The Easter Rising – One Hundred Years On

Dublin

One hundred years ago, on Easter Monday 1916, Patrick Pearse and his Irish Volunteers, alongside James Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army, occupied a number of important buildings in the city of Dublin, beginning what became known as the Easter Rising.  If you take a stroll around Dublin today there is still evidence of the Rising to be seen if you know where to look.  I’ve visited the city a couple of times in recent years, and if you’re interested in seeing some of the photos I took whilst there, I suggest you start with the General Post Office, one of the most important rebel sites during the fighting, from where you can embark on a ten part web tour of many of the important places in the city associated with the Rising.

The photo above shows the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, now the Irish Museum of Modern Art, headquarters of Sir John Maxwell, the British Commander-in-Chief during the Rising.  There was heavy fighting in this area a hundred years ago, most notably at the South Dublin Union not far out of shot to the right of this photo, easily within range of a British machine gun sited on the roof of the hospital.

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French Flanders: The Nursery Part Fifteen – Houplines Communal Cemetery Extension

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The final stop on our tour of the Nursery is Houplines Communal Cemetery Extension. Continue reading →

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French Flanders: The Nursery Part Fourteen – Ferme Buterne Military Cemetery

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A mile up the road from La Chapelle d’Armentières, and no more than a mile due east of Armentières itself, the penultimate cemetery on our tour is Ferme Buterne Military Cemetery. Continue reading →

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French Flanders: The Nursery Part Thirteen – A Tour Map

With only two cemeteries still to visit on this tour of the Nursery, I thought it might interest you to see where we have been, and where we have still to go, on this very nice Google map.  If you click the square on the right of the banner at the top of the map, the whole thing should open up in a nice new window.  In time, more and more British cemeteries, and a few German ones, will sadly feature on this map as we explore the areas to the west and south of the Nursery.  But that’s for the future.  Our penultimate stop on this tour, Ferme Buterne Military Cemetery, is next.

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French Flanders: The Nursery Part Twelve – La Chapelle d’Armentières Communal Cemetery

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By the time we reach La Chapelle d’Armentières Communal Cemetery, the weather is at its worst. Continue reading →

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French Flanders: The Nursery Part Eleven – La Chapelle d’Armentières War Memorial

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A few hundred yards south east of the two La Chapelle-d’Armentières cemeteries… Continue reading →

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French Flanders: The Nursery Part Ten – Chapelle-d’Armentières New Military Cemetery

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For nearly a hundred years, Chapelle-d’Armentières New Military Cemetery sat in splendid isolation in the middle of the fields just to the north of La Chapelle d’Armentières. Continue reading →

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