Image Credit:Save More Street 2016 Facebook.
I passed this earlier on today on Moore Street and was unable to get a decent image of it with the lighting, but this comes from the Save Moore Street 2016 social media account. The stencil is a clever take on one of the most iconic images of the 1916 Rising, showing the surrender of P.H Pearse to General Lowe:
Pearse surrenders to General Lowe, Easter 1916.
At the time of surrender, Pearse was joined by Elizabeth O’Farrell, whose feet can just about be made out in the image above. In time, she would quite literally be airbrushed from history, and the image has been widely reproduced without any trace of her. O’Farrell bravely delivered news of the rebel surrender to General Lowe, Commander of the British Forces in Dublin during the insurrection. She recalled years later that:
I waved the small white flag which I carried and the military ceased firing and called me up to the barrier, which was across the top of Moore Street into Great Britain Street. As I passed up Moore Street I saw, at the corner of Sackville Lane, the O’Rahilly’s hat and a revolver lying on the ground – I thought he had got into some house. I gave my message to the officer in charge, and he asked me how many girls were down there. I said three. He said: “Take my advice and go down again and bring the other two girls out of it.”
There is a demonstration this Saturday at 1pm marching from Liberty Hall to Moore Street, more information is available from here.
Click on the book for more.
Half Pearse’s “coat” is actually Elizabeth O’Farrell’s dress…
I love this new “Banksy” version and it says so much about the despoliation of Moore Street under this cowardly government.
Re the original surrender photo – I believe that Nurse Farrell was not airbrushed but hand-painted out at the time by the newspaper that first published the photo for the reason that the British authorities did not wish the Irish fighting at the front to realise that women had been involved in the Easter Rising while they (the Irishmen) were away, for fear of the morale effect it would have on them. I attended a talk on this photo by Sinead McCoole in City hall some years ago and she claimed to have ‘discovered’ this.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/nurse-sorry-she-hid-in-iconic-image-26789332.html