The Easter Rising - 'A Terrible Beauty is Born'

It is the centenary of the Easter Rising and all over Ireland school children are learning lines of the poem written by The High School’s most famous pupil, William Butler Yeats (HSD 1881-1883): ‘Easter 1916’.  There is no denying that Yeats cared deeply about Ireland’s cultural independence, but he had no first hand experience of the unfolding events themselves, and he was left only to comment after the fact.  The same could not be said for his fellow High School old boy, Captain Herbert Stanley (HSD 1892-1901) who was one of a handful of eye-witnesses who were actually present at the execution of the Rising leaders.  Stanley was born in Blackrock, studied at The High School and trained as a dentist.  He was in charge of the Red Cross Hospital at Dublin Castle, tending to soldiers home from the Western Front when the Rising began.  He soon found himself in the unenviable position of being Medical Officer at the executions of the rebels at Kilmainham Gaol.  It was Captain Stanley who signed the death certificates of, amongst others, Pearse, MacDonagh and Clarke.  Father Aloysius, a Capuchin Friar who met Captain Stanley while tending to the spiritual needs of the prisoners said of him: ‘ I must hear stop to pay tribute to Captain Stanley. All through these days, and I had many occasions to meet him, he showed himself a kind-hearted and Christian man. In religion as well as politics differing, he respected the conviction and admired the courage of the men, and was anxious to do any service he could for them in keeping his with his duty.  Connolly himself told me that Stanley had been extremely kind to him.  Nora Connolly, who likewise described Stanley as being ‘very, very kind’, also confirmed her father's high regard for him and commended especially his efforts to have her father's effects returned to the family after his execution.  In 1935, the then Lieutenant Colonel Stanley could still recall the dreadful events that he had witnessed.  He said,  "I was the Medical Officer who attended the executions of the first nine Sinn Féiners to be shot. After that I got so sick of the slaughter that I asked to be changed. Three refused to have their eyes bandaged; they all died like lions. The rifles of the firing party were waving like a field of corn.  All the men were cut to ribbons at a range of about ten yards."  W. B. Yeats may be The High School past pupil most closely associated with the Easter Rising, but it was the dentist from Blackrock who was the real eye-witness and who played his part in the events that changed Irish history.  However, Yeats too had a role to play as the great commentator who helped the Irish people make sense of all that had happened.  He said it best when he said that Ireland had been transformed by the events that fateful spring: ‘All changed, changed utterly; A terrible beauty is born’.  
Ms M Burrowes