Brian Crowley, Collectors Curator of Kilmainham Gaol and the Pearse Museum provided us with a very informative and visual account of the life of Patrick Pearse on the evening of Tuesday 6 May 2025 at the Lalor Centre in Baltinglass. Brian’s talk drew on the photographic archives of the Pearse family (James Pearse, his free-thinking father, was very interested in photography) and the material culture of 1916. The famous image of Pearse’s head in profile has drawn onto itself an almost religious, iconic quality in the decades since the Easter Rising.
Pearse presents as sure and emphatic in his writings, although he tended to be socially awkward. He was passionately interested in education. The school he founded, Scoil Éanna laid much emphasis on the performative arts and Irish mythology and focussed on the individual talents of each student. His 1916 pamphlet on education entitled The Murder Machine was ahead of its time. Pearse will always be remembered for his stirring oration at the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa, which saw him emerge as the face of a new radical nationalism in the form of movements such as the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He composed four pamphlets which explain the rationale behind the subsequent Rising for those who came afterwards. The 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic was largely composed by Pearse. He remains one of the most commemorated of Irish people, or as Brian our speaker described him ‘ the face of the Rising’.
Brian Crowley, an acknowledged expert on the Irish Revolutionary period and Patrick Pearse in particular, hails from Eadestown in County Kildare. His pictorial history of Patrick Pearse entitled Patrick Pearse: A Life in Pictures was published in 2013. He has also published several historical essays about Pearse.
Photo: Collage of images courtesy of Brian Crowley