Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Profile Books (2009), Edition: First Editon, 224 pages
Description
Taken over by the Irish Volunteers on Easter Monday 1916 and held for nearly a week, the rebels finally surrendered the GPO to the Crown forces after heavy gun bombardment, and the ensuing conflagration reduced it to an empty shell and destroyed much of the centre of the city.Clair Wills' fascinating book also explores the twists and turns that the myth of the GPO has undergone in the last century. It has stood for sacrifice and treachery, national unity and divisive violence, for the future and the past.
User reviews
LibraryThing member MacDad
Much as the Alamo does for Texas, the neo-classical General Post Office in Dublin serves today as a symbol of a people’s struggle for independence. On Easter Monday, 1916, the building was among those seized by a band of armed men, who then proclaimed the creation of an Irish republic in front of
Wills begins by recounting the role of the GPO in the Easter Rising. She explains the importance of the building to the people of the time, noting that the pervasive presence of the Post Office throughout Ireland and the imposing grandeur of the building itself contributed to its attractiveness as a target for the rebels. She goes on to recount the key events of the Rising that took place inside; though she fits them within the context of events as they developed, she keeps her focus here squarely on the GPO and the surrounding streets, ignoring the details of events at such places as Boland’s Mill and Jacob’s Biscuit Factory. With the end of the Rising Wills moves on to describe its immediate aftermath, noting that the event was quickly relegated to the background for most people giving the ongoing drama of the First World War. Yet artists and writers were already beginning the process of memorializing the Rising, and their paintings and poems contributed to the establishment of the role of the building as the stage for the central drama of the event.
Recognizing its growing symbolism, the authorities went to considerable lengths to prevent the building from being used as a stage for demonstrations against British rule during the War of Independence. But with independence the GPO became the scene of struggle once more – only this time it became part of the larger political struggle over the meaning of independence. By the 1930s, the GPO began to play a new role as well, as it served as a symbol to remind the post-independence generation of the sacrifices made. This usage reached a peak with the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 1966, after which the parades and rhetoric were downplayed so as to avoid efforts by Sinn Fein to associate the Rising with the ongoing Troubles in Northern Ireland. Wills concludes by describing the ongoing importance of the GPO to Irish identity today, one evident by the plans to remodel the site in preparation for the centennial of the Rising in 2016.
Wills’s book provides a thoughtful examination of the GPO and its role as a symbol of Irish history. Her abilities as a literary scholar are on fine display, as she analyzes the works that are part of this process with insight and clarity. Her success in this regard makes her book a valuable study not just of the GPO or of the memorialization of the Rising, but of the construction of historical symbols and the role that they play in the development of national identity, one that can be read for pleasure as well as enlightenment.
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its stone columns and turned it into a headquarters for the subsequent battle against government forces. Though gutted in the fighting, the GPO was rebuilt, and in the years that followed the building became the backdrop for commemorations of the struggle for Irish independence. The GPO and its role in memorializing the Rising is the subject of Clair Wills’ short study, which explains how the building came to assume such a central role in the Irish national consciousness.Wills begins by recounting the role of the GPO in the Easter Rising. She explains the importance of the building to the people of the time, noting that the pervasive presence of the Post Office throughout Ireland and the imposing grandeur of the building itself contributed to its attractiveness as a target for the rebels. She goes on to recount the key events of the Rising that took place inside; though she fits them within the context of events as they developed, she keeps her focus here squarely on the GPO and the surrounding streets, ignoring the details of events at such places as Boland’s Mill and Jacob’s Biscuit Factory. With the end of the Rising Wills moves on to describe its immediate aftermath, noting that the event was quickly relegated to the background for most people giving the ongoing drama of the First World War. Yet artists and writers were already beginning the process of memorializing the Rising, and their paintings and poems contributed to the establishment of the role of the building as the stage for the central drama of the event.
Recognizing its growing symbolism, the authorities went to considerable lengths to prevent the building from being used as a stage for demonstrations against British rule during the War of Independence. But with independence the GPO became the scene of struggle once more – only this time it became part of the larger political struggle over the meaning of independence. By the 1930s, the GPO began to play a new role as well, as it served as a symbol to remind the post-independence generation of the sacrifices made. This usage reached a peak with the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 1966, after which the parades and rhetoric were downplayed so as to avoid efforts by Sinn Fein to associate the Rising with the ongoing Troubles in Northern Ireland. Wills concludes by describing the ongoing importance of the GPO to Irish identity today, one evident by the plans to remodel the site in preparation for the centennial of the Rising in 2016.
Wills’s book provides a thoughtful examination of the GPO and its role as a symbol of Irish history. Her abilities as a literary scholar are on fine display, as she analyzes the works that are part of this process with insight and clarity. Her success in this regard makes her book a valuable study not just of the GPO or of the memorialization of the Rising, but of the construction of historical symbols and the role that they play in the development of national identity, one that can be read for pleasure as well as enlightenment.
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Language
Original language
English
Physical description
224 p.; 5.67 inches
ISBN
1846680530 / 9781846680533