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THE SEVEN SIGNATORIES of the 1916 Rising would want the forty children who died during that week to be remembered, according to Joe Duffy.
The RTÉ presenter’s book ‘Children of the Rising’ won the National Book Tokens Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award this week. Duffy said:
The forty children whose stories are told in this book, they are part of our history, they died as part of our history.
The Liveline presenter explained how James Connolly himself lost a child, Mona, who died when she was just 12 years of age. Her petticoat caught fire in her aunt’s house and she was burnt to death.
Connolly only heard of the death after his family got off the boat in America, where he was waiting for them. Duffy said that Connolly grieved for his daughter for a full year, adding:
The seven signatories – the Pearse, the Plunkett, the Connolly and the Clarke, the MacDonagh, and the Mac Diarmada and the Ceannt – they would have wanted those children remembered. They would have wanted them up on that pedestal with them.
Duffy was inspired to write the book after he was approached by the Jack & Jill Foundation to decorate The Children of the Revolution Egg, which was displayed at the Gresham Hotel.
There was nothing definite by any stretch of the imagination and little if any mention of it at all in any of the history books.
Other people got in touch and said you’ve left out my great great uncle, obviously the children had no direct descendants and that’s one of the reasons their stories were lost over the generations.
The presenter added that it was an achievement for any child to survive during that time.
He cited one study which showed that of 100 children born in the Liberties, 62 of them were dead before their 10th birthday.
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I have to laugh when I hear the Irish Independent promoting their coverage of the Rising, the same newspaper who hysterically demanded the deaths of all of the Leaders.
Lest we forget…………….
Ha ha, guess all the Sindo readers are up early………….
The majority of the Dublin population before the executions occurred would have held similar opinions. Remember many of the arrested men were jeered and spat on as the British walked them out of the occupied buildings.
Strongly influenced by the media and the those in power at the time………
yes, spat at , and rocks hurled at them, happened in Dublin though , they’re not known as Jackeens for nothing
Exactly, people today forget this, what happened then is no different that what happened recently with the same type of people saying the same things.
Are we all to be help guilty because our great grandparents held those opinions?
I don’t think the same people are working the Indo’s offices? lol
That’s silly, the entire population of Dublin did not attack the rebels. Thousands of their relatives were fighting in the British army at the very same time, they weren’t all from Dublin
@The Green Monkey. It’s no harm to point out how far the Irish Independent has come, at the same time, and it should be a lesson to others. I am glad that they are doing the coverage that they are doing. They have a little bit more to travel, arguably, but it is a tribute to the historical success of the visionaries and leaders of the Easter Rising that such newspapers have evolved from a misguided position of the past.
This man thrives on misery .
The whine-line is open.
He sure does
Misery is money, in his pockets and a lot of negativity in Ireland/World today. No wonder, people are depressed and have no hope for the future!
Any household pets martyred during the Rising? Stray piegeons?
“Ah Jaysis Joe, tis just terrible Joe, ah shur Joe t’would have been better if none of us had ever have been born at all Joe, terrible Joe, terrible altogether.”….. That’s about the long and the short of what €750000 a year gets us.
So did these 40 die as a result of the Rising or due to unconnected circumstances? If it’s the former, then fair enough If it’s the latter, should we not remember all children who have died at any time?
It was horrifically sad that children died during the Rising. What was infinitely worse, was the fact that people lived for years before and after the Rising in absolute squalor in cities all over Ireland and with a particular concentration in inner-city Dublin. With the number of homeless families in Ireland on the increase, is it possible that the same deprivation will raise its ugly head again?
What would the men of 1916 think? I grew up listening to that shite in relation to everything….. now its back. …sick of this 1916 shit already and it hasn’t started yet. …going to be a long year…..
Brendan you grew up a free person because of the men and women of 1916 you little shite.
Ray, at the time the rising was hugely unpopular and only got public support after the executions. They were terrible times with huge poverty and your chances of living beyond 50 years of age were very slim. I know a woman in her nineties now whose family of Mother, Father and 3 siblings all died with TB with her the only survivor. Duffy is right to highlight the terrible consequences of conflict.
No, that’s simply not true. The Rising is so overstated in our history. It was an effective coup by marginalised Republicans and various Left Wing radicals on the rest of the nationalist movement.
