Easter Rising & Independence (1916–1922)

On Easter Monday 1916, around 1,600 insurgents occupied the General Post Office (GPO) in Dublin and proclaimed the Irish Republic. The Easter Rising failed after six days. However, the British execution of 16 leaders in Kilmainham Gaol — including the severely wounded James Connolly, who was shot while sitting in a chair — turned indifference into anger and the dead into martyrs.

In the War of Independence (1919–1921), the IRA under Michael Collins fought a guerrilla war against the British. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 granted independence to 26 counties — the six northern ones remained with Britain. The partition led to the Civil War (1922–1923), in which Michael Collins was killed in an ambush at just 31 years old.