Easter Rising in the context of "Eoin MacNeill"

The partition of Ireland (Irish: críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK) divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. It was enacted on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The Act intended both territories to remain within the United Kingdom and contained provisions for their eventual reunification. The smaller Northern Ireland territory was created with a devolved government (Home Rule) and remained part of the UK. Although the larger Southern Ireland was also created, its administration was not recognised by most of its citizens, who instead recognised the self-declared 32-county Irish Republic.

Ireland had a largely Catholic nationalist majority who wanted self-governance or independence. Prior to partition, the Irish Parliamentary Party used its control of the balance of power in the British Parliament to persuade the government to introduce Home Rule Bills that would give Ireland a devolved government within the UK. This led to the Home Rule Crisis (1912–14), when Ulster unionists founded a large paramilitary organization (at least 100,000 men), the Ulster Volunteers, that could be used to prevent Ulster from being ruled by an Irish government. Although the Government of Ireland Act 1914 (to create a single administration) was passed, implementation was deferred due to the First World War (1914–18). Support for Irish independence grew during the war, particularly in the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising (an armed rebellion against British rule).

The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 (No. 22 of 1948) is an Act of the Oireachtas which declares that the description of Ireland is the Republic of Ireland, and vests in the president of Ireland the power to exercise the executive authority of the state in its external relations, on the advice of the Government of Ireland. The Act was signed into law on 21 December 1948 and came into force on 18 April 1949, Easter Monday, the 33rd anniversary of the beginning of the Easter Rising.

The Act ended the remaining statutory role of the British monarchy in relation to Ireland, by repealing the 1936 External Relations Act, which had vested in George VI, in his capacity as a symbol of the cooperation of the nations that were members of the Commonwealth with which Ireland associated itself, and his successors those functions which the Act now transferred to the President.

The Irish War of Independence (Irish: Cogadh na Saoirse), also known as the Anglo-Irish War, was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-military Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and its paramilitary forces the Auxiliaries and Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It was part of the Irish revolutionary period.

In April 1916, Irish republicans launched the Easter Rising against British rule and proclaimed an Irish Republic. Although it was defeated after a week of fighting, the Rising and the British response led to greater popular support for Irish independence. In the December 1918 election, republican party Sinn Féin won a landslide victory in Ireland. On 21 January 1919 they formed a breakaway government (Dáil Éireann) and declared Irish independence. That day, two RIC officers were killed in the Soloheadbeg ambush by IRA volunteers acting on their own initiative. The conflict developed gradually. For most of 1919, IRA activity involved capturing weaponry and freeing republican prisoners, while the Dáil set about building a state. In September, the British government outlawed the Dáil throughout Ireland, Sinn Féin was proclaimed (outlawed) in County Cork and the conflict intensified. The IRA began ambushing RIC and British Army patrols, attacking their barracks and forcing isolated barracks to be abandoned. The British government bolstered the RIC with recruits from Britain—the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries—who became notorious for ill-discipline and reprisal attacks on civilians, some of which were authorised by the British government. Thus the conflict is sometimes called the "Black and Tan War". The conflict also involved civil disobedience, notably the refusal of Irish railwaymen to transport British forces or military supplies.

The Irish Republic (Irish: Poblacht na hÉireann or Saorstát Éireann) was a revolutionary state that declared its independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in January 1919. The Republic claimed jurisdiction over the whole island of Ireland, but by 1920 its functional control was limited to only 21 of Ireland's 32 counties, and British state forces maintained a presence across much of the north-east, as well as Cork, Dublin and other major towns. The republic was strongest in rural areas, and through its military forces was able to influence the population in urban areas that it did not directly control.

