Rebels Proclaim a Republic at the Easter Rising
Armed volunteers seize Dublin's General Post Office and read out a declaration of independence that no one expected to succeed
Quick facts
- Rising began
- 24 April 1916 (Easter Monday)
- Rising suppressed by
- 29 April 1916
- Key leader who read the Proclamation
- Patrick Pearse
- Leaders executed in May 1916
- 15
What happened
On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, members of the Irish Volunteers and the smaller Irish Citizen Army occupied the General Post Office and other strategic buildings across Dublin and proclaimed an independent Irish Republic. From the steps of the GPO, Patrick Pearse read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic to a largely bemused crowd. The insurrection involved as many as 1,600 participants at its height but had little popular support at the outset, and British forces crushed it within less than a week, by 29 April. In May, fifteen leaders of the Rising, including Pearse, were executed by firing squad, and Roger Casement, who had tried to arrange German arms for the rebellion, was executed later that August. Public opinion in Ireland shifted sharply after the executions, transforming the rebels from a marginal faction into martyrs for a cause that gained mass support within a few years.
Why it matters
The Rising itself was a military failure, but the British response, executing its leaders in a drawn-out sequence over several weeks, is widely credited with converting a limited and unpopular armed rebellion into the founding event of modern Irish nationalism, feeding directly into the War of Independence that began less than three years later.
How we know
The Easter Rising is documented in British military and court-martial records held at the UK National Archives, in the surviving printed Proclamation held at Irish institutions including the National Museum of Ireland, and in eyewitness accounts collected in the following decades.
Sources
- The National Archives (UK). Ireland's Easter Rising 1916 · Primary sourcenationalarchives.gov.uk · The domain "nationalarchives.gov.uk" is on our Primary source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- History.com. Easter Rising · Reputable sourcehistory.com · The domain "history.com" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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