On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, scattered groups of men of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army, as well as women of the nationalist auxiliary organization, the Cumann na mBan, assembled at their mustering points throughout Dublin. Most of them were unaware that, instead of meeting for a routine maneuver, they were embarking on an armed uprising against the British Crown. Due to a series of mishaps and intrigues, only a fraction of the Volunteers’ nominal strength actually reported for duty. While some were in the green uniforms of the Irish Volunteers or the Citizen Army, the majority of them were in civilian clothes, and they carried an amazing assortment of firearms.

The Easter Rising of 1916, or as it is sometimes known, the Easter Rebellion, marked a significant shift in Irish-British relations, and is considered by many to be the first stroke of the popular uprising that severed Ireland from the British Crown in 1922. Time and space here do not allow a detailed discussion of the causes of the Rising, but a short introduction is necessary to understand the reasons for the variety of small arms carried in this battle.

A few years before the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the British government pledged to return a semblance of Home Rule to Ireland, after a hiatus of more than 100 years. The northern province of Ulster, populated mainly by Presbyterians who had emigrated from Scotland some 300 years earlier, feared domination by the other three overwhelmingly Catholic provinces, and pledged to oppose Home Rule by force, equating it with “Rome Rule.” In a daring smuggling operation, the newly formed Ulster Volunteer Force armed itself with modern Austrian Mannlicher rifles, obsolescent German Model 1888 “Commission” rifles, and obsolete Italian Vetterli rifles.

The Irish Volunteers (pledged to fight for Home Rule), who had been smuggling in small lots of arms, followed suit when they landed two small boatloads of antiquated Model 1871 German Mauser rifles in Ireland. Arms smuggling on both sides continued right up to the point when Great Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914, resulting in a wide array of shoulder arms and handguns coming into Ireland. Under a mutual agreement, the Home Rule controversy was temporarily shelved for the duration of the war, and both the Ulster Volunteers and the Irish Volunteers (immediately renamed the “Irish National Volunteers”) volunteered en masse for service with the British Army. However, a small number of the original Irish Volunteers (retaining their original name) refused to fight for the government they considered as oppressors.

In the first two years of the war, while Irishmen of the 10th (Irish), 16th (Irish), and 36th (Ulster) divisions were fighting worldwide for the British Empire, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a secret radical organization, was negotiating for German assistance in support of a nationalist revolt. The Germans were skeptical of Irish success in a revolt, and aside from sponsoring an “Irish Brigade” of trained machine gunners (made up of a very small group of Irish POWs) and promising to furnish a boatload of 20,000 captured Russian Model 1891 Mosin-Nagant rifles, 10 Maxim machine guns, and several million rounds of assorted ammunition, the German Foreign Office did not give the proposed uprising much support. The Brotherhood had also infiltrated the Irish Volunteers and, on Easter weekend, the IRB, in spite of the capture and loss of the German arms ship and with orders countermanding the planned Irish Volunteer maneuvers across the country, still managed to assemble a force of about 2,000 men and women in Dublin.

The insurgents seized a number of large buildings and key sites throughout the city, and they posted units to intercept any British troops coming from the different military barracks sited across Dublin—as well as reinforcements expected to arrive from Great Britain. In the center of the city, the rebels took the General Post Office, the largest building and communications nerve center of Dublin, as well as the Four Courts building on the Liffey River. They fell short of seizing Dublin Castle, but took City Hall and a number of other public buildings. Farther out, the Citizen Army dug trenches in St. Stephen’s Green, a city park, and the Irish Volunteers set up garrisons in businesses, such as bakeries, biscuit factories, pubs, and hotels, as well as in private homes and schools, to contest the expected British reaction.

British reaction was cautious, often confused, and uncoordinated during the first few days, although troops of the Dublin garrison did make some significant headway against rebel-held positions. By mid-week, British troops had landed from England and, after suffering grievous losses at Mount Street Bridge, started to tighten the cordon around the center city. Amid the chaos of looting, arson and widespread hunger caused by the upheaval, the British Army, using the standard British small arms and field guns of the World War I period, finally forced the surrender of the rebels on Saturday, April 29, 1916.

Of all the arms surrendered by, or captured from, the rebels, the “Howth” Mauser rifle is perhaps the most emblematic of the Rising. In July 1914, the Irish Volunteers managed to land some 1,500 Model 1871 11 mm single-shot, bolt-action German rifles from two small sailboats—one carrying the majority of the arms at the port of Howth, and the other at Kilcoole, further to the south—which were then distributed in Dublin and throughout the southern three provinces. The rifles had been acquired (ironically, by nationalist Protestants) from an arms dealer in Hamburg, Germany, who had earlier supplied the Ulster Volunteers with their arms. Through an agreement with the Irish Volunteers, the small Irish Citizen Army gained a complement of the Mausers, and posed with them in a number of well-known photographs. The rifle fired a center-fire necked cartridge with a .43-cal. lead bullet—a cause for the British to accuse the rebels of using “Dum-Dum” expanding bullets, which had been outlawed some years earlier by international convention.

Some British soldiers referred to the Howth rifles as “Elephant Guns.” Indeed, the recoil was memorable, and many rebels had never had the opportunity to fire their rifles prior to the Rising. One lad, while defending the Mount Street Bridge, was knocked unconscious when he fired his first shot! As was the case throughout the Rising, Howth Mausers were interspersed with any number of other types of shoulder arms, leading to a logistical nightmare in terms of ammunition supply.

Other types of rifles were fairly evenly distributed among the rebels, but some were used only to a very limited extent. The insurgents carried various models of Lee-Enfield rifles and carbines, the most prized, of course, being the then-current British service rifle, the Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE). While a very few of these rifles had been obtained covertly prior to the Rising, usually through bribing a British soldier into claiming his rifle as “lost” (the going price was five pounds sterling), some others were captured during the weeklong fight and put to good use. With its 10-round magazine capacity, potent Mk VII .303 British cartridge and slick action, the SMLE was one of the most telling arms in the hands of the insurgents.

However, more common was the older Boer War-period Long Lee-Enfield, and those rifles also played an important role. James Grace, having smuggled in a Long Lee on his return from Canada in 1913, used the rifle to great effect in the storied defense of 25 Northumberland Road. Extant pre-Rising photographs show entire squads of the Irish Volunteers being armed with Long Lees, and they certainly were in evidence in the final defense of the General Post Office.

Also chambered in .303 British, Martini-Enfield carbines and rifles saw action with units throughout the city. Originally designed for the far less-powerful Mk VI ammunition, the Martini-Enfields could fire the hotter Mk VII cartridge, but sometimes with disastrous results. One of the Martinis used in the defense of Clanwilliam House at Mount Street Bridge blew up after repeated firing, although the house’s garrison had requested a supply of Mk VI ammunition earlier from its parent battalion at Boland’s Bakery. Robert Monteith, a former British NCO who had landed from a German submarine as part of the ill-fated arms landing on the west coast of Ireland, advised the local Limerick Volunteers not to use Mk VII rounds in their Martinis. Although many Irish historians cite the use of “Martini-Henry” rifles, they often use the term interchangeably with “Martini-Enfield.” However, the use of .577/450 arms cannot be discounted, as, undoubtedly, some of these antiques were more than likely pressed into service.