The Easter Rising. During the war, the authorities had allowed
the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army to parade in
uniform through the streets of Dublin, preferring to treat them
as a joke, rather than moving against them. Until about twelve
o’clock on Easter Monday, 1916 this is how most people – even
the people of Dublin – saw them. During the war, Irish
nationalists had flocked to the British cause and had fought and
been slaughtered on the battlefields of Europe side by side with
Ulster Unionists. The first Irishmen to win the VC had been
welcomed home as heroes to cheering crowds and a tumultuous
welcome. Far more Irishmen died in that conflict than in all the
fighting over Irish independence put together. However, militant
Irish Nationalism was not dead. The general plan was for a small
group to take over strategic buildings which commanded views of
routes into the city or overlooked barracks, and for the main
group to occupy the General Post Office building in Sackville
Street (now O’Connell S