"I'm not at all sure that Ireland is an exact parallel, Jim."
Sorry Richard - I assumed everyoe knows what happened on Easter Week, 1916.
At the beginning of the week a group of rebels entered the GPO in Dublin, held it for a week and, following a period of bloody fighting, surrendered.
As a national rebellion it was a non-event.
They were regarded as a bunch of eccentrics and the British soldiers had to protect the rebels from an angry crowd of Dubs demanding to know why they weren't "in the trenches, fighting alongside our lads(WW1)".
Most of the rebels were imprisoned in Frongoch, in North Wales, but the leaders were all taken out and summarily executed - the prevailing image of the period is that of James Connolly who was so badly wounded, he had to be strapped into a chair in order to be shot.      
In a matter of months, an "eccentric adventure" had been transformed into a nation-wide war of Independence (more thuggish British brutality), leading to the signing of a treaty within 6 years because of Britain's neanderthal reaction to a valid political uprising.
"When will they ever learn?"
Jim Carroll