The Day Two Countries Were Born

Today marks the most significant date in modern British history. It is the day that the United Kingdom as we now know it was born. The previous entity, also called the United Kingdom, began to disintegrate. And the seeds of a new country were planted. It would take another six years before it happened. But it was coming. After centuries of growing closer, Britain and Ireland were about to go their separate ways.

It began with the strangest sight. Just before midday on April 24th 1916, members of the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood seized key sites around Dublin, and a scattering of other locations across Ireland. The uprising was underway.

Quite what those men and women that set out on that April day thought they would achieve is still not clear. Their claims were garbled, their aims unclear, and their appeals to history and faith were at best histrionic, and at worst plain wrong. Most people were utterly bemused by the Uprising.

Perhaps what they aimed to achieve was best set out by the strange flag they hoisted above their positions. The green symbolised the ideal of a republic, and was associated with the futile struggle to overthrow Britain and create a republic in the 1790s. White represented peace on the island. And lastly, orange. The orange symbolised the different views held by the Unionists, mainly Protestants, primarily in the north-east, who were opposed to leaving Britain. The orange was designed to show that Irishness was not about religion, nor anout politics, it was about nationhood. The Orangemen would have nothing to fear in the new Irish Republic,

Their declaration was met with incredulity. There were even army officers buying stamps in the General Post Office as Patrick Pearse was reading the proclamation outside. The authorities were caught completely unprepared. Only blind luck prevented the centre of administration, Dublin Castle, from falling into rebel hands.

But this was no ordinary country. This was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, ruler of a quarter of the globe. The mightiest instrument of war then yet seen was the Royal Navy. Britain's army was in the process of being expanded and trained to a level never seen before. Yes, Britain was engaged in fighting a world war, but there was no way it would allow a rebellion in the United Kingdom's second city to go unheeded. Against Britain's military might, the rebels stood no chance.

A few days later, it was all over. Dublin lay in ruins. The rebels surrendered. As they matched into captivity, they were booed and hissed the people of Dublin. Britain had already granted Ireland Home Rule. All they had to do was see out the Great War, and the Government of Ireland Act would guarantee Ireland her autonomy within the United Kingdom. All these men and women had done was bring carnage to the streets of Dublin.

And then Britain blinked. The leaders of the rising were tried and executed by the army. This is almost understanable. Britain was at war, and it wasn't clear she would win. These men were guilty of treason, and treason at a time of war. They needed to send out a message.

Britain sent out a message all right, but not the one intended. The summary executions shocked Irish public opinion. Support for the Union with Britain collapsed, and support swung behind Sinn Fein, the political party dedicated to an infependent Ireland. Armed insurrection would follow electoral landslide. After that, freedom. All that was in the future. But the rebels of 1916 made it all possible. The barbaric treatment of the leaders persuaded many in Ireland that they wanted nothing more to do with Britain.

But in a cruel twist of fate, the British were not barbaric enough to achieve total victory. One of the junior leaders of the Easter Rising was spared the firing squad because of his American citizenship. The future architect of the Irish War of Independence, and subsequent transformation from Dominion into republic, was sifted from the condemned. Eamon de Valera lived to fight another day. 

Why is this important? A century of difficult Anglo-Irish relations followed, thanks in part to the toxic legacy of Partition in Ireland, in the form of the Troubles. The call to arms made on Easter Monday 1916 led to terrible violence, both in the name of the Republic and of the Crown. 

And yet, despite the mistrust and violence, millions of people in Britain and Ireland are still linked. I am one of those. I was born in Hertfordshire, and have the southern English accent to prove it. But my full name is pretty Irish, and with good reason; three of my grandparents were born in the Irish Free State, while one (I'm pretty sure) was born into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, months before it was dissolved. Like millions, I have a dual heritage. The Easter Rising is the moment it became dual.

At last, a brighter future seems to lie ahead. Anglo-Irish relations are better than never before. It is time to revisit what those brave men and women did, on that Easter Monday, 1916. For whatever they set out to create, they ended up creating us instead.

Dublin during the Easter Rising, 1916