We are Independent due to the conscription crisis and not some merry sense of national pride following 1916. That is a historical fact and we shouldn’t be taken for fools by the later schoolyard bragging of later political figures in Ireland as they tried to ‘out Republican’ their rivals.
Old Gordon do you know anything about irish history at all like who fought in the war of independence you really do need to brush up on your history old boy.
Wonder what they would say about people not agreeing with your version of history Ray….
Brendan what do you think my version of history is?
Warped?
Ray, did you ever have to leave Ireland for work?
Nigel yes I did and not only once and if I was young enough I would be gone again but what has that got to do with anything?
The truth is Ray, Ireland was a blackhole, it was ruled by the church. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Not only this but countless young people forced to move abroad to find work(most in England I should add) can you explain to me what the rising and following wars accomplished for Ireland in the long run?
Besides freedom from british rule for the 26 counties nothing the masters have changed thats all, civil war politics run this state and until that changes the status quo will remain the same.
Just in time for Christmas Joe
Bandwagon.
If the first casualty of war is truth, the second is civilians. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have died in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and throughout the middle east since the western powers launched invasions, yet we hear nothing about these casualties from the western press as their death don’t fit the narrative being promoted. So just like 1916, nothing has changed when it come to reporting the casualties.
It’ll be a sad book to read.
But a must to buy
I wonder what they would say about the 1500 children who are homeless today.
Ray, that goes to the essence of 1916. The ideals of 1916 have been badly betrayed by our current political caste and we, the people, bear the ultimate responsibllity for that.
2016 will be a year of cant , hypocrisy, double standards with politicians of all hues busy claiming their inheritance of 1916 whilst 1 in 5 children is maimed by poverty and total lack of fair and equal opportunity in life.
We will congratulate ourselves on our proud Republic with escalating residential property values and expensive luxury goods to buy.
We should have a competition for the best dressed dignitaries at the Easter Sunday Commemorations.
They didn’t say much about the homeless in 1916. Wonder also what they would make of same sex marraige abortion and multi cultural society while your at it
Brendan I would think they would be much more enlightened than you but if you have some facts on the matter please share.
Joe must be short of a crust and wants to make it off the back of those who gave their all in 1916..How many times is he going to launch it ..how many more articles in the paper about his book…
Amazing how people are coming out of the woodwork on the backs of 1916…
Celebrating killers and ignoring their victims. What about?
What killers would that be tap?
It was British artillery that flattened the city killing most of the civilians, Dublin was under British control at the time so they in effect targeted their own subjects, such collateral damage wouldn’t have been tolerated in English cities on the mainland but the Irish were treated as subhuman by their masters so their deaths were acceptable. Massacres committed by British troops during the fight are largely forgotten and never mentioned.
Any body who does not wish in live in a united ireland should leave now, because it’s coming, again the 1916 rising was not for some counties and some people, it was for all 32 counties and all irish people, a comment was made in an article recently that irelands people were treated differently than the Welsh and Scots, this is true, but we must acknowledge that it was the minority in this country that called for this when they had the power, if they used this power differently then we may well still be part of the UK, they then learnt no lessons and went and done the same thing after partition, and now we have our country moving ever closer to unity, there response, well we see that through their comments here and their actions on the streets, but having said that, it’s these types with there 1690s outlook that are helping to truly unite our people and country, when will they realise the true cause of all the trouble, the views and actions of a now small minority on their side
What are you smokin’?
There has to be a few bob in it somewhere – all cryin’ and cashin’ in and shit.
One of the most important books to emerge this year. It’s being read in schools and is an important record of the lives of the innocents lost on 1916.
Joe Duffy is truly an intellectually vacuous man, and he has the posturing to prove it. He is just another of those grossly overpaid RTE pseudo-stars who have no discernment, vision or imagination to offer to the Irish public. This sort of thing is all that he can bring himself to offer in advance of the nation’s 1916 centenary celebrations.
And from Ballyfermoot to boot!
More shame fucvking Irish political farce.. Absolute sham govt. puppets to the queen
As we saw with the lickarsing the Q and her lapdog got a couple of years ago when Eire was shut down for the the few days they traipsed around the kip.
Bomb read the book ‘ that’s how you find out these things ps of coarse we should remember all the children everywhere always
Ireland has no regard for children. The children’s hospital plan for St James’s will cause more deaths but line the pockets of vested interests. A greenfield site on the M50 would save lives and be built more quickly.
Bullets and bombs don’t discriminate!
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