I've been studying Irish history for a few semesters now, and my prof keeps hammering the point home that Easter 1916 and Pearse specifically made violence the political norm from the time of the Rising all the way through the Good Friday agreement. My reading, however, seems to show Pearse as an cultural nationalist first, a republican second, and bloody revolutionary a distant and reluctant third- especially considering his origins as an educationalist.. Is there any way to reconcile these schools of thought? Am I completely off base? Thanks in advance; you guys are great.
As a side note, I get a BA in history this May, and look forward to continuing this marvelous journey down the paths of old. Maybe someday I'll be answering someone's question here. :)
I tend to agree with you more. Pearse was part of a long tradition of physical force republicanism stretching back to the Fenians. He didn't introduce the gun at all. He was also one of several conspirators who planned the Rising. I do think he was primarily a revolutionary by that time, however.
Irish politics was militarised after 1913 with large militias (the Ulster Volunteers and Irish Volunteers) in the hands of ostensibly democratic politicians. Pearse and his IRB comrades were only able to get control because of the wartime split.
I also have some problems with the idea that the gun in politics stretches from Pearse to the GFA. Violence was extremely rare in the Irish Free State/Republic of Ireland after the 1930s. It should also be pointed out that the GFA didn't remove the gun as the provisional IRA did not decomission until after the St Andrews Agreement. Also dissident republican paramilitaries are still far more active than the IRA were for most of 1925-69 period.
Bill Kissane's book Explaining Irish Democracy is an excellent examination of how the gun failed to dominate Irish politics after independence.