Portrait of a Rebellion

This work uses a representative sample of contemporary English newspapers to examine press reporting of the Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland in 1916. It shows the extent to which the British government reacted to public opinion and attempted its influence by manipulating the flow of information to newspapers. Government efforts to play down the rising as unrepresentative of Irish constitutional nationalism were initially successful with its portrayal in newspapers as a German-orchestrated plot aided by a handful of radical extremists. However, government failure to manage the media impact in England of the subsequent military executions prompted powerful newspaper campaigns against the process that reignited interest and coverage of the rising. The opportunity for government to minimise the political repercussions of the rising in England and in Ireland was forfeit.