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 An Appreciation 
 
 of 
 
 Padralr H. p^aro^ 
 
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 BY 
 
 William <S. fJamll, <$.<&.<E 
 
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Padraic H. Pearse 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/appreciationofpaOOofar 
 

 To 
 
 The Very Reverend Peter Eli as Magennis, 
 o. c. c. 
 
 As a token 
 
 Of a life-long esteem and an appreciation 
 
 Of his untiring efforts in the cause of Ireland, 
 
 This essav is affectionately dedicated. 
 
Chas. F. Connolly, Union Label Printer 
 1920 Lexington Avenue 
 New York 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The scant leisure time afforded me from my 
 missionary duties I willingly and with much 
 pleasure devoted to reading and lecturing 
 about Ireland's hero and martyr, Padraic H. 
 Pearse. After the first lecture delivered in 
 Xew York City, an editor of a weekly paper 
 approached me for the manuscript which I was 
 unable to give for the simple reason that such 
 a commodity was not in my possession. The 
 request, however, was received by me as a hint 
 to put my thoughts on paper, and this I did to 
 such an extent that no editor, even the most 
 willing, could be expected to publish them in 
 a weekly paper. This together with the hope 
 of making this great man known and conse- 
 quently loved by the many who perhaps could 
 not find time to peruse the pages of a more 
 lengthy volume account for my ready submis- 
 sion to the further suggestion to publish them 
 
in the present form. I am aware that this 
 essay would be more complete had I been able 
 to procure the remainder of Pearse's writings 
 published in Ireland, but which owing to the 
 paternal solicitude of a wise censor have not 
 yet reached this side of the Atlantic. How- 
 ever, the material I had to hand gives the char- 
 acter, the thoughts, the aspirations of the man ; 
 what remains treats more of his national life, 
 and of this we may in truth say : "nothing be- 
 came him in life like the leaving it." 
 
 I wish to express my gratitude to Mr. Liam 
 Mellows, F. D. E., an Irish patriot and an 
 intimate friend of Padraic Pearse, for his valu- 
 able suggestions in his reading of the proof 
 sheets. 
 
 The Author. 
 
A new era is dawning over the world. 
 Europe is awakening" from "the nightmare 
 sleep of nations beneath kings/ 7 and Freedom's 
 sacred fire is all aglow in the hearts of indi- 
 viduals and of peoples. Ireland's voice for 
 freedom which has sounded incessantly 
 through the dark ages of oppression to-day 
 rings louder and more hopeful. Three years 
 ago the tricolor of an Irish Republic was un- 
 furled to the breeze, and men beheld with joy 
 the approach of their long expected redemp- 
 tion. It is natural that when the names of 
 those who are hailed as the champions of lib- 
 erty and justice are spoken of with the rever- 
 ence due to a hero our thoughts should turn 
 to him who was the soul of the Irish Republic, 
 to him who died that Innisfail might live. 
 Padraic Pearse might have been a noted bar- 
 rister, a world renowned educationalist, a pro- 
 found scholar, or a faithful disciple of Apollo. 
 Instead he "turned his back on the dream he 
 had shaped" and set his face to walk another 
 road and to do another work. To this end he 
 would devote the best energies of a gifted mind 
 and a healthy body, to accomplish his ideal he 
 would pay the supreme price. Unlike a Hamlet 
 philosophising through an entire lifetime on 
 the best means to use in following a dictate of 
 conscience, once he determined that his coun- 
 
 l 
 
try needed his service this son of the Gael 
 went bravely and unflinchingly forward. 
 
 Ireland's metropolis has the honor of being 
 the birthplace of Padraic Pearse. He w r as one 
 of a family of four, two sisters and one brother, 
 William, who also was executed. His mother 
 is an Irish Catholic, and his father was an Eng- 
 lishman and a convert to Catholicity. Having 
 completed his secondary education in the 
 Christian Brothers' school where he began 
 the study of his native tongue, he entered on a 
 higher course of studies in the Catholic Uni- 
 versity College then a teaching college for the 
 old Royal under the control of the Jesuit 
 Fathers now a constituent college of the Na- 
 tional University of Ireland. Apparently no 
 cleverer than the average student the years of 
 his university training were distinguished only 
 by a careful and diligent study of the Irish 
 language and literature ; and an earnestness 
 which characterised him in all his endeavours. 
 He graduated from this college receiving the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts, and shortly after- 
 wards was called to the Bar. An instructive 
 and an impressive, without being oratorical, 
 speaker had he practised his profession his suc- 
 cess was assured. Of a shy and retiring dis- 
 position his conversation with the casual ac- 
 quaintance on the ordinary topics of life was 
 scant and prosaic. With the coterie of kindred 
 
 2 
 
spirits and when the theme was an Irish- 
 Ireland his speech had the zeal and power of 
 a missionary. The peroration of his eulogy at 
 the graveside of O'Donovan Rossa is a striking 
 example. 
 
 At the early age of sixteen he placed himself 
 in' surroundings in which the ideal and the 
 aspirations of his heart were to be realised. 
 The Gaelic League stood for all that was best 
 in the revival and the development of the tradi- 
 tions of Romantic Ireland. Her industries, her 
 language and literature, her music, her games 
 and customs needed fostering if the couplet of 
 Yeats : 
 
 "Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, 
 It's with O'Lcary in the grave," 
 is to remain untrue. This is the task that that 
 bright band of scholars undertook to do. What 
 a congenial atmosphere for the true lover of 
 Ireland! Here he would meet men whose 
 thoughts and aspirations, in substance at least, 
 were similar to his ; men of the calibre of Dr. 
 Douglas Hyde a Gaelic scholar, and the Presi- 
 dent of the Gaelic League with whom he be- 
 came acquainted. His admiration for him he 
 expressed in the words, "I have served under 
 him since I was a boy. I am willing: to serve 
 him until he can lead and I can serve no 
 longer." He was appointed editor of An 
 Claidheamh Soluis (The Sword of Light), 
 
the weekly paper of this organization. He 
 studied Irish, and. in order that he might 
 speak it more fluently, he used to dwell for 
 months at a time in a little cabin amongst 
 the peasants of Iar Connacht. By this so- 
 journ in the beautiful wild West he gained 
 a mastery over the language enabling him 
 to continue the efficient editor of "the organ 
 of militant Gaeldom." In this mouthpiece 
 of an Irish-Ireland he clearly expressed his 
 views in a number of articles written in the 
 two vernaculars, Irish and English. In the 
 performance of this fruitful employment he 
 never relaxed his efforts until he left the office 
 of An Claidheamh Soluis to assume the role 
 of an educationalist. 
 
 Pearse had something new to add to the 
 meaning and true method of education. The 
 issue for Christmas, 1909, of An Macamoh, 
 (The Youth), an occasional review written for 
 the pupils of St. Enda's school, contains his 
 views on the scope of education. Many modern 
 systems are decried without claiming: orisrinal- 
 ity for his own. On the contrary he awards 
 the palm to the solution of the Gaelic sages 
 of two thousand years ago. With them "to 
 educate" meant "to foster." The teacher was 
 a "fosterer," and the pupil was a "foster-child." 
 The function of the master was not "to guide," 
 "to prepare for examinations," "to indoctri- 
 
nate." He was to develop the latent qualities 
 of the child, to aid him to realise himself in the 
 best and noblest way, and whilst doing so to re- 
 gard each pupil as an individual human soul 
 requiring individual fostering. 
 
