Abstract
The beginning of World War I, had given the old republican motto "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity?, fresh life. From August 1914, the rejuvenated Irish Republican Brotherhood, had decided to launch an attack before the end of the war hostilities, resulting in the "Easter Rising? in 1916.The roots of the Rising lie in the ?new nationalism' which emerged in Ireland from the 1890's. Indeed, after Parnell's death, the forces which his leadership had held together in a great unified national movement split apart and the result was a decade of political division and ineffectiveness.
