What do you think?
Rate this book
A Pocket History of the 1916 Rising
The Easter Rising was arguably the most important event in Irish history. It was an armed insurrection that occurred mainly in Dublin during Easter Week, 1916, mounted by Irish republicans intent on ending British rule in Ireland and establishing an independent Irish Republic. While not immediately successful, its consequences changed the course of Irish history forever.
This book explains what happened in the years before and after the Rising, as well as providing an exciting day-by-day account of the events themselves, and biographies of the leading figures.
This book explains what happened in the years before and after the Rising, as well as providing an exciting day-by-day account of the events themselves, and biographies of the leading figures.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
256 pages, Hardcover
First published November 27, 2015
6 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 29, 2019
Another purchase during our recent trip to Ireland, this small book does a yeoman's job in tying together many of the historical bits and pieces we picked up along the way, (it also helped us get a lot more out of the movie Michael Collins,* which we watched as soon as we got home).
Fittingly, sadly, I bought this book at Kilmainham Jail, where 13 of the Rising's leaders were executed by firing squad. As per the title, Gallagher focuses about half his book on the Easter Rising itself, but he also does a great job providing the necessary "before and after." The first section is all background, beginning in 1789 when the earliest Irish republicans were first inspired by our own Revolution, and taking us right up through WWI. And then the last part deals with everything after that bloody week, from the Anglo-Irish Treaty through the North-South partition (which I never really understood before), and on up through the 2010s, (so that technically, this book will be out of date in just three days). But the whole middle of the book is a day-by-day and nearly blow-by-blow account of a history-making event that I'm embarrassed to say I'd never really even heard or before, but which is now impossible to forget.
One minor difficulty: while I enjoy history, I am generally shite at remembering dates and names and such, and so I found it difficult keeping straight all the various organizations and political parties involved - the IRB, ICA, IRA, Provisional IRA, Real IRA; the Fenians, Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil, Na Fianna Éireann...you get the idea. And then the personal names, to my uneducated Yankee ear, sounded like a roster of stereotypical Irish first-name/last-name combinations: James Connell, Daniel O'Connor, Elizabeth O'Farrell, Thomas MacDonagh, Tom Clarke, Sean MacDermott, John MacBride, and many more. I apologize to any Irish 7-year-old who probably knows all these names by heart, but I found myself at times wishing for an Abraham Lincoln or Ulysses S. Grant that I could latch onto; and was thankful for the occasional Cathal Brugha or Pádraig Pearse, because even though I can't pronounce either one, I would at least recognize those names each time I ran across them.
Overall, a fascinating, informative book - alternatively depressing and infuriating, but ultimately ending on a hopeful note. And apparently part of a fascinating series as well. I also bought A Pocket History of the Irish Famine, which promises to be even more of a downer; but Gill Books also publishes other titles such as A Pocket History of the Irish Revolution, A Pocket Guide to Irish Castles, a general Pocket Guide to Irish History, and several others - I should have bought more!
*Michael Collins was a fascinating movie, IMHO. While various websites discuss its historical accuracy (or lack thereof), I found it largely consistent with the story in this book. My main complaint was having the 26-year-old Collins played by the 44-year-old Neeson, so that instead of looking like a young man recruiting his peers, he looked more like an impending geezer getting young boys to do his dirty work. I also found it rather insulting that they showed Tom Clark being blindfolded during his execution, when in fact he refused the blindfold and faced the firing squad with eyes wide open, proud and stubborn to the end. Which is to say, quintessentially Irish.
Fittingly, sadly, I bought this book at Kilmainham Jail, where 13 of the Rising's leaders were executed by firing squad. As per the title, Gallagher focuses about half his book on the Easter Rising itself, but he also does a great job providing the necessary "before and after." The first section is all background, beginning in 1789 when the earliest Irish republicans were first inspired by our own Revolution, and taking us right up through WWI. And then the last part deals with everything after that bloody week, from the Anglo-Irish Treaty through the North-South partition (which I never really understood before), and on up through the 2010s, (so that technically, this book will be out of date in just three days). But the whole middle of the book is a day-by-day and nearly blow-by-blow account of a history-making event that I'm embarrassed to say I'd never really even heard or before, but which is now impossible to forget.
One minor difficulty: while I enjoy history, I am generally shite at remembering dates and names and such, and so I found it difficult keeping straight all the various organizations and political parties involved - the IRB, ICA, IRA, Provisional IRA, Real IRA; the Fenians, Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil, Na Fianna Éireann...you get the idea. And then the personal names, to my uneducated Yankee ear, sounded like a roster of stereotypical Irish first-name/last-name combinations: James Connell, Daniel O'Connor, Elizabeth O'Farrell, Thomas MacDonagh, Tom Clarke, Sean MacDermott, John MacBride, and many more. I apologize to any Irish 7-year-old who probably knows all these names by heart, but I found myself at times wishing for an Abraham Lincoln or Ulysses S. Grant that I could latch onto; and was thankful for the occasional Cathal Brugha or Pádraig Pearse, because even though I can't pronounce either one, I would at least recognize those names each time I ran across them.
Overall, a fascinating, informative book - alternatively depressing and infuriating, but ultimately ending on a hopeful note. And apparently part of a fascinating series as well. I also bought A Pocket History of the Irish Famine, which promises to be even more of a downer; but Gill Books also publishes other titles such as A Pocket History of the Irish Revolution, A Pocket Guide to Irish Castles, a general Pocket Guide to Irish History, and several others - I should have bought more!
*Michael Collins was a fascinating movie, IMHO. While various websites discuss its historical accuracy (or lack thereof), I found it largely consistent with the story in this book. My main complaint was having the 26-year-old Collins played by the 44-year-old Neeson, so that instead of looking like a young man recruiting his peers, he looked more like an impending geezer getting young boys to do his dirty work. I also found it rather insulting that they showed Tom Clark being blindfolded during his execution, when in fact he refused the blindfold and faced the firing squad with eyes wide open, proud and stubborn to the end. Which is to say, quintessentially Irish.
