The Rising and the 'maritime platform'

Hugh O'Neill recognised it; Jonathan Swift was "explicit" about it; Grattan had a vision of it; Tone realised it from bitter experience; Arthur Griffith had a clear conception of its economic potential. Why then, when it could have been of most value to them, did the 1916 leaders turn their backs on the sea? The question was first raised by the maritime historian, Dr John de Courcy Ireland, in 1966, when he published his research to mark the Easter Rising's 50th anniversary. Over thirty years later, the failure to take full advantage of the "maritime platform" still comes as something of a shock - perhaps because successive governments of this island republic are as blind now as the military council was back then. The same could be said for the historians chronicling the Republic's progress, the author hints. This is a diary of what really happened in April 1916, during the German Admiralty's attempt to assist the insurgents, through Roger Casement. Casement believed that German naval assistance was an indispensable ingredient. But precisely what this entailed was not understood by the Rising's planners. This third edition contains one new piece of information: the key to the failed rendezvous between the German arms ship, disguised as a Norwegian freighter, and Casement on a submarine on April 20th 1916. Dr Ireland is convinced that the arms ship, SMS Libau, never reached Tralee Bay at all . . .