Scotland and the Easter Rising: Fresh Perspectives on 1916

The story of the Rising is still being told, and in these pages the reader will find much to ponder, much to discuss, and much to disagree with. From the Introduction by Kirsty Lusk and Willy Maley

On Easter Monday 1916, leaders of a rebellion against British rule over Ireland proclaimed the establishment of an Irish Republic. Lasting only six days before surrender to the British, this landmark event nevertheless laid the foundations for Ireland’s violent path to Independence. It is little known that James Connolly, one of the rebellion’s leaders, was born in Edinburgh’s Cowgate, at the time nicknamed ‘Little Ireland’, or that another key figure in the events of Easter 1916 was a young woman from Coatbridge, Margaret Skinnider. These and other surprising Scottish connections are explored in Scotland and the Easter Rising, as Kirsty Lusk and Willy Maley gather together a rich grouping of writers, journalists and academics to examine, for the first time, the Scottish dimension to the events of 1916 and its continued resonance in Scotland today.

ALLAN ARMSTRONG • RICHARD BARLOW • IAN BELL • ALAN BISSETT • JOSEPH M. BRADLEY • RAY BURNETT • STUART CHRISTIE • HELEN CLARK • MARIA-DANIELLA DICK • DES DILLON • PETER GEOGHEGAN • PEARSE HUTCHINSON • SHAUN KAVANAGH • BILLY KAY • PHIL KELLY • AARON KELLY • JAMES KELMAN • KIRSTY LUSK • KEVIN MCKENNA • WILLY MALEY • NIALL O’GALLAGHER • ALISON O’MALLEY-YOUNGER • ALAN RIACH • KEVIN ROONEY • MICHAEL SHAW • IRVINE WELSH • OWEN DUDLEY EDWARDS

Featuring a mix of memoir, essays, poetry and fiction this book provides a thought-provoking and necessary negotiation of historical and contemporary Irish-Scottish relations, and explores the Easter Rising’s intersections with other movements, from Women’s Suffrage to the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum.

Willy Maley is Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow. Recent work includes two essay collections: Celtic Connections: Irish-Scottish Relations and the Politics of Culture, co-edited with Alison O’Malley-Younger (Oxford and Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013), and Romantic Ireland: From Tone to Gonne; Fresh Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century Ireland(Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), co-edited with Paddy Lyons and John Miller.