The Easter Rising
Although the Home Rule bill made its final passage through the British parliament, its implementation was suspended due to the outbreak of the World War I. The Easter Rising began with the occupation of serveral key buildings around Dublin by the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizens Army. They included the General Post
Office, the Four Courts, Jacob’s Factory, Boland’s Bakery, the South Dublin Union, St. Stephen’s Green and later the College of Surgeons. Given the advantage of surprise – British intelligence had failed hopelessly – the properties targeted were taken virtually without resistance and immediately the rebels set about making them defensible. The GPO was the nerve centre of the rebellion. It served as the rebels’ headquarters and the seat of the provisional government. Initially the British military did not have enough troups and were forced to send for reinforcements. When reinforcements arrived 1600 rebels were facing around 20,000 soldiers. The British troups managed to cut off the General Post Office which Pearse and his men were using as their headquarter. The GPO suffered a fierce artillary attack which also managed to destroy much of central Dublin. The leaders of the rebellion had no choice but to uncondionally surrender.
The leaders of the Easter Rising were shown no mercy, they were tried in haste and executed immediately, the executions only being announced to the people after they had taken place. The Irish public considered the executions unfair and opinion was that the leaders should have had a public trial. The British government also realised that they had not handled the situation well and Prime Minister Asquith, in order to appease the Irish public, ordered that 3000 Irish people arrested after the rebellion and jailed in mainland Britain be released.
The Irish Civil War
The years after World War I were some of the bloodiest in Dublin’s history. The resentment over the treatment of the Rising leaders, and a plan to bring in conscription in Ireland helped the cause of the Sinn Fein party, which won three quarters of Irish seats in the 1918 election. These new MPs refused to take up their seats and instead met at a newly formed Dail Eireann (Parliament of Ireland) at the Mansion House. The Dail’s Minister of Finance was Michael Collins, who was also head of the Irish Volunteers’ campaign of urban guerilla warfare. On the morning of 21 November 1920, Collins ordered the assassination of 14 undercover British Officers in Dublin. That afternoon British forces retaliated in what became known as Bloody Sunday, when they shot 12 spectators at a big Gaelic footgall game at Croke Park stadium. Other small skirmishes continued throughout the city, including the burning of the Custom House in May 1921. Soon after this the British government instigated a truce and both sides signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
The treaty gave limited independence to what was to be called the Irish Free State, but six Ulster counties were to be excluded and members of the Free State Parliament (the Dail) would have to swear allegiance to the British Monarch. A faction of the Dail led by Eamon de Valera opposed the treaty and in June 1922 Civil War broke out. Anti-treaty forces occupied the Four Courts building but this was bombed along with much of O’Connell Street, by the army under Michael Collins.
The Free State government proved ruthless in its imprisonment and later execution of anti-treaty rebels, but Collins himself finally became a victim when he was ambushed and shot. In May 1923 de Valera ordered an end to the fighting by violent anti-treaty methods and left Sinn Fein.
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