Easter Rising

Easter Rising

n.

an insurrection against the British government in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, resulting eventually in the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922

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the rebellion against British rule in Dublin, which took place at Easter in 1916. An announcement of an independent Irish Republic was read out in front of the main post office. 450 people were killed in the four days of fighting, including 64 of the rebels. Several leaders of the rebellion were later executed.

See also Anglo-Irish War.

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or Easter Rebellion

(1916) Republican insurrection in Ireland against the British, which began on Easter Monday, April 24.

Led by Patrick Pearse and Tom Clarke, some 1,560 Irish Volunteers and 200 members of the Irish Citizen Army seized the Dublin General Post Office and other strategic points in Dublin. After five days of fighting, British troops put down the rebellion, and 15 of its leaders were tried and executed. Though the uprising itself had been unpopular with most of the Irish, the executions caused revulsion against the British authorities. The uprising heralded the end of British power in Ireland.

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▪ Irish history

also called  Easter Rebellion 

 (1916), republican insurrection in Ireland against British government there, which began on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, in Dublin. The insurrection was planned by Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke, and several other leaders of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which was a revolutionary society within the nationalist organization called the Irish Volunteers; the latter had about 16,000 members and was armed with German weapons smuggled into the country in 1914. These two organizations were supplemented by the Irish Citizen Army, an association of Dublin workers formed after the failure of the general strike of 1913, and by the small Sinn Féin party.

      The uprising was planned to be nationwide in scope, but a series of mishaps led to its being confined, in the event, to Dublin alone. The British had learned of the planned uprising, and on April 21 they arrested the Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement in County Kerry for arms running for the rebels. Eoin MacNeill, the leader of the Irish Volunteers, therefore canceled mobilization orders for the insurgents, but Pearse (Pearse, Patrick Henry) and Clarke went ahead with about 1,560 Irish Volunteers and a 200-man contingent of the Citizen Army. On April 24 their forces seized the Dublin General Post Office and other strategic points in Dublin's city centre, and Pearse read aloud a proclamation announcing the birth of the Irish republic. British troops soon arrived to put down the rebellion, and for nearly a week Dublin was paralyzed by street fighting. British artillery bombardments and fires compelled Pearse and his colleagues to surrender on April 29.

      Pearse and 14 other leaders of the rebellion were court-martialed and executed by the British authorities in the weeks that followed. Though the uprising itself had been unpopular with most of the Irish, these executions excited a wave of revulsion against the British authorities and turned the dead republican leaders into martyred heroes. The Irish government collapsed, and, from then until the establishment (Dec. 6, 1921) of the Irish Free State, the British made several attempts to govern, none of which was very successful. The Easter Rising heralded the end of British power in Ireland. Eamon De Valera (de Valera, Eamon), because he was the senior survivor of the rising, dated much of his personal popularity with the Irish people from the time of that event.

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