 When endorsing this method Pearse had in 
 mind the baneful results of the "cramming" 
 system occasioned by the Intermediate educa- 
 tion of Ireland, resulting, in many secondary 
 schools, in the neglect of those who refused 
 "to be crammed." 
 
 He goes on to develop what is implied in 
 this theory of education. To perforin this God- 
 given work the teacher should not be the re- 
 jected of all other professions (another defect 
 in the Intermediate schools). He should be 
 endowed with the noblest qualities of soul, or 
 mind, and body. The teachers should be "the 
 captains; the poets, the prophets of their peo- 
 ple." Again, that the child may be "fostered" 
 two conditions are necessary. "In the first 
 place," to use his own words, "education of a 
 child is greatly a matter of congenial environ- 
 ment and, next to this, of wise and loving 
 watchfulness whose chief appeal will be to the 
 finest instincts of the child itself." Writing of 
 the congenial environment he must have re- 
 called the hovels used as schools by the Na- 
 tional Board in the country parts of Ireland. 
 
 In the choice of method he favoured the bi- 
 
lingual system. To obtain a thorough knowl- 
 edge of it he studied in Belgium and Holland, 
 and decided that it was the method to use in 
 the education of Irish youths where the teach- 
 ing of their language is essential. It succeeded 
 in Belgium, why not in Ireland? He would put 
 it to the test by starting St. Enda's college for 
 boys, the first Catholic lay college in Ireland. 
 The success of the bi-lingual and of all Pearse's 
 educational theories is gauged from the fact 
 that owing to the sudden increase in the num- 
 ber of the students St. Enda's had to be trans- 
 ferred from Cullenswood House, Rathmines, 
 Dublin, to a much more spacious eighteen-cen- 
 tury mansion, the Hermitage, situated in 
 Rathfarnham, a suburb of Dublin, and in the 
 vicinity of the Irish Carmelite Novitiate. Cul- 
 lenswood house was opened as a school for 
 girls, and called after St. Ita, the Irish saint. 
 The task of keeping alive the fast dying 
 chivalry of an Irish nationhood must begin with 
 the children. St. Enda's contained all that was 
 necessary for its accomplishment. The con- 
 genial environment was present in the beauti- 
 ful grounds almost at the foot of the Dublin 
 mountains, and the ancient castle whose walls 
 were decorated with paintings depicting inci- 
 dents in Irish history. The teachers were men 
 after the Head-master's own standard. 
 Thomas MacDonagh, scholar, poet and patriot, 
 
was the principal until like Pearse, he bore the 
 suffering and death of the true patriot. These 
 together with an Irish curriculum — text-books, 
 games, and an Irish corps of boy-scouts 
 (trained by Colbert, another sufferer in the 
 Rebellion), commanded the approval of all 
 those "who would bring back again in Ireland 
 that Heroic Age which reserved its highest 
 honor for the hero who had the most childlike 
 heart, for the king who had the largest pity, 
 and for the poet who visioned the truest image 
 of beauty." 
 
 Pearse's literary work began when he be- 
 came editor of The Sword of Light. Now that 
 he was engaged in the work of education all 
 his compositions were directed to the same end. 
 Pie wrote six plays and produced them some 
 in St. Encla's, others in the Abbey Theatre, 
 Dublin ; his brother, William, playing a leading 
 part in most of them. A pageant of the "Boy- 
 Deeds of Cuchulainn" was produced in 1909, 
 the close of the first academic year of the col- 
 lege. The story of the "small, dark, sad boy, 
 comeliest of the boys of Eire," and a great part 
 of the dialogue is taken from the Tain. The 
 play abounds in the inspiration which the 
 writer purposed to instil into the heart and 
 mind of the pupils. "I am anxious," he writes, 
 "to crown the first year's work with something 
 worthy and symbolic ; anxious to send our boys 
 
 7 
 
home with the knightly image of Cuchulainn 
 in their hearts, and his knightly words ringing 
 in their ears.' 1 The Elizabethan drama with 
 Shakespeare as its perfection had its initial 
 stages in the Passion, Miracle, and Morality 
 plays, and the Irish drama was to begin in the 
 same way. "Iosagan/' a miracle play was pro- 
 duced in 1910, and the year following a "Pas- 
 sion Play.'' The author being a devout Catho- 
 lic, a religious strain is present in all his writ- 
 ings, but in these two plays the theme is re- 
 ligious. Of the former he writes in "An 
 Macaomh." "Iosagan is not a play for ordi- 
 nary theatres or for ordinary players. It re- 
 quires a certain atmosphere and a certain at- 
 titude of mind on the part of the actors. It 
 has in fact been written for a performance in 
 a particular place and by particular players. I 
 know that in that place and by those actors it 
 will be treated with the reverence due to a 
 prayer." Founded on his story of the same 
 name "Iosagan" (Little Jesus), is a repre- 
 sentation of the mercy of God granted to an 
 old man, Matthias, who had spent a careless, 
 irreligious life. The eleventh hour conversion 
 appears to be the reward of the old man's kind- 
 ly love for the children to whom he sang 
 nursery rhymes. The scene is laid in Iar-Con- 
 nacht ; the characters are modelled on the peo- 
 ple amongst whom he lived and with whom he 
 
 8 
 
talked during his sojourn in this part of Ire- 
 land. The tale is simply told and the moral 
 carefully pointed. 
 
 In 1912 he published a morality, "The 
 King," and three years later "The Master," 
 and "The Singer" appeared. "An Ri" resem- 
 bles a play of Rabindranath Tagore, the two 
 portraying the image of a humble boy and the 
 pomp of death. Pearse writes of it: "Since I 
 read Mr. Tagore's manuscript I have realised 
 that the two plays are more similar in theme 
 than I had suspected, and that mine will be to 
 his in the nature of an "Amen.*" Of this and 
 the "Master" it may be said, what is true of all 
 his plays, that the characters are drawn from 
 real life; a moral is intended. The ''Singer" 
 is generally regarded to be his best dramatic 
 effort and deserves more lengthy mention. 
 
 Joseph Plunkett said of the "Singer": "If 
 Pearse were dead this would cause a sensa- 
 tion." Pearse himself denied that it was a per- 
 sonal revelation, nevertheless detailed analysis, 
 and comparison with his other writings and 
 especially his life will show that Plunkett was 
 not wrong. The principal character in the 
 play is MacDara, the singer. The resemblance 
 between this character and Pearse is so strik- 
 ing that we may say with no small degree of 
 probability that MacDara is Pearse himself. 
 For instance, the description of MacDara 
 
given by Cuimin, a character in the play is 
 equally true of Pearse. "Young, they say, he 
 is and pale like a man that lived in cities. . . . 
 shy in himself and very silent, till he stands up 
 to talk to the people. And then he has the voice 
 of a silver trumpet, and words so beautiful that 
 they make the people cry. And there is a ter- 
 rible ano-er in him, for all that he is shrinking 
 and gentle." 
 
