Easter Monday, 1916. Poets, socialists and riflemen, about 1,600 in all, seize the General Post Office in Dublin while the empire is busy in France. Militarily it is a shambles, over in six days. Then the British start shooting the leaders, one by one, in the stone-breakers' yard at Kilmainham.
Why then
Home Rule, an Irish parliament under the crown, passed in 1914 and was shelved for the war. A generation has read Pearse and Connolly while other Irishmen die on the Western Front in British khaki. Most of Dublin did not ask for the rising. The executions changed its mind.
What they wanted
The rebels want a republic while London's back is turned. General Maxwell means to make an example of them. Fifteen men are shot over ten days, and Ireland remembers the example.
What changed
In 1918 London tries to extend conscription to Ireland, and Sinn Féin sweeps the election. Then a war of independence, a Free State in 1922, a civil war among the winners, and a border that is still argued over.
Still argued
Since the fiftieth anniversary in 1966 Irish historians have fought over whether it was a blood sacrifice by a minority with no mandate, or the only way to win what Home Rule had promised.