Patrick Pearse (also known as Pádraig Pease or in the Irish language Pádraig Mac Piarais) (1879-1916) was a teacher and writer who led the Irish Easter Rising in 1916. Following the collapse of the Rising, Pearse along with his brother and the leaders of the Rising were executed.
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2 Teaching 3 Joining the IRB and the Easter Rising 4 Claims about his sexual orientation 5 Footnote |
Patrick Henry Pearse was born in Dublin 10th Nov 1879. His father was a Cornish artisan/stonemason, who held moderate home rule views. Pearse was educated by the Christian Brothers. Writer and politician Conor Cruise O'Brien1 claims that the influence of one of the Brothers, Brother Canice Craven, was central to Pearse's radical nationalism. Pearse joined the Gaelic League (Conradh na nGaeilge) in 1895, soon becoming one of its leaders, where he clashed with its founder, Dr. Douglas Hyde, the latter of whom resisted what he viewed as the politicisation of the League. (He resigned the League's presidency in protest.)
Pearse taught the Irish language, and wrote stories and poems in both Irish and English, his best-known English poem being "The Wayfarer". In 1908, Pearse founded his own school, St Enda's, through which he did much to preserve native culture, encouraging the use of the language and participation in traditional Irish sports, and taking the boys on trips to the west of Ireland. Most of the ideas are contained in his famous essay "The Murder Machine: An Essay on Education".
In 1915 he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood and was the architect of the new proclamation declared by the leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916. When it became apparent that victory was impossible, he surrendered, along with most of the other leaders. Pearse and fourteen other leaders, including his brother Willie, were court-martialled and executed by firing squad.
In her biography of Pearse, Ruth Dudley Edwards claimed that Pearse had latent homosexual tendencies, though she did not suggest, nor did she rule out the possibility, that he was a sexually active homosexual. Her claim, though controversial and condemned by some republicans, was supported by many historians who noted the distinct homoerotic nature of some of his poetry, in contrast to the complete absence of any heterosexual aspect to Pearse's life, whether in terms of relationships, his writings or imagery in his poetry. By the end of the twentieth century, many historians automatically presumed that Pearse, like Roger Casement and other figures associated with the independence movement (notably Eoin O'Duffy) was gay.
1 Cruise O'Brien held traditional nationalist views through much of his early career as an Irish diplomat. He served as an Irish Labour Party government minister in the Fine Gael-Labour National Coalition from 1973 to 1977. By the 1990s his views had changed totally and he served as an unionist MLA for Robert McCartney's UK Unionist Party for a time.Radical nationalism
Teaching
Joining the IRB and the Easter Rising
Claims about his sexual orientation
Footnote
