Talk of the Town: A preview of what was long overdue

The Richmond Barracks are quite far from the General Post Office in downtown Dublin, both in distance and in terms of what they represent.

The post office, of course, was the epicenter of the 1916 Easter Rising. First, it served as the headquarters for the poets, teachers and labor advocates who led the rebellion against the British, and five days later, it became the focus of the Brits’ bombs that would break the back, but not the spirit, of the insurgence.

The yard at the jail where the Brits executed the rebels.

Now the GPO, as it’s called, is the slick interactive tourism HQ for all things Rising-related. Its touch screens synthesize documents and characters. Its movie simplifies the action and rebels’ decisions being made inside the building’s proud granite shell. It’s a museum dedicated to the Rising’s leading men.

The Richmond Barracks, on the other hand, sit a half-hour bus ride away amid the Inchicore neighborhood – one hill over from the Kilmainham Gaol (jail), where the British executed the

Rising’s leaders. The barracks became a holding cell and courtroom.

It’s a stark place even now. All stone and bare floors. But its expansive space focuses attention on the minimalist, yet powerful, exhibit of the rebels Ireland almost forgot about: the women.

Eadaoin Ni Chleirigh, the energetic and enthusiastic executive chair of the 2016 Richmond Barracks exhibition, on June 21 welcomed several wayward Americans who had wandered up to the barracks unaware that the exhibit wouldn’t open for another six days.

“You’re from Kentucky? Well if you’re from Kentucky, you must come in,” she said. Her tone overflowed with Irish hospitality and she insisted on giving them a tour.

Eadoaoin Ni Chleirigh points to the Countess Markievicz panel on the quilt at the Richmond Barracks exhibit.

The main chamber of the barracks, where the 22 rebel leaders were taken after their capture Saturday, April 29, now features displays detailing the contributions of many of the women who helped carry out the rebellion, such as Rose McNamara (who became vice-commandant at the rebels’ outpost at the Marrowbone Lane Distillery), Winifred Carney (top aide to Joseph Connelly) and of course Countess Markievicz, who was a catalyst for the Rising and is the most well-known of the women involved.

A French paper snapped Markievicz being taken by ambulance to the jail.

In all, 77 women are honored on squares of a quilt that hangs in the back of the barrack’s main room.

“Some of these women only had a sentence or two written about them before this,” Chleirigh said.

That made researching them difficult. Chleirigh initially drew Bridget Hegarty to investigate. That meant tracking down family members. It turned out they knew little about her role in the Rising but became so intrigued that Hegarty’s grandniece then took over the research and design of Hegarty’s quilt square.

“When the family discovered what she’d done,” Chleirigh said, “they were so proud of her.”

This exhibit becomes more important because it brings to the surface what 20^th Century Ireland seemed hell-bent on burying. Shortly after the Rising, the women began getting shoved aside. Even the male poets who sought to underscore the Rising’s importance breezed past the women’s contribution. In one of the most well known pieces, W.B. Yeats’ “Easter 1916,” Yeats alludes to Markievicz but does so in a way that seems to diminish her – as if her participation in the rebellion somehow sapped her beauty.

“That woman’s days were spent

In ignorant good-will,

Her nights in argument

Until her voice grew shrill.

What voice more sweet than hers

When, young and beautiful,

She rode to harriers?” 

In this case, the words of Markievicz might deserve to outlive those of the famous poet. As Markievicz gave her official statement to the British judge, she said, “We dreamed of an Irish Republic and thought we had a fighting chance.”

Then she broke down and sobbed, the judge recalled. It was as if she were crying on behalf of her nation.