Today, we are proud to announce the first major update of the website since our official launch several weeks ago. When we launched in late December, we had 10 authors, 37 texts and around 200 pages of material. As of today (6 January), we now have 33 authors, 112 texts and almost 500 pages of material, showing the markedly rapid expansion we have made to the size of the archive, particularly in such a short period of time.
Here are some of the major key new releases of the update:
GLIMPSES OF AN IRISH FELON’S PRISON LIFE BY TOM CLARKE
Our first major release is Glimpses of an Irish Felon’s Prison Life, a personal account given by one of the 1916 Rising leaders Tom Clarke of his experience in English prison. The veteran Clarke, who had been sentenced to penal servitude for life for his role in the Fenian dynamite campaign in 1883 against English cities and had spent fifteen of those years in prison, spoke of the harrowing brutality of the English prison system, of watching his fellow comrades being driven to madness and of the extraordinary mental fortitude he had to have exhibited in order to not fall victim to the same fate himself.
CRUSADE OF THE PERIOD BY JOHN MITCHEL
Written as a rebuttal to Dr. Anthony Froude’s work The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, Mitchel seeks to discredit Froude’s analysis of Irish history as being disingenuous and rooted in a thinly veiled dislike for the Irish. Touching on a wide array of subjects, the Penal Laws, the 1641 Rebellion and the Cromwellian conquest to name a few, The Crusade Of The Period is one of Mitchel’s finest polemics.
AODH DE BLÁCAM
One of the more interesting additions to the archive is the writings of the writer Aodh de Blácam. de Blácam, born Harold Saunders Blackham to an English family of Ulster Protestant descent, converted and became a devout Catholic and was involved in the Gaelic League and Sinn Féin. Several of his writings, most notably Towards the Republic, which serves as a treatise on an ideal Gaelic Ireland, as well as For God and Spain: The Truth About The Spanish War, which is largely a defence of Francisco Franco, are now available on the website.
THE RESURRECTION OF HUNGARY BY ARTHUR GRIFFITH
Having been published on Cartlann on the recent anniversary of the book’s release, The Resurrection of Hungary by the then Sinn Féin leader Arthur Griffith is the first advocacy of a policy of abstentionism from the British Government as well as advocating for a dual monarchy system akin to that achieved in the 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise, effectively returning to the constitution achieved by Henry Grattan in 1782. Although the dual monarchy policy was shelved over time in favour of a total commitment to republicanism, the policy of abstentionism has lived on, making this a must-read seminal work.
PÁDRAIG PEARSE
Building on last month’s release of Songs of the Irish Rebels, more additions have been made in the works of Pádraig Pearse, notably Specimens From An Irish Anthology, Some Aspects Of Irish Literature and Three Lectures on Gaelic Topics. Also featured is the one and only volume of the Irish War News, published by Pearse in the GPO during the Easter Rising itself, featuring an official statement from the rebels, and finally letters written during and after the Rising have been added to the website, including Pearse’s Final Letter To His Mother. All of which, with the exception of Irish War News, are available on both PDF and text-to-page format.
OTHER NOTABLE MENTIONS
Here is the list of the other new authors that have been added to the website:
It also includes writings, mainly historic proclamations and declarations, from the following nationalist organisations:
Obviously, with an update as extensive as this, a single post will not be enough to cover it, so in the coming days and weeks, we will be using our Twitter and Telegram to promote some more of the material we have just published.
We thank you once more for your patience and support and we hope you enjoy these new additions.
AN CHARTLANN.