RCSI and 1916
During Easter week 1916, RCSI unexpectedly found itself centre-stage in history when Republican rebels occupied College buildings in their uprising against British rule in Ireland.
In the immediate aftermath of the Rising, the College authorities denounced the rebels’ occupation as they counted the cost of the damage. But times change, and nowadays RCSI is immensely proud of its bullet-scarred façade and its central place in the national narrative.
Rebels and insurgents
On Monday, 24 April 1916, the Easter Rising began when Irish rebels took over strategic locations in Dublin city centre. While Pearse and Connolly occupied the GPO, Michael Mallin and Constance Markievicz established a garrison in St Stephen’s Green. That afternoon, a small band of rebels gained access to RCSI’s historic buildings, and raised a tricolour on the rooftop. The remainder of the garrison decamped en masse to the College the next morning.
As fighting continued around the city for the rest of the week, RCSI staff and alumni treated insurgents, soldiers and civilians with equal care.
The rebels in the College held out the longest of any of the garrisons. On Sunday morning, nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell brought news of Pearse’s surrender the day before. Mallin and Markievicz offered their formal surrender to Captain Henry de Courcy Wheeler and the tricolour was lowered, a white flag raised in its place. The Rising was over – but Irish history, and RCSI’s place in it, had changed utterly.
Centenary celebrations
The centenary commemorations of 2016 gave RCSI the opportunity to reflect afresh on its role in a defining chapter of Ireland’s history. The resulting exhibition, Surgeons and Insurgents – located in the very rooms occupied by the rebels in 1916 – invited visitors to explore the human stories of Easter week through the eyes of the rebels and physicians who were involved.
Discover the story of RCSI in 1916 in a commemorative booklet written by historian, Dr Mary McAuliffe, to celebrate the centenary, or delve deeper into aspects of the Rising in a recorded lecture series with experts in Irish history.
