Poet Joyce Kilmer Left Imprint on Irish Easter Week Rebellion

MAHWAH -- While living in Mahwah, Joyce Kilmer was the most prominent poet in America to gather support for Irish independence during the historic Easter Week rebellion ninety-nine years ago.

The insurrection began on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, lasting a week before superior British forces put down the insurrection. Nonetheless, the events paved the way for the Irish eventually breaking away from the British.

Kilmer wrote a stirring poem about the revolt entitled “Easter Week,” and another poem “Apology,” in which he named the three poets who were among the leaders and were executed almost immediately after the rebellion. He also helped to organize a rally of American poets in Central Park and wrote a series of stories of the battle events in The New York Times.

The Joyce Kilmer Society of Mahwah devoted its April newsletter to details of Kilmer’s participation in support of the Irish rebels.

Kilmer produced many of his most-admired poems during the five years he lived in Mahwah. He had a deep affection for everything Irish, prompting author Robert Cortes Holliday to declare in his memoir of Kilmer that he was “a much more ardent Irishman than many an Irishman born.”

Shortly before noon on Easter Monday, seven freedom fighters led a revolt by 1,200 men and women, spurred in part, by delayed Home Rule.They took over the main post office and several other buildings, hoisted a flag and proclaimed the Irish Republic.

Within a week, the British forces of 16,000 men, artillery and naval gunboats crushed the revolt. The toll: 450 dead, 2,000 wounded.

Initially, there was little support for the rebels, but the tide of public opinion turned because of rushed executions (the leaders were shot and tossed into a mass quicklime grave), 3,000 arrests and martial law. Soon, the revolt leaders were hailed as “martyrs.” Stories in the American media by writers such as Joyce Kilmer contributed to the shift.

Kilmer’s “Easter Week” poem praising the freedom fighters lifted the spirits of the Irish, here and in Ireland.

Little was known in America of the seething Irish problem. But the writings of Kilmer and others illuminated the issue for Americans, and their dispatches published here and in Ireland stirred Irish nationalism.

As the executions began, Kilmer joined poet Eleanor Rogers Cox in organizing a poets’ rally for the rebels in Central Park. Joyce’s story of the event, “Poets’ March in Van of Irish Revolt,” appeared in the Times Sunday Magazine. Another Kilmer story, “Irish Girl Rebel Tells of Dublin Fighting,” recounted his interview with Moira Regan, a Rising survivor.

Among those executed was Irish poet and editor of the Irish Review, Joseph Mary Plunkett, who Kilmer had met in New York the year before. Plunkett was supposed to be married to his finace, artist Grace Gifford, on Easter Sunday, but the battle plans forced a delay. They were married in a jailhouse ceremony and permitted 10 minutes together before he was shot by a firing squad. Joyce was so deeply affected by Plunket’s death that he dedicated “Easter Week” to his memory.

A second Kilmer Poem, “Apology,” names the three poet leaders of the revolt and asked:

“Is Freedom only a Will-0’the-wisp

To cheat a poet’s eye?

Be it phantom or fact, it’s a noble cause

In which to sing and to die!”

In his memoir, Robert Cortes Holliday speculated:

“It is not at all improbable that had he (Kilmer) been an Irishman born and resident in Ireland he would have been among the martyrs of Easter Week.”