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Revision as of 21:58, 2 May 2007 by Domer48 (talk | contribs) (typo's)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Hibernian Rifles where one of a number of Irish Nationalist private militias groups which were organised in the USA.
The Hibernian Rifles, although not mentioned in the Proclamation of 1916, were among the units which fought in Dublin in Easter Week 1916 and were listed as such by Patrick Pearse in a bulletin issued by him in Irish War News.
The Hibernian Rifles were the military arm of the Ancient Order of Hibernians AOH (Irish-American Alliance), who had broken away from the Order about 1907. As the name suggests, most of their accomplishments were in the USA where they were under the influence of Clan-na-Gael, and it was clear that their attitude was quite different from “the narrow sectarianism” of the AOH (Board of Erin). This was made obvious when the Rifles commandant J. Scollan, in a lecture on ‘Treason in Ireland’, which was given at the Michael Dwyer Sinn Fein Club on 16 December 1914, in which he said: “Many more of us through God’s grace shall live to see the Union Jack of England down in the dust and our own immortal green interwoven with the yellow and white of the Irish Republic waving proudly and victoriously…over the land.”
During the 1913 lockout in Dublin, a special subscription was placed on the Rifles members in Ireland and a fund was also opened in the USA for the relief of distress of those affected by the strike. The Hibernian Rifles were on friendly terms with the Irish Citizen Army when it was founded by James Connolly, and some members of them joined this new body which was advertised regularly in The Irish Worker.
While they were willing to co-operate with the other nationalist groups, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) does not seem to have trusted them completely and therefore they had to obtain some of their rifles from James Connolly, and others which they bought from British soldiers.
The Irish Volunteers decline them affiliation as a unit (they also declined the Irish Citizen Army) but friendly co-operation became possible, mainly, though Thomas MacDonagh. It was through him, perhaps, they participated as a unit at the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa and they allowing their headquarters at 28 North Frederick Street, to be used by the Volunteers.
In 1915 they launched a weekly newspaper The Hibernian. The constitutional nationalists of the time, lead by John Redmond, scornfully called the nationalist papers “the mosquito press”. In The Hibernian they serialised ‘Ireland’s Roll of Honour’ which was a list of those killed or wounded at Harrel’s ‘Battle of Clontarf’ and Bachelor’s Walk, or who were imprisoned, deported or served with exclusion orders under the Defence of the Realm Act.
According to Pat McGlynn, author of ‘Eirí Amack Na Cása, The Easter Rising 1916’, “It was one of the most aggressive pieces of journalism of the period and one that deserves more attention than it has received”.
Co-operation between the Rifles with the Volunteers increased, as the rising began to draw near, but no definite date for the insurrection was given to them by the leaders of the Brotherhood. On Easter Sunday, 1916, they paraded as usual at their headquarters when news of Eoin McNeill’s countermanding order in the Sunday Independent newspaper cancelling the planned manoeuvres by the Volunteers which were to be the signal for the rising, the commandant, realising that something serious was planned, ordered the Rifles to parade the next day.
The fight having started at 12 noon, on Easter Monday, the men of the Hibernian Rifles were given a choice weather or not to take part, about 20 to 30 were for participating and went to the GPO at midnight. On the Tuesday some of them along with men from Maynooth were sent to the Exchange Hotel in Parliament Street where in a rapid exchange of fire, they lost one of their men, who was fatally wounded, before retiring back to the GPO where they stayed for the rest of the week.
Pat McGlynn in his conclusion to his chapter on the Hibernian Rifles says of them that, although “small in number the Hibernian Rifles should not be forgotten in any celebration of the Rising that was not of their planning, but in which they willingly joined when once it had begun”.
References
- ""Dublin flames kindled a nation's spirit"". Irish Independent 1916-66 Supplement. Retrieved 13 March.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - Pat McGlynn, author of ‘Eirí Amack Na Cása, The Easter Rising 1916’, Republican Publications 1986.
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