Joseph Mary Plunkett and Grace Gifford
A Love Story From the Easter Rising 1916
Grace Gifford married Joseph Mary Plunkett in the early morning hours of May 4, 1916, only hours before Joseph was to face a British firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol for being a leader in the Easter Rising, which sparked the Irish Revolution. Joseph was a 28-year-old poet, who along with six other revolutionary leaders signed the Proclamation of the Republic, which was read aloud on the steps of the General Post Office, after the revolutionaries had seized strategic points in downtown Dublin.
The uprising only lasted a week before the Irish were forced to surrender, severely outnumbered by British guns. At the time, the Irish People were not behind the revolution and were angry at the carnage and civilian deaths caused by the fighting.
But after the rebellion was put down, the seven leaders were imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol, and summarily tried and executed in the courtyard over the next few weeks. The executions angered the Irish and they soon turned in support of the revolution taking advantage of Britain's preoccupation in WWI.
Seven hours prior to Joseph's execution Grace was brought to Kilmainham Goal and she and Joseph were married in the prison chapel surrounded by armed guards. Grace never again married and was a supporter of the revolution, and backed the anti-treaty IRA factions in the Irish Civil War.
She was jailed by Pro-Treaty factions in the same jail in 1923 and painted a famous portrait of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the wall of her cell which can still be seen today. In the 1980's an Irishman wrote a song titled "Grace", which is now performed most famously by Anthony Kearns of the Irish Tenors. It is beautiful, moving, sad, and worth watching.
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