WI the 1916 Easter Rising executions were done in secret?

King Thomas

Banned
Historicly from what I've read, it was the executions of the Easter Rising leaders that made their aims popular. What if they had publicly been given a jail term without the right of correspondence and then secretly executed? (I'm not saying that would be a good thing, I'm just curious about what what would have happened.)
 
Seems highly unlikely that the British would chose to execute the Rebel leaders in secret anyway. The British and Irish unionists saw the rising as a german inspired 'stab in the back' and were in no mood to consider Irish feelings. The executions were public because the British wanted to show that any further dissent would be punished by death.
 
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Your Kingship may be curious to listen to a podcast on RTE radio (The irish state broadcaster if you dont know that) which has a "What If" series.

It includes a what if Connolly had lived.
 
Seems highly unlikely that the British would chose to execute the Rebel leaders in secret anyway. The British and Irish unionists saw the rising as a german inspired 'stab in the back' and were in no mood to consider Irish feelings. The executions were public because the British wanted to show that any further dissent would be punished by death.

It's kind of difficult to see what else the British government could have done with the rebel leaders, they were guilty of High Treason (under British Law at least, Irish Republicans would argue that they were a legitimate armed force under the authority of the Dail).

I think a more interesting PoD is what if Michael Collins and Eamon DeValera had been executed too, they were both IMO geniuses in their own way. Collins in particular is indispensable to the Irish cause IMO.
 
Podcast link is www.rte.ie/radio1/podcasts then look down the page for documentaries and the the "Doc On One" section.

Theres a black and white photo of a bus in Dublin (in the rare old times no doubt).

If you have any problems then just type in Radio Telefis Eireann RTE podcasts. You may know this already.

As for executing Dev. Hard to think of the Republic's history without him. But it was by the skin of his arse that he escaped that fate.

Obviously without his credibility, determination and madness, the anti treatyites would have been mortally weaked. Reduced to its rump of the angry left and the military wing. It makes you wonder if Lemass and McGuinness would have been as effective in their leadership as Dev.

Given by the 30's faith in Cumann had gone as a governing party, I wonder who - without Dev - would have emerged as the anti Cosgrave opposition. Cant see it being Labour. Cant see a blue shirt type opposition emrging.

Like I say hard to imagine what politics would have been like without Dev.
 
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