 Pearse in his frequent references to the work 
 that he must do for Ireland seems to have had 
 a prophetic vision of the death he was to die. 
 The "Singer" contains like forebodings regard- 
 ing MacDara. "I seemed to see myself 
 brought to die before a crowd that stood cold 
 and silent." says MacDara, u and there were 
 some that cursed me in their hearts for having 
 brought death into their houses. Sad silent 
 faces seemed to reproach me. Oh, the wise sad 
 faces of the dead — and the keening of women 
 rang in my ears." In this connection we should 
 recall Pearse's description of a dream he had, 
 "the only really vivid dream I ever had since 
 I used to dream of hobgoblins when I was a 
 child." He dreamt he saw a boy of his col- 
 lege ascending a platform to die for Ireland's, 
 or some other august cause. The boy was sur- 
 rounded by a crowd that was neither friendly 
 nor hostile but silent and unsympathetic. 
 Those people looked upon him as a fool who 
 
 10 
 
was throwing away his life, rather than as a 
 martyr who was doing his duty. 
 
 Again there is an apt description of Pearse 
 in the remarks of MacDara about a poet: "He 
 is only a voice that cries out, a sigh that trem- 
 bles into rest. The true teacher must suffer 
 and do. He must break bread to the people. He 
 must suffer and go into Gethsemane, and toil up 
 the steep of Golgatha." Mrs. Pearse can say of 
 her son what Maire says of MacDara: "Mac- 
 Dara is the Singer that has quickened the dead 
 years and all the quiet dust." The play ends 
 with the sublime thought elsewhere expressed 
 by Pearse: "One man can free a people as one 
 Man redeemed the world. I will take no pike, 
 I will go into the battle with bare hands. I will 
 stand up before the Gall as Christ hung naked 
 before men on the tree." 
 
 These and many other passages in the play 
 are internal evidence of Plunkett's contention 
 that the play is a personal revelation. The ar- 
 gument is strengthened by a comparison. The 
 two poems written the same year as the 
 "Singer," namely, "The Fool," and "The 
 Rebel" — are the same in theme and expression 
 as the "Singer," there is little doubt but that 
 the "fool," and the "rebel" is Pearse himself. 
 In the "Singer," the schoolmaster asks Mac- 
 Dara does he remember the poem he made 
 about the robin he found perished on the door- 
 
 11 
 
step. Recall Pearse's beautiful quattrain on 
 a similar incident : 
 "O Little bird, 
 Cold to me thy lying on the flag: 
 Bird, that never had an evil thought, 
 Pitiful the coming of death to thee." 
 , . . Apart from sentiment which must needs 
 play a part in our admiration of the writings 
 of Padraic Pearse, his plays have a value all 
 their own. A plot is developed, a tale adorned, 
 and a moral taught in the short space of an 
 act, a recommendation in itself. They are a 
 beginning of a New Literature, or rather the 
 revival of an old literature which Doctor Kuno 
 Meyer says "is the most primitive and original 
 among the literatures of Western Europe." 
 They possess, then, the attractive simplicity 
 of rejuvenescence. They are Irish of the 
 Irish; not, however, the Ireland of pagan 
 times, but Ireland enjoying the choicest bless- 
 ings of Christianity. How could it be other- 
 wise since the scenes are laid and the charac- 
 ters drawn from Iar-Connacht, a place more 
 remote than any other from Anglo-Saxon 
 influence. 
 
 To understand aright what is meant by the 
 Gaelic-Irish characters and atmosphere in 
 Pearse's plays we have but to read them in 
 conjunction with those of the writers con- 
 nected with the Irish Literary Theatre. I take 
 
 12 
 
this movement because it is contemporaneous 
 with the Gaelic revival from which in all likeli- 
 hood it received its inspiration. Certainly a 
 place is claimed for it in the Gaelic 
 Renaissance. It comprises play-writers whose 
 productions are staged in the Abbey Theatre, 
 Dublin. These writers, Yeats, Boyle, Synge, 
 Lady Gregory, and others undertook to do 
 for the Irish stage what was begun in 
 England, France, and Germany in the last 
 decade of the nineteenth century. Their pur- 
 pose is to write plays dealing with Irish life. 
 They are sincere. They succeed in "holding 
 the mirror up to nature," but the reflection in 
 some instances is of pagan Ireland and in 
 many, if not all, the characters are not truly 
 Irish. Not that they give a caricature, nor 
 are they to be accused of the unpardonable 
 fault of sneering. On the contrary, they are 
 true to the original, the original, however, is 
 Ireland under an alien government, and the 
 characters are "hybrids" with a strange mix- 
 ture of Irish and Anglo-Saxon, the latter 
 predominating. For instance, one of the best 
 known plays of William Boyle is "The Elo- 
 quent Dempsey." Dempsey, the leading char- 
 acter, a successful business man in the town 
 of Cloghermore, desires to enter public life. 
 Not content with becoming a Town-Councillor 
 for which his influence with the people and his 
 
 13 
 
eloquence adapted him, he wants to move in 
 high society, "the upper ten/' by a government 
 appointment to be a Justice of the Peace. To 
 accomplish his plans he sides with the English 
 officials to present an address to the Chief 
 Secretary, whilst at the same time he signs a 
 protest of the people against it. Stratagem, 
 chicanery, are resorted to, but finally he falls 
 to the ground — the inevitable lot of the man 
 who tries to sit between two stools. 
 
 In this satire on the ambitions of a foolish 
 man there is a similarity to Moliere's "Le 
 Bourgeois Gentilhomme," and written in the 
 same spirit as the French lampoon. But 
 Dempsey is not a Gaelic-Irish character. Yet 
 he is not a mere fiction, for not a few of his type 
 are to be found in Ireland. Who will regard 
 them as Irish? MacDara in the "Singer/' 
 and the eloquent Dempsey — they can be com- 
 pared at least in their attitude to English rule 
 — are as opposite as the poles. MacDara is 
 ready to fight against the alien government; 
 Dempsey seeks its honors. The one is the 
 Gael; the other is the "Hybrid/' 
 
 No one could think of Pearse being the 
 author of "The Play-Boy of the Western 
 World/' "A Family Failing/' and "Spreading 
 the News," even had they been written in 
 Gaelic. He, like these writers, would correct 
 the shortcomings of his fellow-countrymen, 
 
 14 
 
but his method is different. His correction is 
 j)ositive not negative. True moralist that he 
 is, he will stimulate men to practise the 
 national virtues, more by showing them their 
 beauty than by dwelling on the evil of the 
 opposite vice. Besides, these plays are not the 
 expression of Gaelic thought and life. 
 
