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On This Day: Irish rebels stage Easter Rising against British rule

APRIL 24, 1916: Irish insurgents staged the Easter Rising against British rule amid the First World War on this day in 1916.

The insurrection, which was soon crushed but sowed the seeds of independence, began with rebels seizing key Dublin buildings and proclaiming the Irish Republic.

At the same time, smaller uprisings were organised in other parts of Ireland and members of the Irish Volunteers had planned to pick up a German shipment of arms.

The British were caught totally off guard by the rebellion, which began on Easter Monday and took place two years into the slaughter of the biggest war in its history.

Nevertheless, the 1,250 Dublin dissidents, who were the threat of forced conscription and failure to enact the Home Rule Bill, soon succumbed to the Empire’s might.

The revolution was crushed in six days following the deaths of 64 insurgents, 134 soldiers and policeman, and 254 civilians.

In particular, the rebels, who also included 200 men from James Connolly’s trade unionist Irish Citizens Army and 200 women, were overwhelmed by artillery.


The leaders were forced to abandon their headquarters at the General Post Office after heavy shelling caused a massive fire.

Patrick Pearse, who had read out the Proclamation of the Republic from there, capitulated at 16 Moore Street, where they tunnelled to, on April 29, 1916.

Fighting elsewhere continued until Sunday when news of the unconditional surrender reached other rebels.

 

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Ultimately, the Irish Volunteers’ revolt failed due to the public’s failure to rise up combined with blunders that saw only 1,600 of the possible 5,000 members fight.

The German arms shipment also never reached rebel hands and the former British diplomat Sir Roger Casement who organised the aid was also captured.

The Catholic convert was among 15 leaders to be executed during a brutal British crackdown that turned initial public opposition into support for the rebels.


People were also angered by atrocities committed against civilians during the rising, including a flashpoint where soldiers shot and bayoneted 15 men on a single street.

At the 1918 General Election, new Republican Party Sinn Fein won 73 of Ireland’s 105 seats in the Westminster House of Commons.

Among those elected was Eamon de Valera, a sixteenth organiser who was saved from a death sentence because he was an American citizen, and Constance Markievicz, who became the first woman to be elected to the British Parliament.

 

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They refused to sit in the British Parliament and instead set up the Dail in Dublin and issued a second declaration of independence on January 21, 1919.

This time, the rejuvenated rebel fighters – now called the Irish Republican Army – had more success.


The Irish War of Independence ended in 1921 with an agreement to form an Irish Free State, which was self-governing but still part of the British Empire.

But predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland remained part of the UK – a bone of contention that led to a two-year civil war among nationalists.

 

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DeValera, who returned to politics in 1932 following opposing the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, went on to dominate the new country.

He served as Taoiseach for 21 years and President for 14 - and shaped Ireland more than anyone else by attempting to put Gaelic, Catholicism and the Easter Rising at the centre of its identity.