Skip to main content
Mapped Chronicles

History

The Easter Rising: Dublin, 1916

The Easter Rising of April 1916 was fought across central Dublin, from the General Post Office on O'Connell Street to the Royal College of Surgeons on St Stephen's Green and the canal at Mount Street Bridge.

Mapped by Mapped Chronicles editors7 locationsCountries: IrelandGPX

Timeline & locations

What do the location labels mean?
Exact
The pin marks the actual place where it happened or was filmed.
Approximate
The right area — a town, park or district — but not a precise spot.
  1. 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.

    Open inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitability not confirmed

    Sources

  2. 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".

    Open inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Visitor guidance: The GPO on O'Connell Street has a visitor centre telling the story of 1916.

    Sources

  3. 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.

    Open inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitability not confirmed

    Sources

  4. 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.

    Open inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Visitor guidance: The Royal College of Surgeons building faces St Stephen's Green.

    Sources

  5. 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.

    Open area inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Location precision: The pin marks the Mount Street Bridge area; the map search found a nearby memorial rather than the bridge itself.

    Visitor guidance: The bridge is a public street crossing over the canal.

    Sources

  6. 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.

    Open inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Visitor guidance: Numbers 14-17 are a protected national monument.

    Sources

    • Easter Rising
      Locator:
      Easter Monday; Tuesday and Wednesday; Surrender; Arrests and executions
    • Moore Street
      Locator:
      Easter Rising
  7. 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.

    Open inGoogle MapsApple MapsOrganic MapsOpenStreetMapVisitable

    Visitor guidance: A museum with guided tours; book ahead.

    Sources

    • Easter Rising
      Locator:
      Easter Monday; Tuesday and Wednesday; Surrender; Arrests and executions
    • Kilmainham Gaol
      Locator:
      Lead; Post-independence period

Spotted a mistake?

Places close, sources disagree, and we get things wrong. If something on this route is off, tell us and we'll fix it.

Suggest a correction

More in History

Browse History
HistoryApproximate

The Berlin Wall: From Barbed Wire to Gallery

The Berlin Wall ran past the Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and Bernauer Straße, and much of that story can be walked today. It went up overnight on 13 August 1961 and stood until the border opened in November 1989. This route follows the Wall from its first day to its afterlife: the gate it closed, the checkpoint where tanks faced each other, the station border hall, an escape tunnel, the memorial and the painted East Side Gallery.

6 locations6/6 visitable
HistoryApproximate

Nelson Mandela: Mvezo to the Union Buildings

Nelson Mandela's life runs from a Mbashe River village to the lawns of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, with stops at Fort Hare, Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, Robben Island and Victor Verster Prison along the way. The route follows him from his birth in Mvezo on 18 July 1918 through student days, underground work, years in prison and his inauguration as South Africa's first democratically elected president on 10 May 1994. Most stops can be visited; the pins at Mvezo and Qunu mark the villages, not a single building.

7 locations6/7 visitable
HistoryApproximate

The First Transcontinental Railroad: Sacramento to Promontory

The first transcontinental railroad began at the Sacramento waterfront in 1863, climbed through Dutch Flat and Donner Pass, and ended at Promontory Summit, Utah, where the Golden Spike was driven on 10 May 1869. The route follows the Central Pacific's eastward build from California: the groundbreaking, Judah's Sierra survey, the granite labour of Chinese workers and the final ceremony. Some stops are approximate.

5 locations2/5 visitable
All routes