Book: Who’s Afraid of the Easter Rising 1916-2016 by James Heartfield and Kevin Rooney

I bought this at a Birmingham Salon debate where Kevin Rooney was the guest. Having been to Ireland over the Christmas break, The Easter Rising was being talked about in the press and my curiosity was raised. I wondered why the country was getting ready to commemorate 100 years of so many people dying. Then, I learn during the event, that the Irish fighting the British didn’t actually result in Irish independence; it is said to have been the defining moment for it to eventually happen.I know people from both parts of Ireland and I’ve previously been surprised neither acknowledge they are together on an island. It only occurred to me then that perhaps the ‘Brits’ in Northern Ireland don’t want to be part of the Republic Ireland, rather than the UK not wanting to give up NI.While James Heartfield has written about the British Empire, Kevin is clearly a Republican who went to his first Easter Rising commemoration in Belfast in 1972. He lives in London and somehow during his talk, the audience got a glimpse of what sounds to me like a perfect start to the weekend; 3 cappuccinos, at Carluccios with the Irish Times. That’s his indulgence, mine would be filter coffee, The Times and a local little independent café. But I’ve been aspiring to that Saturday morning ever since!Back to the book, Kevin states Saddam Hussein walked into a trap after the US ambassador had assured his foreign minister that they had ‘no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts’ when they muted invading Kuwait. And he believes the Irish men were duped into fighting in the British Army and they fought for the wrong country.On soldiers who don’t want to fight, Christabel Pankhurst (Sylvia’s sister) suspended their women’s rights campaign during the war and instead joined the ‘white feather’ campaign of shaming those who refused to fight. The Suffragette was renamed The Britannia.For the best known insubordination, the book points to the truce in 1914 when 10,000 German and British troops stopped fighting at Christmas, exchanged gifts and sang, and apparently played football. The following year extra barrages were ordered to prevent it happening again.Sylvia Pankhurst broker with her sister to oppose the war and formed the Federation of Suffragettes, later the Workers Socialist Federation.Countess Constance Markiewicz was the first women to win a set in Westminster election, but sat instead in Dail Eireann.As at the event, there’s a lot of talk about how the Easter Rising impacted revolutions in the rest of the world, in particular the civil rights movement in the USA but of most interest to me, how Indian rebels met with their Irish equivalents to learn how to remove their country from under British rule.The Saville Enquiry into the events on Bloody Sunday set up in 1998 but the report only came through in 2010. I have no idea why these reports take so long (well I have a bit of an idea in that timing is everything). The book points out that most of the £400 million it cost lined the pockets of lawyers and the families of the victims who received just £50,000 each in compensation. Clearly there is something wrong there.For me this sums up why the troubles went on far after independence; in 1954 Parliament passed an act that meant the Royal Ulster Constabulary could take down any flag apart from the Union Jack that is likely to cause breach of the peace. That meant the Irish Tricolour was regularly taken down.The book, while one-sided, is from the opposite side to that which I thought I supported, having lived in London during the height of the IRA threat in the late 80s/90s. But there are two sides of every story and I’ve learnt the other.And I’m still wanting to get to the coffee shop for 9am on a Saturday.Let's connect @RickieWrites @BirminghamSalon