Introduction

"Every schoolchild in Ireland knows Yeats's 'Easter 1916,'" writes critic Kevin Murphy in "A Palimpsest of Irishness." "[I]t stands next to the 1916 Proclamation of Independence as a triumphant and straightforward affirmation of the birth of the Irish Free State." William Butler Yeats's poem, a political elegy, pays homage to the rebels who planned and executed the Easter Uprising, which took place in 1916 between April 24 and April 30. With the goal of gaining independence for Ireland from the British, militant Irish Republicans seized several key locations in Dublin. The rebellion was put down in short order by British forces, and fifteen of its organizers were publicly executed. Many of the executed men had been Yeats's friends and acquaintances. Despite this debacle, historians have come to deem the event as critical in fostering sympathy for the Irish...