Eamonn Ceannt

16 Lives

by Mary Gallagher

The son of a Head Constable in the Royal Irish Constabulary, by the age of twenty-five, Éamonn Ceannt was married with a young son. He played the uileann pipes and was passionate about the Irish language. His commitment to a politically independent, Gaelic-speaking Ireland led him from the classrooms of the Gaelic League to the National Council of Sinn Féin and the senior ranks of the Irish Volunteers. He was a member of the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which planned and carried out the Rising of Easter 1916, outright rebellion against the world’s biggest imperial power.

During Easter week 1916, he was Commandant of the Fourth Battalion of the Irish Volunteers and a signatory to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. His severely depleted battalion held the strategic South Dublin Union until ordered to surrender. He was executed by firing squad on 8 May 1916.

Genres: History, Biography, Irish Literature

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 20, 2014

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before reading this, I knew little of Eamonn Ceant, certainly less than I knew of the other six signatories of the Irish Republic of the Easter Rising. Perhaps this is because he fails to meet the romantic image of the Irish revolutionary: this is no poet and dreamer, no reckless fighter and willing martyr. No, Ceantt was a capable civil servant, an invaluable board member of many Irish cultural organizations, a cunning manipulator of Irish Volunteer meetings, a wily bookkeeper who kept two sets of books (to hide IRB gun-money from conservative Volunteers), and a clear-eyed commander who led his men ably and cautiously held his difficult position at the South Dublin Union until the Sunday after Easter.

I don't mean to imply that Eamonn Ceannt was a prosaic man, for he had music in his soul. In fact, he was a master of the Irish pipes (he once traveled to Rome and piped for the pope) and he even wrote a textbook on the subject. He was a dedicated family man and a devout Catholic too, with a special devotion to the rosary.

Ceannt is a likable and fascinating figure, but Mary Gallagher's book is not nearly as likable or fascinating as her subject. Part of this is not her fault, for Eamonn had so many talents and exercised them so vigorously—in The Gaelic League, the Leinster College of Irish, the Dublin Piper's Club, the Sinn Fein League, the Irish Volunteers, and at least a few other organizations I have already forgotten—that the catalogue of his achievements becomes repetitive and occasionally confusing. I think Gallagher makes the confusion worse, though, for she is a relative of Ceannt's and the custodian of the family papers, and her love for her subject leads her into the error of including too much information.

Gallagher makes up for it, however, in the last third of book, for her account of Ceannt's week-long occupation of the South Dublin Union and his subsequent surrender, trial, and execution is vivid and exciting. She made me realize what the South Dublin Union really was like: not a simple hospital for the indigent, but a large complex of buildings—a men's infirmary, a women's infirmary, a ward for the mentally ill, a Protestant hospital, a nunnery, a dormitory for nurses, etc.—altogether too large for Ceannt's defending force of almost one hundred men. Gallagher made me hear what it must have been like to be inside these buildings: the crack of the rifles, the pop of the pistols, the cries of the nurses, the prayers of the nuns, the babbling and shrieks of the insane. The book also includes a memorable contrast of heroisms: the cool, deliberate decisiveness of Eamonn Ceannt and the reckless, tireless efforts of the sorely wounded Cathal Brugha, Ceannt's second in command and one of the memorable IRA figures in the War of Independence to come.

All in all, this is an effective biography, one that moves us to admiration and pity in its final chapters as it shows us the strength of a revolutionary commander and the heart of a doomed, prayerful man.

[Cheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Eamonn Ceannt, born in Ballymoe, County Galway in 1881, raised and educated in Dublin was first and foremost a husband and father, a skilled Uilleann piper who was invited to play before His Holiness Pope Pius X in 1908, a member of a party of Irish athletes in Rome for the Jubilee celebrations. He worked in the City Treasurer’s office, holding a quietly ordinary job as a clerk; he was an intellectual and a writer, most known for his participation in the Easter Rising as a founding member and a Commandant of the Irish Volunteers.

Ceannt was passionate about his family, his love of Irish music, Irish language, and Irish dancing. He joined the Gaelic League in 1899, the main purpose of the League being to revive the Irish language along with Irish music, dancing, poetry, literature, history and to educate people about the Irish culture. By 1905 he was teaching Irish classes.

Mary Gallagher, author, in great detail, presents events that occurred preceding on an almost minute-by-minute day-to-day approach. A riot that broke out on 31 August 1913 where 600 people were injured, the first Bloody Sunday in 20th Century Ireland. Disputes with the ITGWU, creating a lockout that affected some 20,000 workers. The first half of Eamonn Ceannt: 16Lives is packed with detail about the unrest in Ireland. The second half of the book focuses in a bit more on Ceannt, his family, and the myriad details of the week leading up to the Easter Rising.

Eamonn Ceannt was sent to Kilmainham Gaol on 2 May 1916, to face trial.

“The courts martial began on the afternoon of Tuesday, 2 May. By the time they were finished, 186 men and one woman, Countess Constance Markievicz, had been tried and fifteen men, including Eamonn Ceannt, had been executed. The first of the leaders to be tried were Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh.”

“Tom Clarke had asked Pearse to deliver the now-famous graveside oration with instructions to: ‘Make it hot as hell, throw all discretion to the winds.’ Pearse took the advice to heart and delivered a memorable speech: ‘They think they have pacified Ireland. They think they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools the fools, the fools! – they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.’”

On 7 May 1914, Ceannt was visited in Kilmainham Gaol by his wife, Aine, and his brother Michael, each allowed 20 minutes of time to say their final words. Later that night, Eamonn Ceannt wrote final letters to the public and lastly to his wife Aine.

Eamonn Ceannt was executed by firing squad between 8:45am and 4:05am on 8 May 1916 at the age of 34. His last words were "My Jesus Mercy."

In July 1926, published in The Irish Independent was a part of Eamonn Ceannt’s message for the people, written from cell 88 in Kilmainham Gaol a few hours before his death on 7 May 1916:

“I leave for the guidance of other Irish Revolutionaries who may tread the path which I have trod this advice, never to treat with the enemy, never to surrender at his mercy, but to fight to a finish...Ireland has shown she is a nation. This generation can claim to have raised sons as brave as any that went before. And in the years to come Ireland will honour those who risked all for her honour at Easter 1916.”

[Steve Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent biography.