1916 Rising Tour: Road to Freedom & GPO Witness History Museum
Explore the 1916 Rising Tour in Dublin, tracing the significant events of Ireland's independence through key historic locations.
On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, approximately 1,200 members of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army seized key buildings across Dublin and declared the Irish Republic. The Rising lasted six days. It was suppressed by British forces, its leaders were executed, and it is now understood as the event that made Irish independence politically inevitable. Almost everything you need to understand about it is still visible in the streets of Dublin.
This guide covers the Rising chronologically and geographically. It explains what happened, why it happened the way it did, which sites are the most historically significant to visit, and what the physical landscape of Dublin tells you about the six days in April 1916 that changed the country.
Ireland Before Easter 1916Why It Happened: The Context in Three Paragraphs
Ireland had been governed from Westminster for over 700 years and had been formally part of the United Kingdom since the Act of Union in 1800. By the early 20th century, the Home Rule movement, seeking an Irish parliament within the British Empire, had gained substantial political support. The Home Rule Bill was passed in 1914 but immediately suspended for the duration of the First World War.
A minority of Irish nationalists, organised in the Irish Republican Brotherhood, believed that waiting for Home Rule was both politically naive and morally insufficient. They wanted full independence, and they believed, following the tradition of the United Irishmen of 1798 and the Young Irelanders of 1848, that England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity. The war provided that opportunity: British military attention was focused on France, and conscription was creating enormous social pressure.
The Military Council of the IRB planned the Rising for Easter 1916. A shipment of German arms was arranged but intercepted. The Rising was called off, then reinstated, then scaled back to Dublin alone. The men who went out on Easter Monday knew the Rising was militarily hopeless. They went because they believed a blood sacrifice would change the political situation. They were right, though not in the way they anticipated.
For the wider national context, read The Ultimate Ireland Travel Guide.
The General Post Office: Where the Republic Was Declared
The General Post Office on O’Connell Street was the headquarters of the Rising, chosen because of its central location, its solid granite walls, and its symbolic value as a major government building. Patrick Pearse read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic from the steps of the GPO on Easter Monday. The Proclamation, signed by the seven members of the Provisional Government, declared Ireland a republic and invoked the right of the Irish people to self-determination.
The GPO is still Dublin’s main post office and is open to visitors. The interior has been restored after the fire damage of 1916, but bullet holes and shrapnel marks are still visible on the facade on Henry Street. The GPO Witness History exhibition in the basement covers the Rising in detail, with original artefacts including an original Proclamation document.
The statue of Cu Chulainn inside the GPO, donated by the Irish government in 1935, depicts the dying Irish mythological hero and serves as the primary memorial to the leaders of the Rising within the building. Oliver Sheppard’s bronze was chosen because Pearse had written about Cu Chulainn as a symbol of self-sacrifice for Ireland in his own essays.
O'Connell Street: The Battle for the City Centre
O’Connell Street in 1916 was the widest and grandest street in Dublin. The fighting on and around the street during the Rising reduced significant portions of it to rubble. The buildings on the east side between the GPO and the Liffey, including the Imperial Hotel and Clery’s department store, were destroyed by fire in the week of fighting that followed the initial occupation.
The current O’Connell Street is substantially a post-Rising reconstruction. The buildings you see on the eastern side between the Liffey and Abbey Street were largely built in the 1920s and 1930s. Walking the street knowing this makes the architecture readable as a post-colonial text: the city had to rebuild itself after the Rising, and the scale and grandeur of the reconstruction was itself a political statement.
The detail on O’Connell Street that most visitors miss: the statue of Daniel O’Connell at the southern end has four winged figures at its base. All four have bullet holes from the 1916 Rising. They were never repaired, and the decision to leave them is itself a historical statement.
From Independence to Civil WarThe Four Courts and the Civil War Coda
The Four Courts on the north bank of the Liffey were not a central site in the 1916 Rising, but they were the opening scene of the Irish Civil War that followed independence. In June 1922, anti-Treaty forces occupied the Four Courts, and the Provisional Government, under pressure from the British, shelled the building. The bombardment destroyed the Public Record Office in the building’s west wing, including irreplaceable archives going back centuries.
