Meeting on 18 March "A Terrible Beauty Is Born." Dublin 1916, Talk by William Doherty

  

This was William Butler Yeats's conclusion in his poem "Easter 1916" on the insurrection in Dublin and its aftermath. Writing within a few months of the rebellion he reveals an ambivalence towards it rather than the laudatory account that might have been expected from an unofficial national bard with early cultural roots in Gaelic revivalism.   

The importance of the Rising in Irish history is still disputed although it was undeniably a step on a path leading to dramatic shifts in political power, guerrilla warfare, a bloody civil war, separation and the emergence of an Irish Free State which was a disappointment to many of the actors in the drama.   

Famous for constantly rewriting his work even after publication, Yeats later ruminated on his possible contribution to the revolt       

                                         "That play of mind sent out  

                                          Certain men the English shot"      

and his own doubts about the nascent Free State  

                                                                         "That is not," I say,  

                                        "The dead Ireland of my youth,but an Ireland  

                                         The poets have imagined, terrible and gay."   

In this talk I propose to consider some of the formative literary and cultural influences on the Rising and the subsequent literature it shaped.