Centuries of discontent over English rule, marked by numerous rebellions and uprisings, preceded the event that occurred on Easter Monday April 24, 1916. Plans for the Easter Rebellion began almost two years before when a new crisis began to develop preceding the outbreak of World War I. The British government had suspended the recently enacted Home Rule Bill, which guaranteed a measure of political independence to Ireland. Suspension of the bill stimulated the growth of the Citizen Army. It was an illegal force of Dublin citizens organized by Jim Larkin the labor leader and James Connolly a socialist, along with the Irish Volunteers who were a national defense body, and the Sinn Fein who were considered political extremists. Leaders of these organizations met and planned the rebellion. They were the British consular agent Sir Roger David Casement; another was the educator Patrick Pearse, who in 1913 was one of the founders of the Irish Volunteers; and the poet Thomas MacDonagh (Luby). Each person involved would devote all his efforts to see the plan through to completion.

    Throughout the period before the rebellion a group known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood worked to see the rebellion take place. Supported by the Fenians and receiving financial aid from Clan na Gael, a secret society of Irish Fenians founded in Philadelphia, the force worked for national independence in Ireland. The foundation of Sinn Fein in 1905 provided a useful political outlet for the organization. Now new political developments were about to provide the Irish Republican Brotherhood with access to the weapon it had always lacked, an open legal military force (Kenny 45-46). This would be in the form of the Irish Volunteers.

    The unionists opposed the Home Rule campaign in 1912. They were unwilling to accept electorial results or the acts of Parliament, and began to arm themselves. This action led to the formation of the Irish Volunteers. The Irish Volunteers would defend the measure if it became law. The Irish Republican Brotherhood was already drilling in hopes of such a move, and they immediately stepped in to provide the leadership and main force of the new military body (Kenny 47).

    The outbreak of World War I provided the opportunity that the Fenians had planned and waited for. The rebellion in 1916 was the culmination of sixty years of probing, planning, and self-sacrifice. The Fenians John Devoy and Tom Clark, who were leaders in the rebellion, also would not miss this opportunity (Kenny 47). They would see to it that Ireland fought for independence.

    In February of 1914 Patrick Pearse traveled to the United States seeking money from Irish Americans for his school and for the Irish Volunteers. He made contact with Joseph McGarrity and former Fenian John Devoy, who helped him. In July of 1914 the Irish Volunteers obtained weapons and ammunition by way of a secret gun-running operation (Kenny 44). The organization had the weapons and financial support it needed now to consider the military action that many of them believed was the only thing that would ever convince the British pull out of Ireland. 

    Sir Roger David Casement also helped form the Irish National Volunteers. He hoped the organization would get the opportunity to defend Irish home rule against the unionist in Ireland. Following the suspension of the Home Rule Bill in England Casement traveled to New York in an attempt to gain support for the Citizen Army instead. Once the war broke out a month later he hoped also to gain assistance from Germany to help gain Irish independence from Britain. With this in mind he traveled to Berlin in November of 1914, but once there he found the Germans were reluctant to send forces to Ireland. He tried other means to gain support such as borrowing German officers to help with the planned Easter rebellion, but again he was disappointed. Now believing that the planned rebellion was unlikely to succeed he arranged to be taken by German submarine to Ireland where he hoped to dissuade nationalist leaders from undertaking the rebellion at this time. He landed on April 12, 1916, and was arrested by the British for treason and later hanged (Caulfield 35-37). The armed rebellion plans would continue.

    Not all of the leaders of the Irish Republican Brotherhood supported rebellion at this time. Some felt that there would not be enough support because so many Irishmen were away fighting in the war in France. Chief among those who opposed the rebellion was the Irish Volunteer's Chief of Staff, Eoin MacNeil. Without his knowledge, Pearse and the others in the Volunteers, along with James Connolly and his Citizen Army, planned a rebellion for April 23, Easter Sunday, using the Volunteers' scheduled maneuvers in Dublin as a cover. MacNeil found out on Thursday and at first he agreed to support it. However, when MacNeil found out the Casement had been captured, he canceled the maneuvers and got word to the countryside that the rebellion was off (MacEoin 150). MacNeil tried his best to stop the rebellion, but Pearse would not be stopped. He had a vision for Ireland that could not wait.

