The Guns of Easter (12 page)
Read The Guns of Easter Online
Authors: Gerard Whelan
THE GENERAL POST OFFICE
began to burn on that Friday, and was abandoned by the rebels on Friday evening. Trapped, they surrendered on Saturday. Pearse and Connolly signed an unconditional surrender order which was brought to all the remaining garrisons over the weekend. Jacob’s biscuit factory, the last rebel stronghold to surrender, did so on Sunday, 30 April.
Over the next twelve days fourteen of the rebel leaders were tried by military courts and shot. Hundreds who’d taken part in the rebellion, and many who hadn’t, were jailed or interned in Britain.
At first public opinion in Ireland was hostile to the rebels, but it was changed by the executions and reprisals. The internees, due mainly to international pressure, were released in 1917. Among the men released were Jimmy’s uncle Mick and Paddy Doyle. They came back to find an Ireland where opinion had turned in their favour. To most people they were now heroes.
Jimmy’s Da, James Conway, got out of the British army early in 1919. He’d been wounded twice in the war, but he recovered fully. On his return he found an Ireland that was quickly sliding into a war of its own, a war fought for independence. But that’s another story.
GERARD WHELAN was born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, where he now lives. He is the author of several books for children and is a multiple award-winner.
The Guns of Easter
, his first novel, won a Bisto Merit Award and the Eilís Dillon Award for first-time writers.
Dream Invader
was the overall winner of the Bisto Book of the Year Award 1998, and
War
Children
won the Reading Association of Ireland Award 2003.
A Winter of Spies
(sequel to
The Guns of Easter
)
Dream Invader
Out of Nowhere
War Children
This eBook edition first published 2013 by The O’Brien Press Ltd,
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First published 1996
eBook ISBN: 978–1–84717–406–2
Copyright for text © Gerard Whelan
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