Some Background-Part Two: Irish Independence

While Pro-British media at the time portrayed the leaders of the Easter Uprising as villains, not particularly loved by the Irish, this appears to have not been the case, or at least to have not been as sweeping a statement as the British would have liked. It seems likely that the British response to the uprising was a factor in the strengthening of Sinn Fein and it's landslide victory in the 1918 Parliamentary elections, following which the Sinn Fein MPs (Members of Parliament) decided not to take their seats in the UK Parliment in Westminster, but instead gathered in Dublin and, in 1919 declared independence.