The outbreak of the Easter Rising

109 years ago (Easter Monday - but in 1916 it was 24 April), the Easter Rising commenced in Dublin. With communications links cut, news spread slowly throughout the country. Looking through the pages of the Irish Newspaper Archive there are sporadic reports in provincial newspapers about what was happening in Dublin.

One of the few to publish news of events was the Limerick Leader on Wednesday 26 April, two days after the rising had commenced in Dublin. Even then the news reports were sketchy, although there was considerable coverage to Roger Casement and the failure to land weapons in Kerry the previous week, on Good Friday.

Taking a cautious approach, the Kerry Press newspaper a day previously, Tuesday, was reluctant to publish news and reported:

We have been directed by the competent Military Authority not to publish anything regarding the wild rumours afloat about alleged sensational happenings in Dublin.

(Passed for Publication).

London, Friday. News reached Tralee this evening, says a Central News message, that a collapsible boat, containing arms and ammunition, was seized about four o'clock this morning at Currahane Strand by the Ardfert police. A stranger, of unknown nationality, was arrested in the vicinity and is detained in custody. Where the boat came from, or for whom the arms were intended, is at present unknown.

Tralee, Saturday Evening.

A further sensation has been added to the seizure of a boat with arms and ammunition in Tralee Bay yesterday by the arrests of a prominent member of the Tralee Irish Volunteers, Mr Austin Stack, and. Cornelius Collins, accountant, G.P.O., Dublin, who are charged with conspiracy and aiding and abetting the importation of arms from Germany

Thus news of what was happening in Kerry and Dublin slowly filtered out throughout the country. However, it would be another few days before the full extent of what was happening in Dublin would be known to the world.

For more information search the pages of the Irish Newspaper Archive (www.irishnewsarchive.com )