Patrick Pearse, or Pádrig Pearse was
born in 1879 to an English father and Irish mother. His father was
self-educated, a free-thinking man and sculptor. His Irish mother and her
family introduced Patrick to an early love of the Irish language and culture.
After a Catholic education, he received
a scholarship to the Royal University where he studied law, and later, Pearse
was called to the bar. His only known case as a barrister was his defense of a
man who was fined for writing his name “illegibly.” The name was not illegible,
but rather written in the Irish language. Although the case was lost, a modern
reader may see that this case certainly represents Pearse’s pride in Irish
language and culture and foreshadows his later defense of Irish freedom. During
college, Patrick joined the Gaelic league, writing for the newspaper and
becoming “single-mindedly committed to the revival of the Irish language and to
educational reform.”
Scholars believe that Pearse
initially believed that this cultural revival and reform was more important
than political independence; however, one can certainly see the ease of
transition to accepted these views. For example, at the heart of his
educational philosophy, Pearse felt that from any angle “the Irish problem” was
rooted in the “education question,” saying,
“The prostitution of education in
this land has led to many other prostitutions. Poisoned at its source, the
whole stream of national life has stagnated and grown foul. The divorce of education
from the soil has extended from the tiniest National School on a Kerry
mountainside up to the high academic places of the land.”
With the basis of his nationalism in
education, Pearse came to support the cause. In 1908, he established a boys’
school in which the pupils were expected to “work hard… for their fatherland,
and if it should ever be necessary… [to] die for it.”
Although it was believed that he
never actually fired a shot, Pearse played an active role in the uprising,
acting as spokesperson, dispatcher, instructor, and justifier. He even read the
Proclamation aloud and organized the evacuation of the Post Office. It was said
that he felt some moral qualms about the undertaking, but he believed, quite
religiously and mystically, in the power of a “blood sacrifice,” and the concept
of “bloodshed
[as] a cleansing and sanctifying thing.” Certainly, his poetry represents his
devotion to both religion and the cause, depicted a faithful mother who gives
her sons for her country and the newborn king that will avenge the Gael.
The night before his execution he
wrote “The Wayfarer,” with the final lines “And I have gone upon my way /
Sorrowful.” However, he wrote to his mother saying, “This is the death I should
have asked for if God had given me the choice of all deaths,” and the story has
it that he whistled on the way to his execution. Many see Pearse as the embodiment
of the, although his reputation is somewhat problematic due to his writings
being used by the Provisional IRA in 1969. Pádrig Pearse remains an important and
interesting Irish figure, certainly during the centenary of the 1916 Rising, as
the country continues to “debate the evolving meaning of Irish nationalism.”
Works of Patrick Pearse: https://www.ucc.ie/celt/pearsefic.html
Article on Pearse’s educational
philosophy:
Biography:
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