Easter Rising

For six days in April 1916, Irish republicans held key buildings in central Dublin and declared an independent Irish Republic, while Britain was absorbed in the First World War. The uprising, planned in secret by a small council within the Irish Republican Brotherhood, was crushed by the British Army, and it left much of the city centre in ruins. Yet the execution of its leaders turned many Irish people towards the cause of independence, making the Rising a turning point on the road to an Irish state.

Under the Acts of Union of 1800, Ireland had been governed as part of the United Kingdom, with no parliament of its own. Constitutional nationalists had long campaigned for Home Rule, a devolved Irish parliament, and a third Home Rule bill was introduced in 1912. Ulster unionists, mostly Protestant, formed the armed Ulster Volunteers in 1913 to resist it, and nationalists responded by founding the Irish Volunteers. When war broke out in 1914, Home Rule was enacted but suspended for the duration. Most Volunteers followed the nationalist leader John Redmond in backing the war effort, but a minority of a few thousand refused, and within that minority the Irish Republican Brotherhood resolved in September 1914 to stage a rising before the war ended.

A secret Military Council including the teacher and writer Patrick Pearse and the labour leader James Connolly of the Irish Citizen Army, set the rising for Easter Sunday, 23 April 1916. Germany agreed to send weapons, but the arms ship was intercepted off County Kerry on 21 April and scuttled, and Roger Casement, who had sought German help, was arrested after landing. The Volunteers' chief of staff, Eoin MacNeill, then issued a countermand cancelling Sunday's manoeuvres. The council decided to go ahead a day later, with far fewer men than planned.

Around midday on Easter Monday, 24 April, about 1,200 rebels seized positions across central Dublin. Pearse read aloud the Proclamation declaring an Irish Republic outside the General Post Office, which became the rebel headquarters. Other garrisons held the Four Courts, St Stephen's Green, Jacob's biscuit factory and Boland's Mill, but the rebels failed to take Dublin Castle, Trinity College or the main railway stations and ports.

Martial law was declared on Tuesday, and British reinforcements poured in until more than 16,000 troops were in the city, supported by artillery and the patrol vessel Helga on the River Liffey. At Mount Street Bridge on Wednesday, a handful of Volunteers inflicted heavy losses on troops advancing from Kingstown. Shellfire eventually set the GPO ablaze and forced its garrison out. On Saturday 29 April Pearse surrendered unconditionally. Outside Dublin the Rising was limited, largely because of MacNeill's countermand.

The Rising left 485 people dead: 260 civilians, 143 British soldiers and police, and 82 rebels, including those later executed; more than 2,600 were wounded. Most civilian casualties were caused by British artillery and machine-gun fire in built-up streets. Soldiers also killed civilians in notorious incidents, including the shooting of the pacifist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington.

About 3,500 people were arrested, and some 1,800 were sent to camps and prisons in Britain. Under General John Maxwell, 187 people were tried by secret courts martial from 2 May. Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Tom Clarke were shot on 3 May, and the last executions, of Connolly and Seán Mac Diarmada, took place on 12 May; Casement was hanged in London in August. The most prominent leader spared was Éamon de Valera. The executions and mass arrests angered many who had not supported the Rising.

Support shifted from Redmond's party to Sinn Féin, which was relaunched as a broad separatist movement in 1917. Helped by the conscription crisis of 1918, it won 73 of Ireland's 105 seats in the general election that December, set up its own parliament, the Dáil, and declared independence, leading to the Irish War of Independence.

Our 1914 map shows Ireland as part of the United Kingdom within the British Empire, and our 1930 map shows the Irish Free State that emerged after the war of independence.