Dublin House to Commemorate Ireland’s Easter Rebellion

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By John Burton

“A terrible beauty is born…”
“Easter, 1916,”
William Butler Yeats

RED BANK – Remembering the past and how it shaped the history of their native soil a century ago should be commemorated, believe the owners of the Dublin House restaurant and pub.
“It brought about the republic,” of his native Ireland, said Eugene Devlin, the Dublin House’s co-owner. Devlin was talking about what is commonly called the Easter Rising or Easter Rebellion, an armed uprising in Dublin 100 years ago that many believed paved the way for the modern Republic of Ireland.
The bloody uprising commenced on April 24, 1916, Easter Monday, in Dublin. In honor of that event, Devlin and his business partner, Sean Dunne, are planning a commemoration to recognize the event’s significance to Ireland and those of Irish heritage.
The Dublin House, 30 Monmouth St., will host the program scheduled for April 17, in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the event that led to the modern revolt of British rule in Ireland.
(The organizers were unable to have the event on Sunday, April 24, because it conflicted with a street fair scheduled for that day.)
The program will feature a Roman Catholic Mass; the national anthems of both Ireland and the U.S.; pronouncements from local and state officials; traditional Irish music, including participation of bagpipes and drums groups, as well as a performance by folk singers Captain and O’Neill.
The program will take place in a portion of the White Street municipal parking lot, directly behind the Dublin House.
Devlin said he will extend invitations to members of Sinn Fein, an Irish republican political party, seeking their participation.
According to Dunne, who is originally from County Monaghan in Ireland’s Ulster Province and lives in Wyckoff, Guinness Brewery is participating by providing commemorative 20-ounce imperial pint glasses, that will be etched with a harp, Ireland’s national symbol, and noting the event and date. The glass will be sold for $10 each.
“It’ll be a wonderful thing to keep for years,” Devlin said.
With the exception of expenses, proceeds from the program will go to benefit scholarship funds from the Red Bank Police Benevolent Association and from the volunteer fire department.
Pat Sheridan, a Middletown resident and member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of the Jersey Shore, is working with event organizers and sees this as a way to introduce or remind people about an important historical event.
“It was a monumental day that affected not only Ireland,” Sheridan said, “but reverberated throughout the world.”
“It was a world changing event,” said Devlin, who lives in Red Bank is a native of Belfast, in Northern Ireland—which is still under British control.
“A lot of countries saw what was possible to obtain freedom,” Devlin added, believing the 1916 uprising inspired other nations, such as India and in Africa, to attempt to throw off the yoke of colonialism.
The armed and violent insurrection that became known as the Easter Rising was aimed at establishing an independent republic. It lasted for six days and ended when Irish participants, facing overwhelming British forces and arms, surrendered.
“It was an awful failure, militarily,” observed Jack Ryan, Brookdale Community College professor. The rebellion was supposed to be widespread throughout the country but plans mostly fell apart and there were “all sorts of miscommunications,” he said.
The turning point, however, was the British forces’ “terrible blunder” when they executed the uprising’s organizers – in one case having to strap one doomed member to a chair, because he was too injured to stand against a wall, before the firing squad, Ryan said.
“That really galvanized people,” he said, “not just in Ireland but the diaspora,” in the United States and elsewhere.
Subsequently, the independence movement grew and with it years of bloodshed and eventually Irish independence for the southern portion but with the partitioning of Northern Ireland.
Ryan teaches film, literature and writing at Brookdale and has long been interested in Irish history and the Irish contribution to the arts. This historic event from a century ago has been the subject of artistic works, including William Butler Yeats’ famous poem “Easter, 1916,” and Ireland’s centuries-old “arts relationship to tragedy,” Ryan said.
“Ireland’s tragedies have been able to generate so much great art,” he observed.