 Pearse, apart from his skill as a writer, must 
 have been acquainted with the dramatic art. 
 In play-writing it is not sufficient to produce 
 a story or essay written in the form of a dia- 
 logue or cathechism. There must be action. 
 The play must move if its staging is to awaken 
 and sustain interest. The motion is present 
 if the situations flow from the characters. 
 Pearse's plays, though short, abound in action, 
 and in this respect also they are an advance 
 on the Anglo-Irish plays, notably those of 
 Lady Gregory. To use his own joke, all his 
 masterpieces were written with a view to their 
 performance and the boys to fill the different 
 parts. What he has said of "Cuchulainn" is 
 true of all, namely, "It does not contain a 
 single unnecessary speech, a single unnecessary 
 word." The preparation for the coming 
 strife, the news of Colm's death, and the de- 
 parture of MacDara, in the "Singer;" the 
 noise of battle in which the king is beaten, 
 the arrival of the defeated monarch to ask a 
 blessing of the abbot, the going forth of the 
 
 15 
 
Boy-king, in "An Ri/' afford no dull moment 
 from the rise to the fall of the curtain in these 
 two plays. 
 
 The Irish drama, as the literature in general, 
 is still in its infancy. Much remains to be 
 perfected. Youthful writers can do no better 
 than build up and adorn the dramatic edifice 
 on the foundation laid by Pearse and his 
 associates. 
 
 It speaks well for the simplicity and the 
 purity of heart of a man when he is attracted 
 to children and they to him. Padraic Pearse 
 possessed the Christ-like love for the little 
 ones. He studied them, and understanding 
 them, he loved them. Had he written a psy- 
 chology of the child-mind, it would have been 
 a valuable contribution to mental science. His 
 ten short stories show a sympathetic insight 
 into the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, 
 the spirituality and the shortcomings of the 
 little denizens of Iar Connacht, placing them 
 high amongst the juvenile tales of modern 
 writers. Originally written in Irish, they have 
 lost little of their simple expressiveness in the 
 English translation, whilst at the same time 
 they are made accessible to those who are not 
 familiar with the language of the Gael. Ac- 
 cording to the dictum of Dryden, "A thing 
 well said will be wit in all languages," I think 
 the stories of Pearse wil 1 retain the moral 
 
 16 
 
force and charm of simplicity, no matter what 
 the mode of expression may be. The transla- 
 tions themselves seem to give a new style of 
 English prose, which though far removed 
 from the use of ponderous words, reaches a 
 high level of description. Here is a passage 
 from the simple charming little tale of "Eoi- 
 neen of the Birds," one from a number of 
 similar word-pictures: k The 'piper of the 
 ashes' (the cricket) came out, and started on 
 his heartsome tune. The mother stayed by 
 the heartside, pondering. The little boy stayed 
 on his airy seat, watching. The cows came 
 home from the pasture. The hen called to her 
 her chickens. The blackbird and the wren, and 
 the other little people of the wood went to. 
 sleep. The buzzing of the flies was stopped, 
 and the bleating of the lambs. The sun sank 
 slowly till it was close to the bottom of the 
 sky, till it was exactly on the bottom of 
 the sky, till it was under the bottom of the 
 sky. A cold wind blew from the east. The 
 darkness spread on the earth. At last Eoineen 
 came in. 
 
 "I fear they won't come this night/' says 
 he. "Maybe, with God's help, they might come 
 to-morrow." 
 
 In this passage we have a painting in minia- 
 ture of a wayside cottage in the country part 
 of Ireland at the close of evening. There is 
 
 17 
 
no profusion. No word of more than two 
 syllables. The whole is simplicity without 
 being "simplesse." 
 
 Four of the ten stories are translations of 
 "Iosagan agus Sgealta Eile;" the remaining 
 six of "An Matair." In all, with one excep- 
 tion — "Brigid of the Songs" — the theme treats 
 directly or indirectly of a child. The adults 
 serve as a connecting link, and by contrast 
 make the youthful character all the more at- 
 tractive. Maire, the childless woman, "hugs 
 her heart and whispers in the dead of night 
 to the child that isn't born, and will not be." 
 She obtains this blessing by the personal visit 
 of The Mother of God and The Child Jesus 
 on Christmas Eve. Nora, weary of the re- 
 straint and trials of parental care, seeks her 
 freedom on "the roads," whence she is recalled 
 by a vision of The Saviour on His dolorous 
 way: "Let me go with you Jesus, and carry 
 your cross for you." Brigid of the Songs with 
 the pride and unconquerable perseverance of 
 the Celt, walks from Galway to Dublin to com- 
 pete for the prize. She succeeds and by her 
 death wins "a greater reward than the first 
 prize." A loving kindness toward his little sick 
 sister tempts Anthony to rob a doll. But "con- 
 science doth make cowards of us all." The thief 
 confesses his sin and receives from the priest 
 the untheological penance to clean the doll's 
 
 18 
 
house once in the week for Eibhlin. With a 
 futile expectancy the return of Coilin is awaited 
 by the Keening Woman. Much self-sacrifice 
 to procure his release from prison ends only 
 in the sad news of his untimely death. Iosa- 
 gan (Little Jesus), playing with the boys, 
 converts old Matthias. Padraigeen, with a 
 shirt for an alb and a school-book for a Missal, 
 plays at saying Mass. His mother, remember- 
 ing that coming events cast their shadow be- 
 fore, says to herself: "My little son will be 
 a priest. And how do I know that it's not a 
 Bishop he might be by and bye?" Brideen is 
 taught the lesson that old friends are best, 
 and that death is the greatest test of one's 
 love for a friend, by her rejected doll, Barbara, 
 falling from the dresser at the critical moment 
 to save her from burning. Eoineen of the 
 Birds, with the gift of a Saint Francis of 
 Assisi, converses with the swallows. In the 
 Autumn he departs with them "to the country 
 where it does be summer always." With a 
 superstition arising from the simple faith of 
 the Irish in the power of a priest, the death 
 of a little girl is attributed to the Dear Daol, 
 the cursed woman. 
 
 Since "brevity is the soul of wit" these tales 
 are its synonym. Nor is the narration incom- 
 plete because of this. The tale is told and the 
 moral lesson taught with a grace and sweet- 
 
 19 
 
ness in these where children are the centre of 
 the theme, , and with somewhat of severity 
 where they play a minor part. The contrast 
 may be accounted for by the application to 
 life in Ireland of the idea contained in Saint 
 Paul's expression: "When I was a child, I 
 spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I 
 thought as a child. But when I became a man, 
 I put away the things of a child." In the 
 morning of life the child is happy amongst his 
 toys and baubles. He speaks little and under- 
 stands less the wrongs heaped upon his native 
 land. Her natural beauty attracts the eye; her 
 melody charms the ear, shedding a lustre on his 
 young life. When he becomes a man these are 
 laid aside and he is confronted with the stern 
 reality of an oppressed country. The hopes 
 and fears which such a condition begets gives 
 us a Muirne of the Keens, and a Coilin. Or 
 it may be that there are two different periods 
 of time : before and after the invasion of the 
 Gall. Certainly he strikes a different note: 
 /' allegro, and il pense.ro so. 
 
