Themes
Death
The use of the word "requiem(or Requiem Mass) A religious ceremony performed in memory of someone who has died. It can also be a composition or piece of music for honouring those who have died." in the title suggests that the poem is a remembrance for the dead and was written to honour the Croppies who died fighting against the British.
"They buried us without shroud or coffin" creates an image of a hurried burial.
Their treatment at the hands of the British - even in death - shows the lack of respect they were accorded at the time.
Resistance
The "barley" becomes a symbol used to represent the fighting spirit and resistance against British rule that cannot be silenced by death. It continues to grow from the graves of those who sacrificed their lives.
The poem has a cyclicalGoing in cycles, returning to where it began. structure, showing the barley going from being food in the men鈥檚 "greatcoats" to growing out of their graves.
This emphasises how the seeds of the 1916 Easter Rising, 1916An armed rebellion centred in Dublin during Easter 1916 by Irish republicans who wanted to end British rule in Ireland. were sown during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
Mercilessness
Heaney uses imageryThe use of language to create images and pictures in the reader's mind. to show the brutality of the British attack on the rebels.
The personifiedA type of imagery in which non-human objects, animals or ideas are given human characteristics. of the "hillside" which "blushed, soaked in our broken wave" evokes the extent of the blood that was spilled.
The use of the word "blushed" also conveys the embarrassment of many at the cruel and unjust treatment of the Irish rebels.