Irish 1916 Rebellion Leaders Not Executed Post Surrender?

The 1916 leaders were made give an unconditional surrender and as they were being led away to prison, the arresting British soldiers literally had to protect them from crazed mobs who wanted to harm them because of the destruction they had caused! Indeed women who would have had husbands on the WW1 frontlines at the time spat at them! Under General Maxwell aka the man who lost Ireland, the main leaders except De Valera who was a US citizen and the leading female officer were executed including the father of Irish socialism, James Connolly, who due to wounds sustained during the fighting had to be executed while tied to a chair. Their bodies were subsequently interned in quicklime. 90 had been scheduled to be extrajudicially murdered by the British state but as Asquith was comming over to survey the damage done during the rising, Maxwell ordered the executions to be halted with 15 afaik having been effectively murdered in this way, the next in line was W T Cosgrave, who later become Irish Prime Minister for 10 years and his son became PM in the 70s. over 3,000 rebels and suspected rebels were interned in Frongach prison camp in Wales which subsequently became known as the university for revolution. the tide of Irish public opinion changed dramatically after the executions in favour of the rebels, the Sinn Fein movement and complete independence for Ireland so the rising was a glorious failure and ' A terrible beauty was born '. The NY Times actually published the pictures of the executed on its front page with the title 'Martyrs' after the executions!
What if the lads had not been 'murdered' by the British imperialist forces and had been imprisoned instead?
I reckon De Valera and Collins would only have become minor figures in Irish history for sure! I also feel independence would not have been achieved so soon. No Fianna Fail (Mafia) party and no Fine Gael (Fascist) party would have existed to dominate Ieish politics and make a wholescale show of us down the subsequent years. A real Labour party might have evolved!
 
No executions would be implausible IMO, this is against the backdrop of total war and the British have been shaken by the capture of Casement and the evidence of German support. Perhaps if just Pearse and 2 or 3 of the other ringleaders are shot then public sympathy remains with the British. It was the execution of Connolly that was the big tipping point for the fact that he couldn't stand up and in the words of a poem I heard once " His wounds from the battle still bloody and bare..."

Had the British not been so cack handed then physical force Republicanism may well have died that week. Let's imagine Connolly is spared and is sentenced to 15 years hard labour. He realises that the armed struggle is futile and renounces violence, meanwhile Home Rule excluding Ulster is granted at the War's end. The Irish Labour Party with Connolly as it's figurehead becomes a powerful force in the new Irish Parliament and the main rival to the Home Rule party. Connolly is released around 1930 just as the Great Depression hits, Connolly takes charge of the ILP and leads them to become the Government in the Parliament in the early 1930's.
 
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I'm with TOS on this, some one is getting executed, but if its only a few top leaders and not Connolly at all you get less romantic republicanism, most people even during the Anglo-Irish War weren't Republicans or anti-union, the election of Sinn Féin in 1918 had more to do with anger over conscription in 1918, send the leadership off to jail in England, no mass internment, you likely see a hardcore homerule party in the 1918 but no armed rising
 
I was going to say that political pressure in Westminster and in the country at large is going to ensure that someone gets shot, bearing in mind that Asquith is in a coalition with the Unionists at this point. I think TOS has made this point better than I could.
 
The trouble is as you say people were baying for blood. There'd be lots of anger about the traitors getting off light when for instance deserters got shot promptly.
Overall though I agree it would probally work out for the better via the lack of martyrisation.
 
It had long officially ended, but what about bringing back transportation for this?

Australia again, or would they pick somewhere else?
 
It had long officially ended, but what about bringing back transportation for this?

Australia again, or would they pick somewhere else?

Send them where they couldn't be a focus of trouble. Australia has too many Irish republicans. Send them to Mauritius or St Helena. Seriously though, I don't know what else could have been done at that time except execute them. By staging an uprising in 1916 they were traitors aiding and abetting the enemy.
 
Saying the rebel leaders were extra-judicially murdered is an exaggeration.

The rebel leaders were court-martialed for high treason, which was a judicial process. The outcome may well have been a foregone conclusion, but they weren't just rounded up and shot.

I would speculate that if a group of 3,000 odd British soldiers had mutinied the 'ring-leaders' would have been executed. I just can't see the rebel leaders escaping the firing squad. And 15 out of 3000 is not even all the leaders (De Valera for example escaped the firing squad, just) it's not as if the rank and file rebels were being shot en-masse.

Shooting Connolly tied to a chair becasue he couldn't stand was a PR own goal whatever way you look at it, I must admit.
 
The short and long term consequences of this can be described in one sentence:
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland lasts until the present day!
 
The description of the executions as murder is OTT given that the rebels were involved in an armed rebellion against the crown during wartime. At the time of the uprising the leaders were not popular with the public in Dublin particularly women wanting to use the post office to draw various allowances and the prisoners were booed leading Pearce to remark that although they were being booed history would regard them in a different light. There are comparison with France where there was a muinty at Etaples in 1917 with one ring leader being shot and some stiff prison sentences. Even after the uprising the Irish nationalist party was still winning by elections until conscription was introduced

However as the thread suggests the executions were counter productive. As an armed uprising couldn't go unpunished the executions could have been limited to Casement who had actually been touring German prisoner of war camps to recruit supporters and was actively collabarating with the Germans.

The rest, varied prison sentences. The consequences. The Irish Nationalist party remains the standard bearer of the nationalist cause and home rule comes in in 1919 with a temporary opt out for the North East and there is no civil war. Redmond and Dillon are regarded as the heroes. A republican opposition party grows in strength in Ireland but initially it is tarnished by collaboration with Germany but memories fade maybe De Valera comes to power about the same time he did with an agenda of dominion status and dominion status is granted after WW11. However the Irish Nationlist Party still has the problem of conscription. Labour? probably not a lot different Larkin returns to lead the Labour Party and isn't discredited by his absence in America but his far left policies prove to be an election loser and he is replaced
 
Or Treat Them As Common Criminals

If the British authorities had handed them over to the regular police rather than the military and then they were imprisoned after regular judicial process or they were executed after such a regular process, the Irish public may have perceived the situation vastly differently and the martyrhood would have been taken out of it!
 
Very likely home rule would have won out as the majority concept. Republican diehards are still going to be around and you will see at least one more rebellion against the status quo.
 
If the British authorities had handed them over to the regular police rather than the military and then they were imprisoned after regular judicial process or they were executed after such a regular process, the Irish public may have perceived the situation vastly differently and the martyrhood would have been taken out of it!
a large number of them could still hang.
 
A couple of thoughts, hangings might be seen as more outragous by potential sympathisers, which would be the outcome of an ordinary trial.

The other thing is that the threat of Conscription was a big factor in the growth of Republicanism
 
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