 Nowhere more than in his stories do we see 
 that Pearse possessed the never failing char- 
 acteristic of the Irish people: a love of the 
 supernatural. Known to his friends to be of 
 a deeply religious temperament his writings 
 are an utterance from the abundance of the 
 heart. Nor is it in prosperity only that he would 
 
 20 
 
look to God as the Giver of all good gifts. 
 Far from regarding adversity as an evil he 
 gives it the true Christian significance. Little 
 Nora of The Roads imparts the sublime prin- 
 ciple: "Blessed are they that mourn." In her 
 sorrow "she imagined that the place was filled 
 with a sort of half-light, a light that was be- 
 tween the light of the sun and the light of the 
 moon. She saw, very clearly, the feet of the 
 trees, and them dark against a yellowish-green 
 sky. She never saw a sky of that colour be- 
 fore, and it was beautiful to her. She heard 
 a footstep, and she understood that there was 
 someone coming toward her from the lake. 
 She knew in some manner that a prodigious 
 miracle was about to be shown her, and that 
 someone was to suffer there some awful pas- 
 sion. She hadn't long to wait till she saw a 
 young man struggling wearily through the 
 tangle of the wood. He had his head bent 
 and the appearance of a great sorrow on him. 
 Nora recognised him. The Son of Mary that 
 was in it, and she knew that He was journey- 
 ing all alone to His death. . . . The chain that 
 was tying Nora's tongue and limbs till that 
 broke, and she cried aloud: 
 
 "Let me go with You, Jesus, and carry 
 Your cross for You." 
 
 Those entrusted with the intellectual, moral, 
 
 21 
 
and religious training of children know the 
 value of a story to the young mind. When 
 the years of the fairy tale are passed for the 
 child and amusement is the least important 
 purpose of the instructor, the stories of 
 Padraic Pearse will supply the present need. 
 Thus will his name he praised and his memory 
 cherished not only by the children of to-day 
 but by the generations yet unborn. We shall 
 see realised his own life's dream: 
 
 "Of riches or of store 
 I shall not leave behind me 
 
 ( Yet I deem it, O God sufficient) 
 But my name in the heart of a child." 
 Amongst the poets of the New Literature 
 we find the name of Padraic Pearse. His 
 contribution was given in 1914, when he pub- 
 lished a small volume of poems containing but 
 a dozen lyrics in all. The title "Suantraidhe 
 agus Goltraidhe" (Songs of Sleep and of 
 Sorrow), is appropriate for the emotion in all 
 but two of the lyrics, "Lullaby of a Woman 
 of the Mountain," and ''Little Lad of the 
 Tricks,'' is sadness. It is a sadness, however, 
 that does not depress. The two poems on 
 death are the expression of the patriot-poet 
 who is tortured by the desires of his heart and 
 longs for the coming of death that they may 
 be quietened by their realization. It is only 
 because death is the necessary means, under 
 
 22 
 
the existing circumstances, to the accomplish- 
 ment of his desire that it is : 
 "Brighter to me than light of day 
 
 The dark of thy house, tho black clay; 
 Sweeter to vie than the music of trumpets 
 
 The quiet of thy house and its eternal silence/' 
 The gloom then rather exhilirates than casts 
 down. It is a darkness preceding the light ; 
 a sorrow that shall soon give place to gladness. 
 In view of this it doth appear that there is a 
 sequence of thought in the two poems on death 
 and the three — "Why Do Ye Torture Me?" 
 "The Ideal/' and "I Am Ireland." The former 
 are the logical deduction of the latter. 
 
 Even in his poetry he is not unmindful of 
 his dear beloved children. In "The Rami of 
 a Little Playmate,'' "Little Lad of the Tricks," 
 and "To a Beloved Child, 1 ' the poet sings 
 about a child ; in "A Lullaby of a Woman of 
 the Mountain," "A Woman Keens Her Son," 
 and the personal lyric "I Have Not Garnered 
 Gold," he shares his song with the little ones. 
 The poem, "A Woman of the Mountain Keens 
 Her Son" reminds us of the story of almost the 
 same name and subject. 
 
 These together with "O Little Bird," already 
 quoted in this essay, and "O Lovely Head,'' 
 in which Ireland is addressed as a beautiful 
 woman, but without the hope and jubilation 
 expressed in William Rooney's "O Dear Dark 
 
 23 
 
Head," comprise the entire volume of which 
 Thomas MacDonagh writes in his book, "Lit- 
 erature in Ireland": kk One need not ask if it 
 be worth while having books of such poetry. 
 The production of this is already a success for 
 the new literature/" And again, "I think them 
 good poetry and true poetry." 
 
 It can hardly be true of his poems what was 
 said of his stories that they lose little or none 
 of their value in the English translation. The 
 translations are literal and consequently much 
 of the "verse-music" is absent. This may be 
 asserted of translations from all languages and 
 more particularly of Irish when the poet, as 
 in the present instance, uses some of the older 
 forms of verse which came to him not in writ- 
 ten records but by oral tradition. When the 
 poet puts his wine in old bottles the transla- 
 tor who serves up the same in new bottles is 
 not giving the original. The verse-music of 
 the Celt cannot be reproduced in bottles shaped 
 in an Anglo-Saxon mould. James Clarence 
 Mangan, an Anglo-Irish poet of the nineteenth 
 century, may appear to be an exception. He 
 is not. Mangan's translations from the Irish 
 are no more mere translations than those from 
 the German. What he gives is one-third the 
 original and two-thirds Mangan. It is not a 
 translation. It is original verse. 
 
 Apart from the versification the poems of 
 
 24 
 
Pearse retain their intrinsic worth in the Eng- 
 lish version. Writing about this "Suantraidhe 
 agus Goltraidhe" MacDonagh says: "Writ- 
 ten in English, it might well have had a sure 
 success." At the present time it bids fair 
 for the translation meeting with this success. 
 Poetry has been defined as "the expression of 
 the beautiful in rhythmic verse." The trans- 
 lation of such into any language will retain 
 the thought of the beautiful and the thought's 
 expression, even though the rhythm may be 
 absent. The soliloquies of Hamlet and the 
 passionate outbursts of Othello are things of 
 beauty in any language. Dante is read and 
 admired by the many who are unacquainted 
 with Italian. Such is the case, in a humbler 
 way, with the translated poems of Pearse. We 
 learn his thoughts of God, of country, and of 
 children, and are attracted by the simplicity 
 and tenderness of their expression; we gain an 
 insight into the aspirations of his profound 
 yet childlike soul. 
 
