April 24, 1916

Easter Monday--Dublin  The Irish Republican Brotherhood led by Patrick Pearse takes over the GPO and proclaims a free Ireland.  Patrick and the Irish soldiers fighting with him

Patrick Pearse's mother at his grave

are  captured and he is  executed by the British.

     From a letter to his mother--
You must not grieve for all of this.  We have preserved Ireland's honour and our own.   Our deeds of last week are the most splendid in Ireland's history.  People will say hard things of us now, but we shall be remembered by posterity and blessed by unborn generations.  You too will be blessed because you were my mother.