the future is bright the huns are shite
fuck the orange its the green and white

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Weapons were supplied by Germany under the auspices of a leading human rights campaigner, Sir Roger Casement -including over 20,000 rifles and 10 machine guns. However, the plot was discovered on the 21st of April 1916 and the weapons were lost when the ship carrying them, the Aud, was scuttled to prevent the arms from falling into the hands of the British.

The Rising broke out on April 24, 1916. However, Eoin MacNeill, the Volunteer leader found out about the plot at the last minute and issued countermanding orders to Volunteer units around the country. As a result, less than 2000 Volunteers out of 12,000 turned out. The IRB plan was to seize a compact area of central Dublin and launch simultaneous Risings around the country. In the event, the rising consisted of a week's street fighting in the Irish capital after which the rebels surrendered. The British used overwhelming force, including over 16,000 troops, artillery and a naval gunboat to put down the rebellion. Over half the 500 or so killed were civilians caught in the crossfire.

The leaders seized the General Post Office (GPO), raising a green flag bearing the legend 'Irish Republic', and proclaiming independence for Ireland 1 While the Rising later became a celebrated episode for Irish nationalists, it was very unpopular at the time. The rebel Volunteers were a minority faction among Irish nationalists and up to 200,000 Irishmen were serving on the British side in the First World War. Moreover, the public largely blamed the rebels for the death and destruction caused in the fighting. There were calls for the execution of the ringleaders in the major Irish nationalist daily newspaper, the 'Irish Independent', and local authorities also sought the ringleaders. After the Rising, Dubliners spat, threw stones at them and emptied chamber pots down on the rebels as they were marched towards the transport ships that would take them to the Welsh internment camps.

However, public opinion dramatically shifted to the rebel's side in the next two years. Initially, this was caused by the revulsion over the summary executions of 16 senior leaders—some of whom, such as James Connolly, were too ill to stand—and of other people thought complicit in the rebellion. As one observer described, "the drawn-out process of executing the leaders of the rising, it was like watching blood seep from behind a closed door." Opinion shifted even more in favour of the Republicans in 1917-18 with the Conscription Crisis, an attempt by Britain to impose conscription on Ireland to bolster its flagging war effort. By 1917, this was extremely unpopular in Ireland due to heavy casualties on the Western Front.

A small nationalist Irish party, Sinn Féin, was widely, but wrongly, credited with orchestrating the Easter Rising although its leader Arthur Griffith in fact advocated Irish self government under a dual monarchy. The Republican survivors of the Rising, under Eamon de Valera, infiltrated and took over Sinn Féin 1917 and committed the party to founding an Irish Republic.


Cathal Brugha, TD
Príomh Aire (January-April 1919)
Long-term Minister for Defence and rival to Michael Collins.From 1916 to 1918, the two dominant nationalist movements, Sinn Féin and the Irish Parliamentary Party, fought a tough series of battles in by-elections. Neither won a decisive victory; however, the Conscription Crisis tipped the balance in favor of Sinn Féin. The party went on to win a clear majority of seats in the 1918 general election: of the 73 seats in which Sinn Féin were elected, 25 were uncontested. The Sinn Féin MPs withdrew from the British Parliament and declared an Irish Republic, with themselves as the legitimate government. They met in their own parliament, which they called the Dail.

In this new position of strength, the Irish Volunteers, who had been swollen to over 100,000 men in the conscription crisis, were re-organised as the army of this Republic. Hence they began to refer