 The twelve "Songs of Sleep and of Sorrow," 
 "The Dord Feinne," "Christ's Coming," and 
 probably "Song for Mary Magdalen," and "The 
 Rami of a Little Playmate"-— I say probably, 
 because they are taken from "The Master" of 
 which no Gaelic manuscript is extant — are the 
 bulk of his poems written in Gaelic. Some 
 half-dozen written in English show the force 
 
 25 
 
of MacDonagh's criticism that even using 
 English as the vehicle of expression he is no 
 mean poet. "The Fool/ 5 and "The Rebel" 
 strike a personal note and are prophetic. In 
 these verses the poet has laid aside the emo- 
 tion of sorrow, and whilst there is present a 
 pity and tenderness, they throb with a 
 righteous defiance. "The Fool" and "The 
 Rebel" or — to paraphrase the two in one — 
 "The Rebel/' who is regarded as a fool by 
 those who are unable or are loathe to under- 
 stand the holy aspirations that burn the patri- 
 ot's soul, beholds the wrongs of his people, and 
 knowing their cause, determines to purchase 
 their redemption by paying the supreme price. 
 He may be called a dreamer, he is to-day by 
 unthinking minds, but he answers : 
 "Oh, zeise men, riddle me this: what if the 
 dream come true? 
 
 What if the dream come true? and if millions 
 unborn shall dwell 
 
 In the house that I shaped in my heart, the 
 noble house of my thought?" 
 The similarity in thought of these two poems 
 to that expressed in "The Singer" has been 
 noted. That one man must die to save the 
 nation as Christ died to save the world was 
 the predominant thought of his life. The ex- 
 tent of this sublime conception may be seen 
 by the analysis of the short religious poem 
 
 26 
 
written for "Christmas. 1915": 
 "0 King that was born 
 
 To set bondsmen free, 
 In the coming battle 
 
 Help the Gael/' 
 It is a prayer asking the King of Kings who 
 1)v His death freed man from the bondage of 
 sin to assist the Gael in the coming effort to 
 redeem the nation. Pearse seems to have re- 
 garded himself as the Gael called upon to do, 
 or at least to assist in doing this noble work. 
 Being a fervent Catholic the spiritual aspect 
 of the project was uppermost in his mind. The 
 analogv — salva revercntia — between the 
 work of Christ and that of the Gael appealed 
 to him. The Redeemer died on Good Friday 
 the despised and rejected of men. Deserted 
 even by His friends He appeared to all but the 
 faithful few to be a defeated Man. The cause 
 for which He suffered was misunderstood by 
 many and doubted by some. Time and time 
 alone was necessary to witness the triumph of 
 apparent failure. "Galillean Thou hast con- 
 quered" was soon to be the verdict of the 
 world. 
 
 It will be thus with the Gael. He will die 
 for his country, and in doing so some of his 
 friends will leave him, and many will blame 
 him in their heart for. the sorrow he has 
 brought into their homes. Apparently a 
 
 27 
 
beaten man, he will see his efforts checked by 
 the numerical superiority of the opposing' 
 forces. But the cause will have triumphed. 
 Time will see him crowned with the laurel- 
 wreath, and the palm of victory in his hand. 
 His countrymen will rest in the shadow of 
 Freedom's Tree planted on that great day. 
 
 To strengthen the analogy we must remem- 
 ber that Pearse always hoped that the day on 
 which the first shot would be fired for Ireland's 
 freedom might be Good Friday. He did not 
 expect nor did he look for an immediate ma- 
 terial regeneration. It must first be spiritual. 
 His Ireland was the Ireland of the past; the 
 Ireland of the high tradition of Cuchulainn, 
 "better is short life with honour than long life 
 with dishonour," "I care not though I were to 
 live but one day and one night, if only my 
 fame and my deeds live after me;" the noble 
 tradition of Fianna, "we, the Fianna, never 
 told a lie, falsehood was never imputed to us," 
 "strength in our hand, truth on our lips, and 
 cleanness in our hearts;" the Christlike tradi- 
 tion of Colm Cille, "if I die, it shall be from 
 the excess of love I bear the Gael." 
 
 He would have this the Ireland of the pres- 
 ent. Then he turned and beheld with sorrow 
 that the soul of the nation was sleeping almost 
 in the eternal sleep of death. This soul must 
 
 28 
 
be awakened if the nation's treasure is to be 
 something more than the memory of an ancient 
 glory. Sacrifice is the only adaquate means 
 for this awakening. He will follow his hero, 
 Robert Emmet, in making this supreme 
 sacrifice. 
 
 The task then of Pearse and his associates 
 in Easter Week, 1916, was not political. Poli- 
 ticians had tried, and failed. Politics as such 
 had no attraction for him. He was a patriot 
 with a most exalted idea of patriotism. To 
 him the nation as the individual is composed 
 of a body and soul. Like the individual the soul 
 of each nation is distinct from all others. It 
 must be free to live its own life and to develop 
 along its own lines. The soul of Ireland is 
 that of the Gael. Men, even Irishmen, must 
 be reminded that this soul still lives though 
 grown decrepid. Once this soul is regenerated 
 and freed from the foreign influence that would 
 destroy its very life, then all things else will 
 work unto good. 
 
 The work he set himself to accomplish was 
 twofold. He would cast off the unjust rule of 
 the stranger, and in this very act, complete the 
 awakening of the soul of the nation to a con- 
 sciousness of its destiny, and its latent power 
 to effect its own perfection. The latter is a 
 sacred duty. It touches the very well-spring of 
 the nation's life. Accordingly, no gross mate- 
 
 29 
 
rialism should find a place in the means he will 
 adopt. To a character such as his the material- 
 ism expressed in. the blasphemous saying: 
 "God is always on the side of the heaviest ar- 
 tillery," is deserving of severe condemnation. 
 He will rise in rebellion; he will use the 
 weapons of war, but not before he invokes the 
 blessing of the God of nations. He will ascend 
 the steep of Golgatha in the cause of Ireland 
 in the same spirit as His Master ascended it 
 for all mankind. 
 
 Little wonder that the event of Easter Week, 
 1916, which appeared to be a foolish endeavour 
 is in the light of the present conditions in Ire- 
 land a glorious success. Little wonder, too, 
 that this event which to men who judged from 
 a material standpoint only was a fatal tragedy 
 in the history of a nation is to-day command- 
 ing the admiration of fair-minded men over 
 the world. 
 
 The two poems "On the Strand of Howth," 
 and "The Wayfarer," are excellent samples 
 of Pearse's appreciation of the beautiful in the 
 things of nature, and his wealth of poetic dic- 
 tion. The music of the waves breaking on the 
 strand of Howth; the chant of the blackbird 
 and the thrush ; the minstrelsy of birds in 
 Glenasmole; the ship rocking in the harbour 
 of Dunleary could not be observed and de- 
 scribed by one to whom the complaint of 
 
 30 
 
Wordsworth, "'the world is too much with us, 
 . . . little we see in nature that is ours," could 
 apply. "The Wayfarer," allowing for the 
 sentiment attached to it — it was written in 
 Kilmainham jail a few days before his execu- 
 tion — is the best of his poems. He describes 
 in a manner worthy of the Nature-Poet some 
 of the beauties of the world: the leaping 
 squirrel in a tree, little rabbits in a sun-lit field 
 at evening, bare-footed children happy in their 
 play on the sands of an ebbed sea; and then 
 sorrowfully he chants his "sic transit gloria 
 mundi." 
 
