User:Barliner/Easter Rising
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The Easter Rising (Irish: Éirí Amach na Cásca)[1] was a rebellion in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was started by Irish republicans to end British rule in Ireland and set up an Irish Republic. It was the most important uprising in Ireland since the Irish Rebellion of 1798.[2]
Easter Rising | |||||||
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![]() Proclamation of the Republic, Easter 1916 | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
![]() Irish Volunteers Irish Citizen Army Cumann na mBan Hibernian Rifles Fianna Éireann |
![]() Dublin Metropolitan Police Royal Irish Constabulary | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Strength | |||||||
1,250 in Dublin, ~2,000–3,000 elsewhere, but they took little part in the fighting. | 16,000 troops and 1,000 armed police in Dublin by the end of the week. | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
64 killed unknown wounded 16 executed |
132 killed 397 wounded | ||||||
254 civilians killed 2,217 civilians wounded |
The Rising was organised by the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood,[3]. It lasted from Easter Monday 24 April to 30 April 1916. Members of the Irish Volunteers, led by teacher and barrister Patrick Pearse, joined by the smaller Irish Citizen Army of James Connolly, along with 200 members of Cumann na mBan, seized key locations in Dublin and proclaimed the Irish Republic independent of Britain. There were some actions in other parts of Ireland but, except for the attack on the Royal Irish Constabulary barracks at Ashbourne, County Meath, County Meath they were minor.
The Rising was ended after seven days of fighting, and its leaders were court-martialled and executed, but it succeeded in bringing physical force republicanism back to the forefront of Irish politics. In the 1918 General Election to the British Parliament, republicans (then represented by the Sinn Féin party) won 73 seats out of 105 on a policy of abstentionism (refusing to go to Parliament in London) and Irish independence. This came less than two years after the Rising. In January 1919, the elected members of Sinn Féin who were not still in prison at the time, including survivors of the Rising, convened the First Dáil and established the Irish Republic. The British government refused to accept the newly declared nation, which started the Irish War of Independence.