    Only postponed by a day Patrick Pearse led about 2000 men into Dublin on Easter Monday 1916. A little after noontime they took control of the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, and Pearse read a document proclaiming the existence of an Irish Republic and the establishment of a Provisional Government (Luby). The document stated: 

Irishmen and Irishwomen:
In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom....
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonor it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valor and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government,
THOMAS J. CLARKE SEAN MAC DIERMADA
THOMAS MACDONAGH P.H. PEARSE
EAMONN CEANNT JAMES CONNOLLY
JOSEPH PLUNKETT

    In years to come some would see this proclamation as the history of Ireland itself. Within the words you can find the call to arms, the Declaration of Rights, the history of the nation and the six previous rebellions, the establishment of a Provisional Government, call for order, and the appeal to God for His blessing (Barry 3). These words would go on to inspire the Irish to fight for their rights to freedom. Freedoms that these men were about to give their lives to see fulfilled.

    As the day continued other key Dublin buildings were also captured and occupied by the rebel forces. One was Dublin Castle. John Connelly led the Citizen Army to Dublin Castle shortly after noon and launched an assault on the Guardroom. Connelly did not press to takeover the Castle, but instead sent parties of men to occupy nearby businesses and City Hall. If he had realized that fewer than twenty-five soldiers occupied the Castle, he might have made a different decision (A Photo Tour). However, Connelly might have also not seen the point as shown in this quote from a postcard depicting the Easter Rebellion. “Although committed to the rising, and a signer of the Easter Proclamation, Connolly was a realist. Leaving Liberty Hall with his troops he remarked to William O'Brien, 'We are going out to be slaughtered.'” (islandIreland). The rebels occupied additional positions during the night, and by the morning of April 25 they controlled a considerable part of Dublin. 

    The British forces began a counteroffensive on Tuesday with the arrival of reinforcements. Martial law was declared throughout Ireland. Fierce street fighting developed in Dublin, during which the reinforced British forces steadily removed the Irish from their positions. The post office building, site of the rebel headquarters, was under violent attack by the morning of April 29th. Recognizing the futility of further resistance, Pearse surrendered unconditionally on that afternoon (Luby).

In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Provisional Government present at Headquarters have agreed to an unconditional surrender, and the Commandants of the various districts in the City and Country will order their commands to lay down arms.
P. H. Pearse 29th April 1916 (islandIreland)

    Pearse sent an order to other outposts that were still holding out to surrender also. On Sunday the rest surrendered, at five o'clock on the 30th of April, the tricolor was pulled down off the top of the remains of the General Post Office, the dream of the republic seemingly pulled down with it. At the end of the rebellion, casualties were about 440 British troops and 75 Irish. Property damage included the destruction of about 200 buildings in Dublin (Luby). Dublin looked like a disaster area, what had started, as a rebellion now looked more like a war.

    The initial Irish Nationalist reaction to the Easter Rebellion was overwhelmingly negative. The majority of Irishmen remained convinced that the best way to secure self-government was to cooperate with the British. The British authorities were in a vengeful mood however and decided to make an example of the men who had organized the rebellion. One by one they court-martialed and shot all the top leaders of the rebellion (MacEoin 150-151). Connolly whose ankle had been shattered by gunshot during the rebellion was carried out to the execution yard on a stretcher, and strapped into a chair to face the firing squad (islandIreland). This was a major mistake. The national disgust was immediate. Even people who were totally against all things that Connolly stood for protested his death (MacEoin 151). Many of the others who were prominently connected with the rebellion were sentenced to death or long prison terms. Some would later have their convictions commuted to life in prison or amnesty when the British realized their mistake (Luby).