When I first heard the song GRACE sung by Anothony Kearns of the Irish Tenors, I had little idea of the history it was conveying. It was just a beautiful Irish song with sad overtones.
The story behind the 1985 song by Sean and Frank O’Meara is the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin:
“On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, a group of Irish nationalists proclaimed the establishment of the Irish Republic and, along with some 1,600 followers, staged a rebellion against the British government in Ireland. The rebels seized prominent buildings in Dublin and clashed with British troops. Within a week, the insurrection had been suppressed and more than 2,000 people were dead or injured. The leaders of the rebellion soon were executed. Initially, there was little support from the Irish people for the Easter Rising; however, public opinion later shifted and the executed leaders were hailed as martyrs. In 1921, a treaty was signed that in 1922 established the Irish Free State, which eventually became the modern-day Republic of Ireland.”
https://www.history.com/topics/british-history/easter-rising
However, before the Easter Rising of 1916 two young people fell in love. They were Grace Evelyn Gifford, an Irish artist, and Joseph Plunkett, poet and editor.
She was Protestant and he was Catholic. Two systems of belief diametrically opposed to each other.
Of course, the arduous path of true love on this planet traversing the cosmos has had many obstacles for two young lovers from different cultures or religions to face. For Grace and Joseph like Lysander and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the same would be true.
Meeting in 1913 Grace and Joseph had an instant attraction which led to love. Grace’s Protestant faith was definitely a barrier which Joseph parents relentlessly asserted to their son—she wasn’t “a good Catholic girl”.
When one weighs religion and love in the scales of time, there have been many who chose love. So Grace converted to the faith of her beloved Joseph.
True to the immortal words of the Bard of Avalon:
“The course of true love never did run smooth,” Lysander stated to Hermia in Act 1.
But her conversion did not console his parents because their hatred of Protestants could not allow for the course of true love to run smooth for their son and the lovely young lady he had asked to be his bride. Another factor was Joseph’s failing health because the dreaded White Plague (tuberculosis) had chosen him to be on its pall inventory to remove from this life.
All in all, it seemed that fate would be the cruel master for this love of two young people. Joseph had another love—Ireland, to be free of British rule.
This love would be his doom and not the White Plague. Participating in the Easter Rising of 1916, he was caught and arrested.
The punishment was death by firing squad. Even though his time because of his malady was short, the example must be made of those who defy the rule of law even if the motivation is right and freedom from injudicious control is the inalienable right of humans.
Somehow, the British guards at Kilmainham Gaol (jail) allowed a last request. Joseph and Grace could be married before his execution the next morning.
Grace purchased a ring from a jeweler on Grafton Street and a priest was found to perform the ceremony in the chapel at the jail. So at 6 pm on May 3, 1916 these two young lovers were united in holy matrimony hours before his death.
Grace’s life of misery was only beginning. Joseph’s parents refused to accept her or to honor their son’s will leaving everything to Grace.
To them she was still the Protestant girl who seduced their son. She would have no place in their lives or heart.
To add to her stress she lost the baby which she and Joseph had created from their love. False rumors and innuendos about Grace began, and Joseph’s parents advocated the child was not their son’s but another man.
Grace struggled in making a living from her artistic endeavors. In 1923 Grace was arrested and placed in Kilmainham Gaol.
I am sure as she spent the rest of winter and the beginning of Spring in that place of misery, she thought of the good times that she and Joseph had. It was a short time, but sometimes even a short duration where love is prevalent can be a life time of happiness.
There are times when misfortune changes to fortune. So it was for Grace in her final years; she had the means to live comfortably and travel, especially to Paris.
She never remarried. It seems that once you have found true love and it is gone, one can never repeat the discovery with another.
So the song GRACE takes on added meaning when the history is known. Gerry Cunningham’s musical Blood Upon The Rose depicts the story of Grace and Joseph.
I See His Blood Upon The Rose is a poem that Joseph wrote. In its mystical imagery faith is distilled like the morning dew on the roses which bloom along the road of life with both beauty and thorns.
Singer and Songwriter Rod Stewart visited Kilmainham Gaol. He said
“I visited the jail and went into the chapel where it all happened. So it means a lot to me, that one, it really does.
“There was no furniture in the jail apart from the bed of jail, no table, no bed, no chair, nothing. Just sat on the floor, and the glass that was there when I visited wasn’t there in those days, so the wind and the snow came straight into the cell.
“Man’s inhumanity to man never stops to astonish me.”
Addition details about Grace, Joseph, the Easter Rising of 1916 and the musical are in the references below.
G. D. Williams © 2019
POST 792
Easter Rising 1916
At about 11.00 am on Easter Monday, Patrick Pearse and the Volunteers, along with James Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army, assembled at various prearranged meeting points in Dublin, and before noon set out to occupy a number of imposing buildings in the inner city area. These had been selected to command the main routes into the capital, and also because of their strategic position in relation to the major military barracks. They included the General Post Office, the Four Courts, Jacob’s Factory, Boland’s Bakery, the South Dublin Union, St. Stephen’s Green and later the College of Surgeons. Photos There was little fighting on the first day since British intelligence had failed hopelessly, the properties targeted were taken virtually without resistance and immediately the rebels set about making them defensible. The GPO was the nerve center of the rebellion. It served as the rebels’ headquarters and the seat of the provisional government which they declared. Five of its members served there – Pearse, Clarke, Connolly, MacDermott and Plunkett.
