todayinhistory:April 24th 1916: Easter Rising beginsOn this day in 1916, the Easter Rising rebellion

todayinhistory:April 24th 1916: Easter Rising beginsOn this day in 1916, the Easter Rising rebellion against British rule in Ireland began. In 1800, Ireland lost its parliament and came to be directly governed from Westminster in England. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Irish people began calling for Home Rule, which would have allowed it a greater say in its national affairs. Sharp divisions in Ireland emerged between unionists and those calling for total independence from Britain; the two sides formally established paramilitary forces in the early 1910s. The onset of the First World War distracted Britain’s attention from the Home Rule issue. Frustrated by the Home Rule debate - which they believed was not enough - revolutionary nationalists began planning an uprising. The rebellion involved a variety of militant groups, including the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Irish Volunteers, the socialist Irish Citizen Army, and the all-female Cumann na mBan. On April 24th, Easter Monday, the organisers issued a proclamation declaring the establishment of an Irish republic. The document was read to the public in Dublin by the president of this provisional republic, Pádraig Pearse. The declaration alarmed the British, who initially had only 400 troops in the area to the revolutionaries’ 1,600. However, the British sent thousands of troops to Dublin - the epicentre of the uprising - leading to prolonged fighting. On April 29th, outnumbered by the British, Pearse surrendered and the uprising was over. 450 people (mostly civilians) died during the rebellion, and thousands more injured, causing many Irish people to resent the destruction wrought by the rebels. However, after the leaders of the rising were executed, and thousands more imprisoned without trial, Irish resentment against Britain grew. While the uprising did not succeed, it achieved what its organisers intended - Home Rule was derailed, and the Irish public saw the oppressiveness of British rule, which bolstered the independence movement. In 1919, Irish republicans, by then with mass support, launched a guerilla war against the British, which resulted in the establishment of the independent Irish Free State in 1921.100 years ago today -- source link

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