Nearly 40 years ago, Pocono Irish American Club was founded to, “Preserve and promote” Irish culture. Since its inception, the organization has enlisted ongoing efforts to further exemplify this illustrious heritage with none more recognizable than the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Less than two miles embodies a Main Street route through the Borough of Stroudsburg starting at Stroudsburg High School. Eastward on ending in East Stroudsburg, festivities are set to start 1:30 p.m. Sunday, March 20. Lined with seemingly endless shades of emerald green, spectators and participants alike revel in the day’s festivities.
Calling it a, “Great family community event which celebrates the coming out of winter for the Poconos,” Parade Chairperson, Rosie Gralinski considering communitywide generosity a large part in making the parade possible.
She notes this year’s event’s significance, dedicating celebrations to the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Uprising, “[In] memory of those brave individuals that gave their lives in the name of Ireland.”
Sharing a few segments from “The Easter Rising,” Jack Haren illustrates history’s poignant past…
The Easter Rising by Jack Haren for Friendly Sons of St. Patrick Morris County
This year the world takes note of the Centennial of the 1916 Easter Rising, a moment embedded in modern Irish history. The Rising was the opening act in the Irish War of Independence. A singular and desperate act launched by a band of men who refused to acknowledge the futility of their fight against English rule on Irish soil. The Rising would be the first major act of rebellion in Ireland since 1798.
The Irish leadership hoped to take advantage of the deployment of British troops to the battlefields of World War I, leaving fewer to control Ireland. At 11:00 am on Easter Monday, April 24th, Patrick Pearse and the Irish Volunteers, along with James Connolly and the Irish Citizens Army hurried across Dublin City to occupy strategic buildings and control important fields of fire. Less than 1,000 Irishmen were up against the military might of the British Empire. But the dye was cast. The orders had been given…. despite an earlier loss of guns and ammunition which the Volunteers so desperately needed.
The arms shipment lay in 400 feet of water off the coast of County Kerry. Earlier in the week British Intelligence had intercepted the plot to land armaments from the German freighter, the Aud. The loss was enough to force leaders of the Irish underground to call off the insurrection scheduled for Easter Sunday. But their orders were later countermanded and a decision to go forward was issued; however, many units never received the order to organize and proceed. The Plan would now be executed on Easter Monday, April 24th.
What the Irish rebels lacked in materials they made up for in passion and courage. The yearnings of their fore bearers and the spirit of generations gone before them boiled to the surface. Their sparse ranks, a mere shadow of what should have been, took up positions at strategic points within Dublin City. Patrick Pearse and James Connolly replaced the Union Jack with the Irish Tri-Color atop the General Post Office (GPO) on Sackville Street. Scattered units of the Volunteers took control of the Four Courts, the South Dublin Union, and the Mount Street Bridge across the Liffey River. Irish Volunteers in Saint Stephen’s Green were led by the Countess Markievicz, a Sinn Fein organizer and suffragette.
The GPO was the nerve center of the rebellion. James Connolly, a former soldier who served with the British army, was their commanding officer. The GPO would become the focus of a heavy field artillery assault later in the week. The rebels’ stand would later be compared to the American defense of the Alamo. The rebels held the GPO for the next six days under constant small arms and artillery fire.
Units of the British Army (Sherwood Foresters) were dispatched from Richmond Barracks to crush the rebels. In an epic defense at the Mount Street Bridge, 17 Volunteers pinned down two battalions of British infantry for nine hours. At the day’s end British casualties would exceed 200 officers and men. Sadly, the blood shed only brought them a few more days. On Saturday, April 29th at 2:30 pm, Patrick Pearse, the Commander-in-Chief of the Irish forces, wearing a heavy overcoat over his uniform, marched to a British barricade and surrendered his troops. Several women nurses were among the groups that surrendered. Nurse Elizabeth O’ Farrell (Cumann na mBan), at great personal risk, delivered the surrender order to the other leaders all around the outskirts of Dublin. On Sunday morning April 30th, the last unit under the leadership of Eamonn Ceantt and Cathal Brugha surrendered at the South Dublin Union.
The Volunteers under a white flag marched down Mount Street under a heavy British escort. Fifteen of these Irish soldiers would be executed by firing squad in the next week. Beginning on May 3rd, the executions began in the stonecutter’s yard at Kilmainham Jail. Included within the number of executed men were all seven signers of The Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Pearse’s younger brother, William, would be singled out for execution on May 4th. Three other Irish soldiers would be executed that day; another on the 5th, four more on the 8th, one on the 9th and two more on the 12th of May.
The last Irish soldier to die was James Connolly. Seriously wounded in the defense of the GPO he was transported by ambulance and brought out on a stretcher into the yard at Kilmainham Jail. An English doctor had indicated that with his wounds Connolly would live only another day. But the execution order was still given. Connolly was raised from his stretcher. Unable to stand he was tied to a wooden chair. His absolution and last rites were administered by a Capuchin friar, Father Aloysius, who only stepped aside as the firing squad raised their weapons to fire. Moments later James Connolly was shot dead.
All the executed men were placed in a mass grave behind the English army barracks at Arbor Hill. There were no coffins, only quick lime. The execution of the Volunteer leaders deeply angered the Irish population. Public opinion in Ireland and in America turned hard against the British. Connolly’s execution caused the most controversy. The manner of his execution raised public awareness of the Irish cause and the movement that they had died for.
In 1963, President John Kennedy traveled to Dublin with his wife in an official state visit. During his visit the President asked to lay a wreath at the mass grave of the Irish leaders at Arbor Hill. There he solemnly read each name aloud and walked over to read the Proclamation. It was a gesture not loss on the Irish people throughout the world.
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Meetings Are Held Monthly in Stroudsburg with Saturday Evening Socializing Monthly at Rotating Local Establishments.