The British military onslaught, which the rebels had anticipated, did not at first materialize. When the Rising began the authorities had just 400 troops to confront roughly 1,000 insurgents. Their immediate priorities were therefore to amass reinforcements, gather information on volunteer strength and locations and protect strategic positions, including the seat of government, Dublin Castle, which had initially been virtually undefended. On Tuesday, a British force of 4,500 men with artillery attacked and secured the Castle. Photos
“As the week progressed, the fighting in some areas did become intense, characterized by prolonged, fiercely contested hand to hand street battles. Military casualties were highest at Mount Street Bridge. There, newly arrived troops made successive, tactically inept, frontal attacks on determined and disciplined volunteers occupying several strongly fortified outposts. They lost 234 men, dead or wounded while just 5 rebels died. In some instances, lapses in military discipline occurred. Soldiers were alleged to have killed 15 unarmed men in North King Street near the Four Courts during intense gun battles there on 28th and 29th April. The pacifist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was the best- known civilian victim of the insurrection. He was arrested in Dublin on 25th April, taken to Portobello Barracks and shot by firing squad next morning without trial.
Grace Evelyn Gifford Plunkett (March 4, 1888-December 13, 1955)
Gifford is the second youngest of twelve children born to Frederick Gifford, a solicitor and Roman Catholic, and Isabella Julia Burton Gifford, a Protestant. She grows up in the fashionable suburb of Rathmines in Dublin. The boys are baptised as Catholics and the girls as Protestant, but effectively the children are all raised as Protestants. The girls attend Alexandra College in Earlsfort Terrace, and the boys attend the High School in Harcourt St.
At the age of 16, Gifford enters the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, where she studies under the Irish artist William Orpen. Orpen regards Gifford as one of his most talented pupils. He often sketches her and eventually paints her as one of his subjects for a series on “Young Ireland.” Around this time, Gifford’s talent for caricature is discovered and developed. In 1907 she attends a course in Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, London.
Death of Grace Evelyn Gifford Plunkett
In 1915 Grace began a courtship with the editor of The Irish Review, Joseph Plunkett and they planned to marry. Unknown to Grace, Joseph was a founder of the Irish Volunteers who were planning a rebellion in Dublin.
By the end of Easter Week April 1916 the rebels had surrendered and were imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol. The leaders were condemned to death by firing squad. When Joseph learned that his execution was scheduled to take place, he sought permission to be married. On the 3rd May 1916 at 6.00 pm Grace Gifford entered Kilmainham Gaol. With a priest and two witnesses present she married Joseph. He was executed the next day.
https://www.glasnevintrust.ie/visit-glasnevin/interactive-map/grace-gifford-plunkett/
Plunkett was supposed to be married in a double wedding ceremony (with his sister and her fiancé) on Easter Sunday, but could not because of the Rising. He was engaged to Grace Gifford of the politically bipolar Gifford family—half were Unionists and the other half Fenians. Fellow Proclamation signatory Thomas MacDonagh was married to Grace’s sister, Muriel Gifford.
https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/101-years-ago-today-grace-plunkett-became-a-widow
Following the surrender Plunkett was held in Kilmainham Gaol, and faced a court martial. Seven hours before his execution by firing squad at the age of 28, he was married in the prison chapel to his sweetheart Grace Gifford, a Protestant convert to Catholicism, whose sister, Muriel, had years before also converted and married his best friend Thomas MacDonagh, who was also executed for his role in the Easter Rising. Grace never married again.
https://www.geni.com/people/Grace-Gifford/6000000017449150238
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39428940/grace-evelyn-plunkett
Blood Upon The Rose
As new musical drama Blood Upon the Rose makes its way to the Waterfront Hall, writer Gerry Cunningham tells Gail Bell how the story of the ill-fated romance between an executed 1916 leader and a Protestant artist is striking a chord with theatre-goers
“The story seems to have struck a chord with people who are familiar with the history surrounding the Rising, but not so much the personal lives of those behind it,” says the professional musician and retired drama teacher who has just turned 60 and lives near the village of Loughgall outside Portadown.
“I think the passion, the power and the loss have all connected with people. It certainly makes you look at the personal consequences of what was an iconic but flawed event in history.
“You can’t help but be struck by the tragedy of all. There was no wedding night – after they married in prison, Grace was sent away and allowed back the next day for 10 minutes before her new husband was shot by firing squad.
“What makes the story even more poignant is the fact Plunkett, who never fully recovered from tuberculosis he suffered as a child, was going to die anyway. He had risen from his sick bed to take part in the Rising and doctors had not given him long to live.”
I See His Blood Upon The Rose
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.
As we gather in the chapel here in old Kilmainham Gaol,
I think about these past few weeks, oh will they say we’ve failed.
From our schooldays they have told us we must yearn for liberty
Yet all I want in this dark place is to have you here with me.
Now I know it’s hard for you my love to ever understand,
The love I share for these brave men, my love for this dear land.
But when the Padhraic called me to his side down in the GPO,
I had to leave my own sick bed, to him I had to go
Now as the dawn is breaking, my heart is breaking too,
On this May morn as I walk out my thoughts will be of you.
And I’ll write some words upon the wall so everyone will know
I love so much that I could see his blood upon the rose.
CHORUS
Oh Grace just hold me in your arms and let this moment linger
They’ll take me out at dawn and I will die.
With all my love I place this wedding ring upon your finger.
There won’t be time to share our love for we must say goodbye.
GRACE
Caoimhe Mooney aged 11 sings the beautiful Irish song Grace. It tells the story of Grace Gifford and Joseph Plunkett and their brief marriage during the 1916 Rising in Ireland. Caoimhe lives in Drumsna Co. Leitrim and is a member of Evolution Stage School Longford.
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