The Seven: The Lives and Legacies of the Founding Fathers of the Irish Republic

On Easter Sunday, 23 April 1916, the seven members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood’s military council met to proclaim an Irish Republic with themselves as the provisional government. After a week of fighting with the British army on the streets of Dublin, the Seven were arrested, court-martialled and executed.

Cutting through the layers of veneration that have seen them regarded unquestioningly as heroes and martyrs by many, Ruth Dudley Edwards provides shrewd yet sensitive portraits of...