The Four Courts are still Ireland’s central law courts and can be visited during working hours. The building was rebuilt in the late 1920s and the dome is largely a 20th-century reconstruction. Standing on the Liffey quay looking at the Four Courts, you’re looking at a building that was destroyed twice in less than ten years: once in the Rising, once in the Civil War that followed it.
The Southern GarrisonSt Stephen's Green
Countess Markievicz, the most prominent female figure in the Rising, commanded a garrison at St Stephen’s Green on Easter Monday. The garrison occupied the park and dug trenches, which proved strategically useless when British forces took the Shelbourne Hotel overlooking the park and fired down into it from the upper floors. The garrison was forced to withdraw to the Royal College of Surgeons on the western side of the Green.
St Stephen’s Green today is the most pleasant public park in central Dublin and shows no obvious trace of what happened there in 1916. The Royal College of Surgeons on its western side still bears bullet marks on the columns of its neoclassical facade.
The Last StandMoore Street: The Final Hours
By Friday of Easter Week, the GPO was on fire and the position was untenable. Pearse, Connolly, wounded and transported by stretcher, and the surviving leaders made their way north through a series of houses on Moore Street, tunnelling through the walls between buildings. At number 16 Moore Street, in a small room, Pearse made the decision to surrender to prevent further civilian casualties.
Moore Street today is a traditional street market, and numbers 14 to 17 are a national monument. The buildings are in poor structural condition and have been the subject of controversy about their preservation for decades. The final rooms of the Rising, where the surrender order was written, are still standing but not regularly accessible to visitors.
Walk the Rising With LetzGoSee the Key 1916 Sites With an Expert Guide
Kilmainham and the ExecutionsThe Aftermath
Fifteen of the Rising’s leaders were executed at Kilmainham Gaol between 3 and 12 May 1916. The executions, carried out one or two at a time over a ten-day period rather than simultaneously, had the effect the British government did not intend: each new execution turned another section of Irish public opinion, which had been largely hostile to the Rising in its immediate aftermath, toward the republican cause.
James Connolly, commander of the Irish Citizen Army, had been so badly wounded during the fighting that he could not stand. He was taken to Kilmainham on a stretcher, tied to a chair in the Stonebreakers’ Yard, and shot. This specific fact, widely known within days of the execution, did more to shift Irish public opinion than any political argument that had preceded it.
Plan the prison visit with our Kilmainham Gaol visitor guide. For another look at Irish history and identity, read the real story of St Patrick’s Day.
Visitor QuestionsFrequently Asked Questions
How long did the 1916 Rising last?
The Easter Rising lasted six days, from Easter Monday 24 April to Saturday 29 April 1916, when Patrick Pearse issued an unconditional surrender. The fighting was concentrated in central Dublin, with garrisons at the GPO, the Four Courts, St Stephen’s Green, Boland’s Mill, Jacob’s Biscuit Factory and other locations. Around 485 people were killed during the week.
What sites from the 1916 Rising can you visit in Dublin?
The GPO on O’Connell Street, with the Witness History exhibition in the basement, is the primary site. Kilmainham Gaol, where the executions took place, is the most affecting and requires advance booking. The Garden of Remembrance is free to visit. Moore Street national monument is accessible externally, and St Stephen’s Green is publicly accessible.
Why did the 1916 Rising fail militarily but succeed politically?
The Rising was always likely to fail militarily: 1,200 fighters faced the resources of the British Empire, with no popular uprising to support them and the planned German arms shipment intercepted. The executions radicalised public opinion. Within two and a half years, Sinn Fein had won a general election landslide; within four years, the Anglo-Irish Treaty had been signed.
Dublin History on FootWalk the Streets Where 1916 Happened With an Expert Guide
LetzGo’s Dublin walking tours bring Irish history to life in the city centre, covering the GPO, the key sites of the Easter Rising and the road to independence. Combine a guided tour with a self-booked visit to Kilmainham Gaol for the complete 1916 picture.
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