The Easter Rising: Dublin, 1916

On Easter Monday morning about 400 Volunteers and Citizen Army members gathered at Liberty Hall under James Connolly. The leaders assembled in the street outside before marching to the General Post Office. The British chose Liberty Hall as the first building to be shelled. The present sixteen-storey building on the site was constructed between 1961 and 1965.

The rebels made the GPO on O'Connell Street their headquarters. Patrick Pearse stood outside and read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, and the building stayed the rebels' headquarters for most of the Rising. Their message went out in what is called the first radio broadcast in an independent Ireland. Fire destroyed the building apart from its granite facade, and it was not rebuilt until 1929. Today the GPO houses the visitor centre "GPO Witness History".

訪問のヒント: The GPO on O'Connell Street has a visitor centre telling the story of 1916.

A contingent under Seán Connolly occupied City Hall and adjacent buildings beside Dublin Castle. A lone, unarmed police sentry, James O'Brien, tried to stop them and was shot dead by Connolly. Unknown to the rebels, the Castle was lightly guarded and could have been taken with ease. By next morning British forces had retaken the building, formerly the Royal Exchange.

Michael Mallin's Citizen Army men took St Stephen's Green, digging trenches and barricading the roads around it. Then 120 British soldiers with machine guns occupied the Shelbourne Hotel and the United Services Club, and at dawn opened fire on the Green. The rebels retreated to the Royal College of Surgeons, led there by Mallin and Countess Markievicz, and held out until the end of the week.

訪問のヒント: The Royal College of Surgeons building faces St Stephen's Green.

More than 1,000 Sherwood Foresters tried to cross the canal here. Seventeen Volunteers in nearby houses caught them in a crossfire, killing or wounding 240 men. General Lowe ordered repeated frontal assaults, and it took nearly nine hours to advance 300 yards. The British took the position on Thursday; the rebel garrison at nearby Boland's Mills had not reinforced it.

場所の精度: The pin marks the Mount Street Bridge area; the map search found a nearby memorial rather than the bridge itself.

訪問のヒント: The bridge is a public street crossing over the canal.

The leaders tunnelled through the walls of neighbouring buildings to escape the shelling and set up a new headquarters at 16 Moore Street. On Saturday 29 April Pearse issued the order to surrender from there; the other posts surrendered only after the order, carried by O'Farrell, reached them. Numbers 14-17 Moore Street were declared a national monument in 2007.

訪問のヒント: Numbers 14-17 are a protected national monument.

After courts martial held in secret and without a defence, fourteen men were shot by firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol between 3 and 12 May. Today the old prison is a museum run by the Office of Public Works that offers guided tours of the building.

訪問のヒント: A museum with guided tours; book ahead.