Patrick Pearse - The rebel.

Patrick Pearse was born in Dublin in 1879 and is one of the most important leaders in the Irish history. Best-known for his political contributions in the Easter Rising 1916, however, he is also well-associated to the revival of the Irish education.  In this post, we are going to deal with the educative part of his biography: his education and his legacy.

He was raised within a very ordinary family in Dublin. His father was a well-educated stone worker of churches and ecclesiastical works. His mother survived the great famine of 1846. Nonetheless, she brought up four children: Patrick was the second and had one brother and two sisters. When he grew up, he was awarded with a grant to attend to the Royal University of Ireland. There, he learnt the Irish language, before joining to the Gaelic League. As a component of the League, he fought to preserve the Irish language and culture. Then, he continued his studies in Modern Languages at King’s Inns. After that, his attention was focused on law. However, he never left languages apart, and he devoted the rest of his life to the Irish language.  

At the beginning of the 20^th century, schools decided to drop the subject of Irish and replace it by others of "major level". As a result, Patrick Pearse decided to open Saint Enda’s School – an Irish school for boys-. The decline of the Irish language was subject of frustration to him. So he wrote “ The Murder Machine". A pamphlet full of critics targeting the Irish Educational System and providing some of his solutions.

Among the vast number of works he published as an educated person, we are going to highlight a very special poem that comes to represent his revolutionary spirit too. 

The Rebel 

by Patrick Pearse.

I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow;

Who have no treasure but hope,

No riches laid up but a memory of an ancient glory

My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born,

I am of the blood of serfs;

The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I have eaten

Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters,

and though gentle, have served churls.

The hands that have touched mine,

the dear hands whose touch Is familiar to me

Have worn shameful manacles, have been bitten at the wrist by manacles,

have grown hard with the manacles and the task-work of strangers.

I am flesh of the flesh of these lowly, I am bone of their bone I that have never submitted;

I that have a soul greater than the souls of my people’s masters,

I that have vision and prophecy, and the gift of fiery speech,

I that have spoken with God on the top of his holy hill.

And because I am of the people, I understand the people,

I am sorrowful with their sorrow, I am hungry with their desire;

My heart is heavy with the grief of mothers,

My eyes have been wet with the tears of children,

 I have yearned with old wistful men,

And laughed and cursed with young men;

 Their shame is my shame, and I have reddened for it

Reddened for that they have served, they who should be free

Reddened for that they have gone in want, while others have been full,

Reddened for that they have walked in fear of lawyers and their jailors.

With their Writs of Summons and their handcuffs,

Men mean and cruel.

I could have borne stripes on my body

Rather than this shame of my people.

And now I speak, being full of vision:

I speak to my people, and I speak in my people’s name to

The masters of my people:

I say to my people that they are holy,

That they are august despite their chains.

That they are greater than those that hold them

And stronger and purer,

That they have but need of courage, and to call on the name of their God,

God the unforgetting, the dear God who loves the people

For whom he died naked, suffering shame.

And I say to my people’s masters: Beware

Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people

Who shall take what ye would not give.

Did ye think to conquer the people, or that law is stronger than life,

And than men’s desire to be free?

We will try it out with you ye that have harried and held,

Ye that have bullied and bribed.

Tyrants… hypocrites… liars!

Notes for Revolutionaries Vol 1, Foilseacháin an Ghlór Gafa, Belfast, 2005, pg 68-70