1916 — 1921

The Revolution

At Easter 1916 the Republic is proclaimed at the GPO and crushed inside a week. The executions afterwards change everything. Sinn Féin sweeps the 1918 election, the First Dáil sits in 1919, and the War of Independence is fought by flying columns and by intelligence work until the Truce of July 1921. The claim is to all thirty-two counties. The reality is contested everywhere.

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📜 The chronicle — events of this age
1916
The Easter Rising
The Republic is proclaimed at the GPO; sixteen executions transform its defeat.
1918
Sinn Féin landslide
The general election sweeps away the old party; women over 30 vote for the first time.
1919
First Dáil
The elected members convene in the Mansion House; the same day, shots at Soloheadbeg open the War of Independence.
1920
Bloody Sunday
Croke Park is fired on after Collins's dawn strike; Cork city burns a month later; partition passes at Westminster.
1921
Truce and Treaty
July truce, December Treaty: dominion status for 26 counties — 'the freedom to achieve freedom'.
Quick answers
When was the Revolution in Ireland?

The Revolution spans 1916 to 1921 in this atlas. At Easter 1916 the Republic is proclaimed at the GPO and crushed inside a week.

Who ruled Ireland during the Revolution?

Irish Republic (declared, contested) held the whole island in this atlas's reckoning. Proclaimed at the GPO in 1916 and ratified by the First Dáil in 1919, the Republic was a revolutionary claim over the whole island, fought for county by county while British rule continued.

What is a lesser-known fact about the Revolution?

The 1916 Proclamation, addressed to 'Irishmen and Irishwomen', guaranteed equal suffrage — two years before any woman could vote in Britain. And it was signed under a socialist's printing press: half the type came from a Christmas-cracker fonts drawer, which is why its lettering is famously mismatched.

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