Includes bibliographical references (pages 379-384) and index.

On Easter Sunday, April 23, 1916, the Irish Republican Brotherhood's military council put their names to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, declaring that they were the provisional government of an Ireland free from British rule. In effect, each man had knowingly signed his own death warrent. Since then, the Seven have been eulogized and used as political weapons by many. To challenge the morality of the Rising was to be denounced as unpatriotic, even un-Irish. One hundred years later, however, there is increasing recognition that it's time for Ireland's founding fathers to come under proper scrutiny. This book explores how these men- from contrasting backgrounds with starkly different personalities- came together to initiate an armed rebellion that profoundly changed the course of Irish history. It draws on a lifetime of research and reflection to seperate each man from his myth, assess his virtues and flaws and bring together the strands of 1916's revolutionary web. What made the Seven believe themselves entitled to stage a rebellion without the authorization from the organizations they claimed to represent? Did they share a coherent vision? This book challenges us to judge the actions of Ireland's founding fathers and to determine what their legacy has really been.