In 1915, the young Irish barrister Patrick Pearse made a graveside oration following the death of the revered Irish Fenian leader Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. Pearse's impassioned speech amounted to a call to action to the men and women of Ireland:
"... the fools, the fools, the fools! They have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace."
On Easter Monday 1916, a republican rising commenced in Dublin with the reading of a Proclamation outside the General Post Office. Organized by the Military Council of Irish Republican Brotherhood, assisted by the Irish Citizen Army, the Rising had little popular support and the combatants surrendered after only five days.
The rushed execution of the leaders, however, including all seven signatories of the Proclamation, created a popular wave of sympathy for the rebels. Ireland would never be the same again as, in the words of W. B. Yeats, Ireland had "changed, changed utterly."
View of the General Post Office from above, showing the destruction to the inside of the building.
