Ruán O’Donnell’s The Impact of the 1916 Rising: Among the Nations

`The Impact of the 1916 Rising: Among the Nations’, is an excellent collection of essays by some of the best Irish historians working today dealing with different areas of the Easter Rising of 1916 and the start of the Irish Revolution.

Some of the issues dealt with are the role played by British-born Volunteers in the insurrection and the strength of the Irish Republican tradition in Scotland in particular with its strong links to the Scottish nationalist and socialist movements; a new look at the Irish family background of Pádraig Mac Piarais (Patrick Pearse) and his hitherto largely unexplored Irish Republican heritage dating back to several generations of revolutionary activists in County Meath, drawing upon unused Irish language resources ignored by English speaking historians; the complex and detailed military planning behind the Easter Rising which reveals what was organized to be a true national insurrection across the island of Ireland, with little thought of any supposed idea or aim of a `blood sacrifice’; and a truly wonderful exposé of the unscrupulous methods used by the cabal of so-called `revisionist historians’ that dominated the modern interpretation (and distortion) of Irish history over the last three decades, using the Irish War of Independence movie, `The Wind that Shakes the Barley’, to prove that such academics are in fact `apologist historians’ for British rule – and misrule – in Ireland, and at any cost – including that of the truth.

Highly readable, highly recommended.