Patrick pearse biography

In an unpublished autobiography, Patrick Pearse described himself as the ‘strange thing that I am’. So intimately was he to become associated with the Easter Rising that it has become almost impossible for historians since to ‘see the man’.

He was born in Dublin, the son of a self-educated, free-thinking sculptor from England who specialised in ecclesiastical work.

Intelligent and industrious, he won a scholarship to the Royal University where he studied law and was later called to the bar.

10 facts about pádraig pearse

He had joined the Gaelic League on leaving school and had become single-mindedly committed to the revival of the Irish Language and to educational reform. Initially he regarded the latter as more important than political independence.

In 1908 he established an independent Irish-speaking school for boys in Dublin, St. Enda’s; its pupils were to "work hard … for their fatherland, and if it should ever be necessary … die for it".

Up to 1912, Pearse had appeared on home rule p