edited by Desmond Ryan. pp. xiii. 127. Maunsel & Co.: Dublin & London, 1917. 8o.; [29] Three lectures on Gaelic topics. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 1922. pp. 55. 19 cm.; [30] Three Lectures on Gaelic topics. pp. 59. M. H. Gill & Son: Dublin, 1898. 12o.; [31] pp. 80. [1936.] 8o.; [32] pp. 95. Wm. Tempest, The Dundalgan Press: 1916. 8o.; [33] pp. 112. [1937.] 4o.; [34] pp. 268. 1919. 8o.; [35] [In verse.]. pp. 19. "The Irish Review": 1914. 8o.; [36] The mother, and other tales . Done into English by Rev. T. A. Fitzgerald, etc. [Another copy.]. Dundalk: Dundalgan Press, 1916. pp. xiv, 88: plates; ports. 19 cm.; [37] A direct method course in Irish. pt. I. (The St. Enda books for Irish Schools.). pp. iv. 52. Maunsel & Co.: Dublin & London, (1913.) 8o.; [38] The Man called Pearse. pp. 130. Maunsel & Co.: Dublin & London, 1919. 8o.; [39] Patrick Pearse-Irish patriot. [Dublin?], 1937. pp. 10. 22 cm.; [40] Tribute to Thomas Davis ... With an account of the Thomas Davis centenary meeting held in Dublin on November 20th, 1914, including Dr. Mahaffy’s prohibition of the "Man called Pearse" (by Denis Gwynn), and an unpublished protest by "A. E.". pp. 22. Cork University Press: [Cork] 1947. 8o.

Belfast Central Library holds Collected Works (1917, 1918, 5 vols. 1928); Iosagan, and other stories, translated by Joseph Campbell (1918); The King, a morality (n.d.); The Mother, and other tales (1917); Plays, stories, poem (1950); Political Writings and Speeches (1952); The Story of a Success, being a record of St. Enda’s College ... (1917).

Ulster University Library (Morris Collection) holds Na Boithre (c. 1915); An Mhaithair agus Sgealta Eile (Dundalgan 1916); also Political writings and speeches. (Dublin: Talbot Press 1918); Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse: Political writings and speeches (Dublin: Belfast : Phoenix, 1924).


Works/editions: A note on the publishing history of Pearse’s works is supplied as a footnote by Fr. Francis Shaw to his ‘the Canon of Irish History: A Challenge’, in Studies, Vol. 61 (1972), pp.1133-52 [rep. in Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 1991]. Shaw indicates that The Collected Works of Padraic [sic] H Pearse, 5 vols. (I, St Enda’s and its Founder; II, Political Writings and Speeches; III, Songs of the Irish Rebels, etc.; IV, Plays, Stories, Poems, and V, Schríbhinní Phádraig Mhic Phiarais) issued by The Phoenix Publishing Co., Dublin, Cork, Belfast; numerous edns. from 1917 are re-impressions with the same pagination; the earlier edns. bear the imprint Maunsell [sic] & Roberts, Dublin & London, with the title The Complete Works of P. H. Pearse on the spine. Later eds. have imprint of Talbot Press. [FDA3 592]. Vide Field Day Anthology, Vol. 3 601n., bibl., The Collected Works of Padraic [sic] H. Pearse: Political Writings and Speeches (Dublin: Phoenix Publishing Co., 1929).

Portraits: P. H. Pearse by Léon Ó Broin (1932), in Municipal Gallery (See Anne Crookshank, Irish Portraits Exhibition, Ulster Mus. 1965). There is a portrait of Mrs Pearse (mother of Patrick) by Seán O’Sullivan, in National Gallery of Ireland.

James Joyce took lessons in Irish from Pearse but gave them up because, acc. Richard Ellmann, Pearse ‘found it necessary to exalt Irish by denigrating English, and in particular denounced the world "Thunder" – a favourite of Joyce’s – as an example of verbal inadequacy.’ (Cite Tuohy, Yeats, 1976, p.75.)

‘A man called Pearse: for the origin of the phrase see J. P. Mahaffy (who coined it) and Denis Gwynn, supra.

Denis Johnston comments on the curious promotion of Pearse to Commander in Chief during the fighting in 1916 in his Introduction to ‘The Scythe and the Sunset’ (Collected Plays, rep. in Dublin Magazine (Spring 1966).

Latent stuff: Ruth Dudley Edwards’ theory of Pearse’s latent homosexuality is called into question by Gearóid Denvir on the basis of Greek concepts of love and a deep familiarity with Irish poetic tradition, in Litríoacht agus Pobal: Cnuasach Aaistrí (Cló Iar-Chonnachta 1997) [See Liam Mac Cóil, review, Irish Times, 5 July 1997].

Kevin Rockett, IFT News, Vol. 3 No.12 (Dec. 1980) cites Revival, Pearse’s Concept of Ireland [100th Anniv. Commemoration] (Dept. of Taoiseach 1979), directed by Louis Marcus, ‘the Pearse who emerges is a liberal intellectual of an intensity that I don’t think the country is yet mature enough to take on ... the ... film ... not an attempt to undermine the traditional mythology’, Marcus in interview with p.11; also cited in Rockett et al., Cinema and Ireland (1988).

The Proclamation: The 1916 Proclamation was printed on Easter Sunday by Christopher Brady, printer at Liberty Hall, using an old Wharfdale Press with insufficient type, necessitating the use of sealing wax to make the letter ‘E’ from ‘F’, and resulting in a different density for the upper and lower half of the sheet, printed successively in a run of 25,000 of which only 6 are known to have survived. (See Peter Somerville-Large, Irish Voices Fifty Years of Irish Life 1916-1966, London: Chatto & Windus 1999), p.1.

Sean O’Casey employs Pearse’s dictum, ‘Ireland unfree will never be at peace’, in Juno and the Paycock, where he adds ‘... as long as she’s a son left to pull a trigger’; however, Sean O’Casey paid grudging tribute to Pearse in Drums Under the Window (Pan ed., 1980, pp.616-18, 662).

General Blackadder, who condemned Pearse to death at his court-martial, remarked to the Countess of Fingall that he was one of the finest men he had ever met and that it was “no wonder his pupils adored him.”. (Quoted in Elaine Sisson, Pearse’s Patriots, 2003, p.161.)

Exhibition at Hermitage House, Rathfarnham; materials incl. MS of pamphlet by James Pearse entitled ‘England's Duty to Ireland as it Appears to an Englishman’, pub. 1886, in support of Home Rule; exhibition gives information about two daughters of James Pearse by his first wife, newly discovered; school [St. Enda's] founded at Cullenswood House, Ranelagh, Sept. 1908; moved to the Hermitage at St. Enda's Park, Rathfarnham, 1910; exhib. incls. handkerchief embroidered at Long Kesh by Michael McAteer in 1972, with the words: ‘Life springs from death, and from the graves of patriot men and women springs living nations.’ The school was managed by Joseph MacDonagh after the death of four teachers, Patrick and Willie Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh (br. of Joseph) and Con Colbert, in 1916; (The Irish Times, 30 Dec. 2004, p.4.)

 

[ top ]

Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)