New Zealand’s Responses to the 1916 Rising

Abstract

When the Irish-born Archbishop of Melbourne heard that Michael Collins had been executed, he broke down weeping: “Michael they have shot him”.  According to one of his biographers, Brenda Niall, “[s]omething in Daniel Mannix was released in the aftermath of the Easter Rising” and he was soon to play a decisive role in defeating two conscription referenda.  The Australian Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, later complained to the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd-George, that the Irish had “killed conscription”.