Rebel angels

This is the first exhibition I’ve been to where the Prime Minister joined the hacks at the press view. A week after the Irish general election, the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, came to the biggest show in Ireland devoted to the centenary of the Easter Rising. Kenny’s presence at the press launch just goes to show how the Irish rebellion against British rule at Easter 1916 is still the defining story of modern Ireland.

In fact, the Easter Rising was a pretty good failure, although I didn’t suggest that to the Prime Minister at the press view. The rebellion lasted only six days before it was put down by the British army. Other attacks on British barracks in Meath, Galway and Wexford didn’t get very far either. Planned attacks in Cork, Tyrone and Donegal never happened. And Irish independence didn’t come until 1922, after the War of Independence.

But, still, the Easter Rising is treated with a holy reverence — partly because it happened in Easter Week in a devout country; more because of the brutal treatment of the rebels. Sixteen of them were executed — and they quickly became political martyrs, tinged with a semi-religious aura.

That reverence for the Rising and its leaders is what makes this comprehensive show so gripping. What had been a fairly small-scale rebellion was immediately treated as the definitive spiritual battle on an island soaked for centuries with the blood of thousands, from dozens of battles. As a result, the 300 objects in this show were also immediately treated with the reverence shown to religious relics. And what an exceptional, captivating collection of relics they are.

Some of them have the inevitable macabre fascination of things associated with fighting and death. One oddly heart-stopping object is a cricket bat from Elvery’s shop window on Sackville Street, which was caught up in the shooting and looting that began on the afternoon of Easter Monday.