Give or take a few years, in 33 A.D. a man from Galilee was crucified, died, and was buried. His companions in death were two thieves, or two bandits, depending upon which gospel translation is correct. We don't know their names; they haven't come down to us. A third criminal, Barabbas, gained his release from prison in exchange for the Galilean's death. The mob wanted it that way.

And the mob got what they wanted.

The man, Christ, rose from the dead on the third day, proving his power over life and death, and confounding the doubting Thomases of his and other times. For almost 2,000 years since then, the death and resurrection of Christ have been celebrated at Easter time.

We are told that one of the crucified thieves, while hanging on his cross, acknowledged his guilt, repented, and was promised entry to Paradise that very day.

What happened to the other two criminals? Did Barabbas mend his ways or resume a life of crime? We don't know. Did the anonymous second thief go unrepentant to meet his Maker, or did some impulse make him cry for forgiveness before his broken-legged body breathed its last? We don't know.

Eighty-one years ago at Easter in another capital city, in another country, another group of criminals were executed, not by crucifixion, not by hanging, but by military firing squad. They were fourteen in number.

The city was Dublin. The criminals included the seven signatories to the Proclamation of the Republic of Ireland, and to the Armed forces of England their crime was rebellion.

Bang! One rebel dead. Bang! A second rebel dead. Bang! A third rebel dead.

That was on the first day of the executions. The dead bodies were toppled into a pit and covered with quicklime.

The story is well known. Recently it was retold in the film "Michael Collins". For a week a small force, lightly armed, poorly trained, had seized and held central Dublin against the forces of King and Empire. It wasn't a popular rising. The common people of Dublin condemned it. They howled imprecations against the rebels when at last they surrendered and were being marched away, some to prison, some to the docks for deportation, some to face military courts martial.

The aftermath is also well known. As the courts martial continued, as the executions were stretched out over ten days, from May 3 to May 12, 1916, as the realization grew that the "criminals" were Irishmen being tried, found guilty, condemned, and killed by English soldiery, public sentiment began to change.

When the last of the signatories to the Proclamation was shot to death, sitting strapped in a chair because of a leg wound suffered in the fighting, the mob was transformed. Blood called to blood, and within five years the old enemy was forced to withdraw and Irish independence was regained by the companions of the Easter criminals.

What is the connection? Not hard to tell. We know the names of all the Irish who were executed. We even know the name of one war criminal, the English Army officer who had an Irish pacifist shot without trial, and who later, like so many of his European successors, made his way to Canada, there to end his days in obscurity.

The connection lies in the fate of the oldest of the signatories, the indomitable Tom Clarke, the link with previous generations of Irish rebels, whose whole life was dedicated to breaking the shackles of foreign rule by whatever means he could muster.

Against Church, against State, his was a lonely crusade, and his death equally lonely. His companions sought the comfort of their religion on the eve of their executions. Clarke, asked to express repentance, refused.

Believing he was laying down his life for his fellow men, Clarke's execution in Arbour Hill Jail, following the Easter Rising of 1916, carried with it echoes of the crucifixions at Golgotha, nineteen centuries earlier.

What was his last conscious thought before the bullets struck? We don't know, at least for now.

We do, however, have a wondrous, beautiful, abiding legacy left by one of his executed fellow rebels, the gentle poet/soldier Joseph Plunkett, which, in its simplicity and intensity, commends itself once more as an Easter offering:

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice--and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.

     Joseph Mary Plunkett 1887--1916

This was the order of the Dublin executions:

May 3......Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh.

May 4......Joseph Plunkett, Edward Daly, William Pearse, Michael O'Hanrahan.

May 5......John MacBride.

May 8......Eamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Con Colbert, Seán Heuston.

May 12.....Seán MacDermott, James Connolly.

A fifteenth man, Thomas Kent, was executed in Cork on May 9.

On August 3, 1916, Sir Roger Casement was hanged at Pentonville Prison, London.

The End

Note: The above first appeared on "A Home Page with an Irish Flavour" at Easter 1997. Its reappearance in 2001 is a reminder that only fifteen years remain until the centenary of the 1916 executions, and that six counties of Ireland still remain partitioned from the Republic of Ireland.