Its origins date back to the Easter Rising of 1916, when Irish republicans seized key locations in Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic. The rebellion was crushed, but the survivors united under a reformed Sinn Féin party to campaign for a republic. In the 1918 United Kingdom general election, the party won a clear majority of the constituencies in Ireland; in many seats Sinn Féin candidates did not face meaningful opposition. The Sinn Féin winners did not take their seats in the U.K. parliament, but instead gathered in Dublin on 21 January 1919 to form the first Dáil (legislature) of Ireland. Republicans then established a government, a court system and a police force. At the same time, the Irish Volunteers, who came under the control of the Dáil and became known as the Irish Republican Army, fought against British state forces in the Irish War of Independence.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA; Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) was an Irish republican revolutionary paramilitary organisation who waged a guerrilla campaign against the British occupation of Ireland in the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916. In 1919, the Irish Republic that had been proclaimed during the Easter Rising was formally established by an elected assembly (Dáil Éireann), and the Irish Volunteers were recognised by Dáil Éireann as its legitimate army.

Following the signing in 1921 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which ended the War of Independence, a split occurred within the IRA. Members who supported the treaty formed the nucleus of the Irish National Army. However, the majority of the IRA was opposed to the treaty. The anti-treaty IRA fought a civil war against the Free State Army in 1922–1923, with the intention of creating a fully independent all-Ireland republic. Having lost the civil war, this group remained in existence, with the intention of overthrowing the governments of both the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland and achieving the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916.

Michael Collins (Irish: Mícheál Ó Coileáin; 16 October 1890 – 22 August 1922) was an Irish revolutionary, soldier and politician who was a leading figure in the early-20th century struggle for Irish independence. During the War of Independence he was Director of Intelligence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He served in the government of the self-declared Irish Republic as the Minister for Home Affairs and later as the Minister for Finance. He was Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State from January 1922 and commander-in-chief of the National Army from July until his death in an ambush in August 1922, during the Civil War.

Collins was born in Woodfield, County Cork, the youngest of eight children. He moved to London in 1906 to become a clerk in the Post Office Savings Bank at Blythe House. He was a member of the London GAA, through which he became associated with the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Gaelic League. He returned to Ireland in January 1916 and fought in the Easter Rising. He was taken prisoner and held in the Frongoch internment camp as a prisoner of war, but he was released in December 1916.

The Irish Civil War (Irish: Cogadh Cathartha na hÉireann; 28 June 1922 – 24 May 1923) was a conflict that followed the Irish War of Independence and accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State, an entity independent from the United Kingdom but within the British Empire.

The civil war was waged between the Provisional Government of Ireland and the Anti-Treaty IRA over the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The Provisional Government (which became the Free State in December 1922) supported the terms of the treaty, while the anti-Treaty opposition saw it as a betrayal of the Irish Republic proclaimed during the Easter Rising of 1916. Many of the combatants had fought together against the British in the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence and had divided after that conflict ended and the treaty negotiations began.

Irish republicanism (Irish: poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for an Irish republic, void of any British rule. Throughout its centuries of existence, it has encompassed various tactics and identities, simultaneously elective and militant and has been both widely supported and iconoclastic.

The modern emergence of nationalism, democracy, and radicalism provided a basis for the movement, with groups forming across the island in hopes of independence. Parliamentary defeats provoked uprisings and armed campaigns, quashed by British forces. The Easter Rising, an attempted coup that took place in the midst of the First World War, provided popular support for the movement. An Irish republic was declared in 1916 and officialized following the Irish War of Independence. The Irish Civil War, beginning in 1922 and spurred by the partition of the island, then occurred.

The revolutionary period in Irish history was the period in the 1910s and early 1920s when Irish nationalist opinion shifted from the Home Rule-supporting Irish Parliamentary Party to the republican Sinn Féin movement. There were several waves of civil unrest linked to Ulster loyalism, trade unionism, and physical force republicanism, leading to the Irish War of Independence, the Partition of Ireland, the creation of the Irish Free State, and the Irish Civil War.

Some modern historians define the revolutionary period as the period from the introduction of the Third Home Rule Bill to the end of the Civil War (1912/1913 to 1923), or sometimes more narrowly as the period from the Easter Rising to the end of the War of Independence or the Civil War (1916 to 1921/1923).