Ireland: A Television History

Rising (1914-1916)

Tens of thousands of Irishmen enlisted in the British Army to fight, as they thought, for the rights of small nations like Belgium or even Ireland. Then, on Easter Monday 1916, a small group of Irish nationalists took over the General Post Office and other strategic sites in the capital and proclaimed an Irish Republic. Five days later, the centre of Dublin was in ruins and the Rising was over. Its leaders were executed. This is an account by eyewitnesses on both sides of the Easter Rising, its putting down and the executions that followed.