On Easter Monday 1916, Irish rebels seized a number of strategic buildings in Dublin, including the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, and declared an Irish Republic. Within a week they had been bombarded into surrender. Out in the countryside, amidst chaos and confusion over counter orders, the Rising failed to materialize as planned. The one notable exception was the campaign of the Fingal Brigade of North County Dublin. Their leader, the charismatic Tom Ashe, launched a fast moving guerrilla campaign against the para-military Royal Irish Constabulary, seizing barracks and capturing arms. At Ashbourne the Irish Volunteers, having captured the RIC barracks, were faced with the arrival of a numerically superior force of armed policemen. Using tactics evolved from British army training manuals, they overcame and defeated the police. Ashe and Fingal Brigade had shown that fast moving guerrilla warfare was the way ahead in the future struggle for Irish independenceThis little-known yet crucial development in the Irish War of Independence is well researched and described in this over-due account.