 Although of a serious and taciturn dispo- 
 sition, Pearse was not without a sense of 
 humour. This side of his character was re- 
 vealed to his intimate friends in whose com- 
 pany he showed his appreciation and enjoy- 
 ment of the ridiculous. His humour was 
 never gross, always on an intellectual plane. 
 In his writings, though characterised by their 
 gravity and pathos, traces of the humorous 
 can be detected. For instance, in the Christ- 
 mas number 1910 of "An Macaomh," he tells 
 the story of a Parish Priest who wanted to 
 build a church and had no funds to begin the 
 work. The good priest went to the bank for 
 a loan When asked by the bank manager 
 what security he had to offer, the priest re- 
 plied: "Saint Joseph will see you paid." 
 
 31 
 
"Saint Joseph is an estimable saint," replied 
 the bank manager, "but unfortunately he is 
 not a negotiable security." This answer 
 passed into a proverb amongst commercial 
 men, and the manager got the reputation of 
 a wit. Before the priest died he saw a church 
 in the course of construction, and to-day it 
 stands as a beautiful monument to his un- 
 swerving faith. Pearse adds, u The laugh, to 
 speak without irreverance, is on the side of 
 Saint Joseph." He indulges in the humorous 
 in his three-verse ballad "Napoleon's Oul' Grey 
 Mare." Written in the traditional style of the 
 illiterate Irish ballad-maker, it reminds us of 
 the itinerant singers on a Saturday evening- 
 going from door to door in the streets of his 
 native city. Undoubtedly he often heard them 
 himself, not only there, but in his travels 
 through the different parts of Ireland whence 
 he derived no small share of his store of Irish 
 tradition. 
 
 Whilst reading the writings of Padraic 
 Pearse I had the good fortune to obtain the 
 loan of the manuscript of his translation from 
 the Irish of an elegy composed by a poet in 
 America on the death by drowning of his child, 
 and sent to him several years a^o. The o'risr- 
 inal was published in An Claidheamh S otitis, 
 and later the prose translation appeared in the 
 Irish Review. Admitting the defects of the 
 
 32 
 
English version which Pearse regarded as 
 wholly inadequate to express the deep melody 
 and exquisite delicacy of the original, it nev- 
 ertheless gives us some idea of a poem which 
 he himself places among the three best modern 
 poems which "most exquisitely associate the 
 pity of death with the beauty of childhood.'' 
 This and the additional reason that it is not 
 contained in the collection — published up to 
 the present — of his works, or in any publication 
 of my acquaintance, written on this side of 
 the Atlantic, justify the insertion here of the 
 entire poem : 
 '\Och6n, O'Donough! my thousand whispers 
 
 stretched under this sod, 
 The sod of sorrow on your little body, my 
 
 utter anguish 
 If this sleep were on you in Cill Na Dronod 
 
 or some grave in the west 
 I Would soften my suffering, though great my 
 
 hurt, and I would not repine for you. 
 
 Withered and wasted are the flowers they 
 
 scattered on your narrow bed, 
 They were lovely for a little time, but their 
 
 radiance is gone, they have no comeliness 
 
 or life: 
 And the flower I held brightest of all that 
 
 grew in soil or shall ever grow 
 Is rotting in the ground and will spring no 
 
 more to lift up my heart. 
 
 33 
 
Alas, beloved ivas it not a great pity, the water 
 
 rocking you, 
 With no strength in your pulses nor anyone 
 
 near you that might save: 
 No nevus was brought to me of the peril of my 
 
 child or the extremity of his need — 
 Ah, though Yd gladly go to Hell's deep Hag 
 
 to rescue you. 
 
 The moon is dark I cannot sleep, all joy has 
 
 left me; 
 Rough and rude to me the open Gaelic ('tis 
 
 an ill side ) ; 
 / hate awhile in the company of friends, their 
 
 merriment tortures me: 
 From the day I saw you dead on the sand the 
 
 sun has not shone for me. 
 
 Alas, my grief, what shall I do henceforth the 
 
 zvorld wearing me, 
 Without your chalk-white little hand like a 
 
 breath through the trees on my sombre 
 
 brow, 
 Your little mouth of honey, like angel's music 
 
 sweet in my ears, 
 Saying to me gently, dear heart, poor father, 
 
 be not troubled. 
 
 34 
 
Ah, desolate I little thought in the time of my 
 
 hope 
 That this child would not be a swift valiant 
 
 hero in the midst of the band, 
 Doing deeds of daring and planning wisely for 
 
 the sake of Fodla, 
 But He who fashioned us of clay on earth not 
 
 so has ordered." 
 
 The dominant characteristic of Pearse as a 
 writer is his nationality and spirituality; the 
 nationality of the Gael and the spirituality of 
 the true Christian. These being the essential 
 elements in the character of the Gael his writ- 
 ings will be read and admired by Irish men 
 and women in the length and breadth of the 
 globe. Children will listen with rapt attention 
 to his stories. Boys and girls will witness with 
 interest and sympathy the performance of his 
 plays. Old men and old women with tear-be- 
 dimmed eyes will hear the expression of their 
 choicest thoughts in his poetry. The name of 
 the Head-Master of Saint Enda's College will 
 become, if not already, the household name in 
 Irish homes. 
 
 It does not follow that because of this char- 
 acteristic his public is restricted to the Irish. 
 To every lover of liberty in any land who re- 
 gards servitude as an injustice and freedom 
 a sacred right, the name of Padraic Pearse is 
 
 35 
 
deserving- of honour. As the enemy of op- 
 pression and the champion of his country's 
 cause they award him a niche in the Temple of 
 Fame. Like many of his own countrymen 
 they regret not having been personally ac- 
 quainted with him. Conscious that by his 
 works they can know him they shall turn to 
 the pages penned by his hand to learn much 
 about the man of his age, one of the noblest 
 personalities adorning the annals of Irish 
 history. They will see that it is not merely 
 because of his death that Padraic Pearse is 
 renowned. Certainly that death was a glori- 
 ous ending to a glorious life. But men have 
 died, in other countries, for a noble cause; 
 blood has been spilt before in Ireland without 
 the same measure of success. His death was 
 the consummation of a short but full span of 
 years in which every thought, word, and ac- 
 tion were devoted to his country's welfare. 
 The youth of sixteen summers in the office of 
 the Gaelic League, the Head-Master of Saint 
 Enda's College, the Commandant-General at 
 the head of his men in the Dublin Post Office, 
 the martyr in Kilmainham jail is the same man 
 striving assiduously for the same end. Men 
 with whom ignorance is bliss, and prejudice is 
 preferable to reason, stigmatize him as a 
 "common rebel," a "dreamer," a "madman," 
 a "Bolshevist." By his work we can judge if 
 
 36 
 
any of this strange mixture of contradictory 
 epithets may in justice be applied to him. He 
 loved his country and hated the wrongs heaped 
 upon her by her enemy. If this be a crime then 
 nationality has lost its meaning, and consists 
 only in geographical boundaries; patriotism 
 exists only in the pages of a dictionary. 
 
