Dublin City Council and the 1916 Rising

Dublin City Council had a strong connection to the 1916 Rising through the involvement of elected members and Dublin Corporation employees, while the City Hall was a garrison building, held by the Irish Citizen Army. A new book, Dublin City Council and the 1916 Rising, published on 9 May, is the first detailed study of the impact of Dublin City Council on the 1916 Rising and in turn its effect on the council. The thirteen essays in this book, researched and written by experts in their field, explore the events and strategies leading into and following the Rising as it concerned the City Council.

The book features biographies of 151 persons who were involved in the Rising and were either employed by the Council at the time, or subsequently. This wide-ranging book is essential for a complete understanding of the Rising.

A number of elected members of Dublin City Council fought in 1916, including Councillor Richard O’Carroll, who fought with the Irish Volunteers at an outpost of Jacob’s Factory. Two of the men executed after the Rising – Eamonn Ceannt and John MacBride – were council employees. Ceannt, also known as Edmund T. Kent, was a valued employee in the Rates Department, while Major MacBride was the city’s Water-Bailiff. City Hall, the Corporation’s premier building, was garrisoned on Easter Monday by the Irish Citizen Army under Captain Sean Connolly, who in civilian life was an official in the Motor Registration Department; his brother Joseph Connolly, a member of Dublin Fire Brigade, fought with Michael Mallin and Countess Markiewicz at the College of Surgeons. Ever concerned with delivering information services, staff of Dublin Public Libraries also played an active role in communications during the Rising.

The contributors are Sheila Carden, Shay Cody, Evelyn Conway, Donal Fallon, Las Fallon, David Flood, John Gibney, Anthony Jordan, Conor McNamara, Martin Maguire, Thomas J. Morrissey SJ, Seamus Ó Maitiú, Lawrence White, Padraig Yeates.

The book is edited by John Gibney, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and the author of several books on Irish history. He has been a research fellow at the University of Notre Dame and NUI Galway. In 2012 he produced the acclaimed RTÉ Radio 1 documentary The Animal Gangs (broadcast July 2012) on the folklore of inner city Dublin. He has worked in heritage tourism in Dublin since 2001.

The book is available from Four Courts Press and other bookshops.