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<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Ninety-eight years ago in 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood staged an uprising during Easter Week, the intent being to reclaim Ireland from the British and establish a republic.\u00a0 Though the rebellion failed, as so many others had in the previous two centuries, the rising galvanized the Irish people in a way that would ultimately lead to the country\u2019s independence following a bloody civil war.\u00a0 The Easter Rising and the years following it are complicated ones in sorting out the loyalties and issues, though there has been no shortage of histories and autobiographies and polemics.<\/p>\nIn the Rare Books Collection, there is another view of the rising: a poetry chapbook by Maeve Cavanagh.\u00a0 Entitled A Voice of Insurgency, <\/i>Cavanugh\u2019s collection of verse documents the six days of the rebellion from Monday, April 24 through Saturday,April 29 and the men and women who were in the forefront of it as gunshots and cannon fire reverberated around Dublin.\u00a0 Cavanagh was a dedicated supporter of the republican movement, and friends with many of the leaders of the insurgency.\u00a0 Her poems capture the fear and exhilaration of that Easter week.<\/p>\n
The poems in A Voice of Insurgency <\/i>are by turns fiery, tender, defiant, and sad.\u00a0 Cavanagh composed these poems in the weeks and months after the rising was put down by British troops, and its leaders executed.\u00a0 At its end, more than 400 people were dead and 2500 were wounded, most of them civilians.\u00a0 In fact, one of the casualties was Cavanagh\u2019s own brother, Ernest, a prominent political cartoonist.\u00a0 Though Ernest Cavanagh also supported the republican movement, he was not involved in the actual fighting.\u00a0 Standing on the steps of Liberty Hall, the Dublin headquarters of the Irish Transport and General Workers\u2019 Union, Cavanagh was shot dead by a British sniper on April 25.\u00a0 His sister eulogized him in a later poem:<\/p>\n To every noble cause your heart<\/i><\/p>\n Went forth unerring, true,<\/i><\/p>\n Maybe you played a greater part,<\/i><\/p>\n And braver than you knew. <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Maeve Cavanagh\u2019s book was published on Christmas Eve, 1916 and sold out in less than a month\u2019s time.\u00a0 She dedicated it to her friend, Irish patriot James Cavanagh continued to write poetry in the years following the Easter Rising and established a fair reputation for her work.\u00a0 In 1922, as the Irish Civil War was fully underway, she married Cathal MacDowell, an Irish Volunteer.\u00a0 The bulk of her manuscripts are now housed in the National Library of Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: Kevin Grace \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Ninety-eight years ago in 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood staged an uprising during Easter Week, the intent being to reclaim Ireland from the British and establish a republic.\u00a0 Though the rebellion failed, as so many … Continue reading <\/a>Cavanagh\u2019s chapbook came to ARB in 2000 as part of the Knott-Radner gift, an important collection of more than 700 items of early 20th<\/sup> century Irish literature.\u00a0 Initially assembled by Eleanor Scott, a scholar of Irish language and literature, the collection later came to be owned by another scholar, Joan Radnor.\u00a0 Radnor, who had been a classmate at Harvard of Professor Emeritus and Celtic scholar Edgar Slotkin, knew of his work at the University of Cincinnati and so her books were offered to UC.\u00a0 Along with former Associate Dean for Collections Jerry Newman, Slotkin arranged for the transfer of Radnor\u2019s collection.\u00a0 The Radnor materials are primarily Irish Gaelic, reflecting the early 20th<\/sup> century literary revival movement in Ireland, and almost immediately after acquiring this gift, Newman and Slotkin were presented with another fine body of books called the Stanley M. Dahlman Collection, which focuses on Welsh language and literature.\u00a0 The two collections have greatly strengthened our holdings on Irish literature and history.<\/p>\n<\/a>Many of the Knott-Radnor volumes are printed on poor paper and are in fragile condition, particularly the poetry.\u00a0 The Cavanagh volume, which is currently undergoing treatment in the joint UCL\/Cincinnati Public Library Preservation Lab, is in very good condition with the exception of the paper cover.<\/p>\n<\/a>Connolly, who was one of the 90 people sentenced to death by British courts martial.\u00a0 Connolly, a labor leader and socialist, was one of the signatories to the famous Proclamation of the Republic that declared Ireland\u2019s fight for freedom.\u00a0 He had been badly wounded during the fighting, suffering a shattered ankle in addition to other injuries. Connolly was transported to Kilmainham Gaol, carried to the courtyard on a stretcher, tied to a chair because he could not stand, and executed by firing squad.<\/p>\n