 The month of November, 1913, the Irish 
 Volunteer movement started. Padraic Pearse 
 was one of the pioneers of the Provisional 
 Committee. After a short visit to America, 
 where to raise funds for Saint Enda's Col- 
 lege — he lectured on education, he returned 
 to Dublin in the spring of 1914, in time to cast 
 his vote against the proposal of John Red- 
 mond, the leader of the Irish Nationalist 
 Party, to place the Volunteer movement under 
 his control. His wise foresight was proved a 
 few months later when on the outbreak of the 
 European war, John Redmond espoused the 
 cause of the British Empire, and began a re- 
 cruiting campaign in Ireland. We can conjec- 
 ture what line his efforts would have taken had 
 he been in control of the Irish Volunteers. In 
 two successive conventions of this organization 
 Pearse was elected a member of the Executive 
 Committee, and was one of the six composing 
 the Headquarters Staff. He contributed a 
 number of striking articles to a series of prop- 
 aganda pamphlets called "Tracts for the 
 
 37 
 
Times.' 5 His thoughts .on the national ques- 
 tion were expressed in The Irish Volunteer, 
 the official organ of the movement. Seeing in 
 this movement the realization, in part, of his 
 life's dream, no labour was too great to under- 
 take in training his men to emulate the effi- 
 ciency and heroism of the warriors of the 
 Heroic Age. One wonders, considering the 
 multifarious duties of his college, and his lit- 
 erary pursuit, how time could have been found 
 to comply with the exacting calls of this or- 
 ganization. Ireland was his inspiration, and 
 for her he denied himself the necessities of 
 life, often working into the early hours of the 
 morning. Thus he continued to the end. 
 
 On Saint Enda's Day, March 21st, 1916, he 
 addressed the boys at the entertainment in the 
 college, in honour of this great saint. It was 
 his farewell speech. He remarked that the 
 college had gone on successfully for eight 
 years. He hoped it would do so for eighty. 
 Then reminding the boys they were trained to 
 be efficient soldiers in the battles, temporal 
 and spiritual, of their country, he repeated the 
 thought so frequently expressed in his writ- 
 ings, and in harmony with the approaching 
 season of The Passion of The Saviour. Little 
 thought the students when a few weeks later 
 on the day of the Easter vacation they bade 
 farewell to their beloved Head-Master that 
 
 38 
 
this scene was about to be enacted, that he, the 
 Gael, was about "to stand before the Gall as 
 Christ hung naked before men on the. tree." 
 Then dawned the glorious Easter Morn; the 
 dawn of Ireland's resurrection. 
 
 The history of the Easter Week Rebellion 
 remains to be written. Suffice to say, that 
 Padraic Pearse commanded the men through- 
 out the country from the General Post Office, 
 Dublin, the stronghold of the Volunteers. 
 "Commanded" is scarcely the word to use. He 
 was too gentle and shy to be a leader of men 
 in the strict military sense. Besides he be- 
 lieved in leaders being obeyed more because of 
 admiration and the stimulus of personality 
 than by the imposition of their will upon the 
 will of their followers. This idealism, although 
 beautiful, is seldom practical, especially in mil- 
 itary life. However, it was so in his case. He 
 lead by the force of his personality. His men 
 were attracted to him with a magnetic attrac- 
 tion. They loved their hero and would go any 
 length to serve him. 
 
 The Proclamation issued from the strong- 
 hold of the Volunteers was signed by seven 
 signatories. Padraic Pearse was the first 
 name. He was the proclaimed First President 
 of the Irish Republic. Of what followed 
 nothing can be added to the description of his 
 former pupil, Desmond Ryan. " Tearse is the 
 
 39 
 
soul of this/ said one present while the Re- 
 publican flag flew over Dublin buildings and 
 the noblest thoroughfare in Europe mounted 
 into ruins and ashes. While the streets out- 
 side roared skyward in leaping and fantastic 
 flames, which made every cobblestone distinct, 
 murmuring hideously and lapping the very 
 clouds, inside a doomed building stood the 
 Head Master unmoved. A cordon of soldiery 
 were closing slowly in and around. The deaf- 
 ening riot of noise which rifles, machine guns 
 and artillery can produce, rang in his ears. 
 Upon him of all men in Dublin rested the 
 weight of the huge adventure. Staring un- 
 flinchingly at defeat he walked the last from 
 the darkened tottering house of flame down 
 the bullet-swept streets, past the corpses that 
 dotted the streets, past sombre alleys lighted 
 by the flashes of machine guns to the house 
 where Connolly lay wounded. There he stayed 
 until he walked thence to surrender and die y 
 the old expression of pride and defiance in his 
 eyes — the last glimpse men had of the Head 
 Master of Sgoil Eanna. He has told us the 
 highest thing a man may do is to serve. We, 
 his students, have no greater praise for him 
 than this: he showed us Ireland." Whilst 
 awaiting execution in Kilmainham jail his 
 mother sought permission to see her son be- 
 fore death. What sorrow to her mother's 
 
 40 
 
heart to be denied the opportunity of whisper- 
 ing into his ear her message of love, and seal- 
 ing it with her farewell kiss. This failing, 
 Padraic wrote his last message to her, written 
 apparently with the unaccustomed composure 
 of a man on the eve of execution. He tells her 
 that he has written the poem she requested, 
 and where it is to be found. This poem is 
 again expressive of the mystical meaning given 
 to his work. His mother with the note of 
 approval of the undertaking commends her 
 son to the protection of the Mother of 
 Sorrows. 
 
 "'Dear Mary, thou didst see thy first-born Son 
 Go forth to die amid the scorn of men 
 For whom He died ; 
 
 Receive my first-born son into thy arms, 
 Who also has gone forth to die for men, 
 And keep him by Thee till I come to him; 
 Dear Mary I have shared thy sorrow 
 And soon zvill share thy joy." 
 
 The letter closes with a reassurance of his 
 love. "Good-bye again, dear mother. May 
 God bless you for your great love for me and 
 for your great faith, and may He remember 
 all you have so bravely suffered. I hope soon 
 to see papa and in a little while we shall be all 
 together again. I have not words to tell you 
 of my love for you and how my heart yearns 
 
 41 
 
to you all. I will call to you in my heart at 
 the last moment. 
 
 At the break of day, May 4th. Padraic 
 Pearse stood before a firing-squad. A. soldier 
 in life he will die a soldier's death. Four 
 bullets were aimed at his head, and four at his 
 heart; the head whose every thought, and the 
 heart whose every throb was for Ireland. At 
 the early age of thirty-six this great man has 
 died that the nation might live. Padraic 
 Pearse is dead — in body, but the instruments 
 of destruction could not destroy his spirit. 
 Freed from its prison house of clay it has en- 
 tered into the soul of Ireland imparting to it 
 new life and strength. It is wafted in the 
 breeze over the expansive ocean enkindling 
 anew the patriotic fervour of all true Irish- 
 men living under the folds of the Stars and 
 Stripes of America. 
 
 ''His dust is dust of the land that bore him 
 But lot his spirit has left the elay 
 
 It walks abroad through the land to-day." 
 
 42 
 
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