The Easter Uprising of 1916 Essay -- Essays Papers

The Easter Uprising of 1916 The Easter Uprising of 1916 was an event that happened at the tail end of a long list of events that would forever change Ireland. The Uprising or Rising, as some call it, took place mostly in Dublin but was felt throughout Ireland. The point was to gain independence from Great Britain who had ruled Ireland for the past couple hundred years. At the turn of the 19th century England believed that Ireland had too much independence and made the Act of Union. â€Å"The result was the Act of Union of 1801: the Irish parliament voted itself out of existence and England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales were formally politically unified for the first time† (Hegarty 2). Around the time of the First World War, Ireland began the fight for the Home Rule to be enacted. But this kind of rule was quickly overturned with the start of the Easter Rising in 1916; two years after World War I broke out in Europe. The pull of the Home Rule Act led to the formation of the Citizen Army which was a major cause of the Easter Rising. James Connolly used the Citizen Army to protect his newspaper â€Å"The Workers’ Republic† to call for an armed revolt (Green 5). The Easter Uprising left 440 British and 75 Irish troops dead in the end. To shows the disapproval of the Rising Britain publicly executed fifteen leaders of the Uprising and 60 others via firing squad. Many more other were sentenced to long prison terms. Of all of the things that could have happened in Ireland, the Easter Uprising was by far the most unpopular thing to do in the eye of the Dublin public. The majority of people in Dublin at the beginning of the 20th century did not want the Uprising to happen, because it would postpone the ability to gain their independ... ...land continues to be one of the quickest growing countries in modern day Europe despite all of the problems it had to put up with to get there. Sources BBC, The. The Executions. 8, February 2004 BBC 1 The Blacks and Tans.8, February 2004 Easter Uprising, The The Easter Uprising of 1916. 8 February 2004 < http://www.geocities.com/rollofhonour32/1916.html> Green, Michael. The Easter Rising in Ireland, 1916. 30 January 2004 Hegarty, N and Harvey-Craig, A. History of Dublin. 25 January 2004 Luby, Damian. Irish Liberation. 25 January 2004