On the morning of March 24, 1916, roughly 1,200 insurgents march into the streets of Dublin, Ireland and begin to seize some of the city's major buildings. It was the beginning of the Easter Rising, the first major attempt to free Ireland from British rule in over a century. Though the Easter Rising failed to achieve independence, the overreaction of the British occupiers and their execution of insurgent leaders galvanized support for a free Ireland. Today, the Easter Rising is commonly seen as the first chapter in the story of Irish independence, which would be achieved in 1921.
The insurgent forces were organized by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which was joined by fighters from the Irish Volunteers, a small group of trade unionists known as the Irish Citizens Army, and the all-female Cumann na mBan, or Irishwomen's Council. They planned the revolt for Easter Weekend and arranged for a shipment of weapons from Germany, but the plan was nearly scuttled when the British intercepted the delivery. On Easter Sunday, the Military Council of the IRB met, elected Volunteer leader Patrick Pearse president of the Irish Republic, and decided to attack the next morning.
March 24 saw the combined IRB force quickly seize important public spaces like City Hall, the Four Courts, St. Stephen's Green, and the General Post Office, which became their headquarters. The rebels raised two republican flags over the post office, from which Pearse read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, asserting "the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland." Despite disorganization on the part of the rebels, they managed to take the British completely by surprise and maintain their foothold in the face of scattered counter-attacks. Though the rest of the populace did not rise up in revolt, as some revolutionaries had hoped, the first day ended with a new republic declared and in possession of much of central Dublin.
Unfortunately for the rebels, their advantage did not hold. The British chased the rebels out of St. Stephen's Green early on Tuesday morning, and Wednesday saw the arrival of reinforcements from Britain. Though the rebels inflicted heavy casualties on the British, who were forced to go house-by-house in some areas and used armored vehicles to protect their advance, the forces of the British Empire were ultimately larger and better-equipped than the upstart rebel army. On Saturday, Pearse ordered the rebels to surrender "in order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens."
The surrender ended the Easter Rising but did not end the slaughter. British retribution included thousands of arrests; the execution by firing squad of Pearse, ICA leader James Connolly, and 13 other rebel leaders; and the murders of at least one child, two journalists, and 15 other civilians over the ensuing weeks. Many of the executed leaders are considered national heroes to this day. Though the Irish populace had been divided on the question of independence before and during the Easter Rising, the British response changed public opinion dramatically. In the 1918 election, the newly-created Sinn Féin party ran on independence and won 73 of Ireland's 105 seats in British Parliament, giving it a mandate to declare independence in January of 1919. The ensuing war would end with the establishment of the Irish Free State, the precursor to the modern Republic of Ireland, in 1922.
