A History of the Easter Rising in 50 Objects. By John Gibney historian.

Arran Q Henderson

A History of the Easter Rising in 50 Objects. By John Gibney historian.

Some if not most readers may be familiar with Ireland in 100Objects, a wide ranging history-through artifact book helmed by Fintan O’Tooole. Here in A History of the Easter Rising in 50 Objects, historian John Gibney (who I know, formerly as a lecturer, latterly as an occasional colleague) takes a similar, equally fruitful approach. He applies it, with great deftness and clarity to the smaller, symbolically epic, yet more defined canvas of the Easter Rising. It works.

The book begins with Tom Clarke’s Certificate of American Naturalization from 1905. This is a quiet masterstroke in itself. The curatorial decision to put Clarke first puts his figure back from the shadows back where he belongs, at the centre of the Easter 1916 Rising. He was its main planner, over many long, focused, single minded determined years…

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