April 3, 2024
A thorough and quick read on the Irish Easter Rising of 1916. It was fairly comprehensive and I appreciated it gave the view point of all those involved across the spectrum.
July 24, 2025
Igual es porque sé muy poco sobre el tema, pero me ha parecido que para lo breve que es condensa muy bien la información y ofrece una panorámica muy completa sobre la historia irlandesa anterior y posterior al Alzamiento de Pascua, así como a la rebelión en sí. Lo único que me chirría un poco es que no haya nada de bibliografía. Recomendado para quien quiera un acercamiento ni muy informal ni muy erudito.
March 30, 2016
Review Title: Short story of a long history
When I arrived in Dublin in March 2016 for a couple months of work, I didn't realize that I was arriving just in time for St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916. I had a fuzzy notion of Irish history: there were long periods of contentious colonization by bigger neighbor England, punctuated by Protestant and Catholic hatred, and brief periods of extreme outbreaks of violence, famine, and emigration. But if I was going to make Ireland home for a few months and enjoy the two week long street celebration (nobody knows how to celebrate better than the Irish!) I owed it to the people and the country to learn a bit more.
And a bit more is what this small book gives you. Not intended to be in depth or scholarly, it gives just enough background of the political, social, and religious divides that lead up to the events of 1916. While I knew that at various times over a century or more some liberal-minded British politicians had proposed home rule for Ireland, which I assumed was a good thing and universally applauded by the Irish. Not so I learned here. Home rule within the British Empire is still something short of independence, and that was what was at stake.
The middle half of the book then gives a day by day account of the Rising's events in the various locations, which were mostly around central Dublin. The timing, during the midst of The Great War when the Allied forces were not faring well (and before the sleeping American giant awoke), was both intentional and controversial, dividing support at home as much or more than it helped by attacking a distracted British government. So the long and short is that the Uprising was mostly short and unsuccessful, but joyously and justifiably celebrated today because much like America's Declaration of Independence it set off the chain of events that culminated in victory.
But not without more blood, sweet and tears, as the final fourth of the book makes clear in bringing the history forward from the Rising to today. The last few pages of the book are short biographies, confusingly including some of people not mentioned earlier in the book. While it met my purpose, there are a couple of other quibbles that knocked a star off my rating: there is no index or bibliography for further reading (an essential for an introductory volume like this), and while heavily illustrated, many of the illustrations are textbook quality paintings of people or events. These events took place 100 years ago, well within the photographic era, so more actual photographs would have been better. But at just 5 euros it is an easy entry point into the history of the Rising for the uninitiated and non-Irish like me.
When I arrived in Dublin in March 2016 for a couple months of work, I didn't realize that I was arriving just in time for St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916. I had a fuzzy notion of Irish history: there were long periods of contentious colonization by bigger neighbor England, punctuated by Protestant and Catholic hatred, and brief periods of extreme outbreaks of violence, famine, and emigration. But if I was going to make Ireland home for a few months and enjoy the two week long street celebration (nobody knows how to celebrate better than the Irish!) I owed it to the people and the country to learn a bit more.
And a bit more is what this small book gives you. Not intended to be in depth or scholarly, it gives just enough background of the political, social, and religious divides that lead up to the events of 1916. While I knew that at various times over a century or more some liberal-minded British politicians had proposed home rule for Ireland, which I assumed was a good thing and universally applauded by the Irish. Not so I learned here. Home rule within the British Empire is still something short of independence, and that was what was at stake.
The middle half of the book then gives a day by day account of the Rising's events in the various locations, which were mostly around central Dublin. The timing, during the midst of The Great War when the Allied forces were not faring well (and before the sleeping American giant awoke), was both intentional and controversial, dividing support at home as much or more than it helped by attacking a distracted British government. So the long and short is that the Uprising was mostly short and unsuccessful, but joyously and justifiably celebrated today because much like America's Declaration of Independence it set off the chain of events that culminated in victory.
But not without more blood, sweet and tears, as the final fourth of the book makes clear in bringing the history forward from the Rising to today. The last few pages of the book are short biographies, confusingly including some of people not mentioned earlier in the book. While it met my purpose, there are a couple of other quibbles that knocked a star off my rating: there is no index or bibliography for further reading (an essential for an introductory volume like this), and while heavily illustrated, many of the illustrations are textbook quality paintings of people or events. These events took place 100 years ago, well within the photographic era, so more actual photographs would have been better. But at just 5 euros it is an easy entry point into the history of the Rising for the uninitiated and non-Irish like me.
June 24, 2018
Really enjoyed and learned a lot of details I couldn't have fathomed before. Though I'm still quite interested in the small number of 'black' Irish people during that time that might have fought during the rising as well.
Read
January 13, 2025i don't know how to rate this seeing as i'm not a historian, nor am i particularly qualified in anything, but i enjoyed reading this and feel much more worldly now (even if my definition of worldly is knowing the history of my own country, apparently)
tiocfaidh ár lá
tiocfaidh ár lá
Read
July 4, 2021Great little book full of interesting facts really enjoyable it's an easy read
September 28, 2024
It's exactly what you expect - a great intro to the topic but not enough detail for certain periods I would have liked to know more about.
April 24, 2025
A functional guide to the history of 1916. Not amazingly written, terribly printed, but a useful primer if you want to dig deeper
September 4, 2025
Nice and quick read. Educational and insightful.
December 31, 2025
Solid summary; at times a little lackluster and meandering but overall informative.
September 21, 2016
Excellent overview. Not dumbed down.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews