The 1916 leaders were made give an unconditional surrender and as they were being led away to prison, the arresting British soldiers literally had to protect them from crazed mobs who wanted to harm them because of the destruction they had caused! Indeed women who would have had husbands on the WW1 frontlines at the time spat at them! Under General Maxwell aka the man who lost Ireland, the main leaders except De Valera who was a US citizen and the leading female officer were executed including the father of Irish socialism, James Connolly, who due to wounds sustained during the fighting had to be executed while tied to a chair. Their bodies were subsequently interned in quicklime. 90 had been scheduled to be extrajudicially murdered by the British state but as Asquith was comming over to survey the damage done during the rising, Maxwell ordered the executions to be halted with 15 afaik having been effectively murdered in this way, the next in line was W T Cosgrave, who later become Irish Prime Minister for 10 years and his son became PM in the 70s. over 3,000 rebels and suspected rebels were interned in Frongach prison camp in Wales which subsequently became known as the university for revolution. the tide of Irish public opinion changed dramatically after the executions in favour of the rebels, the Sinn Fein movement and complete independence for Ireland so the rising was a glorious failure and ' A terrible beauty was born '. The NY Times actually published the pictures of the executed on its front page with the title 'Martyrs' after the executions!
What if the lads had not been 'murdered' by the British imperialist forces and had been imprisoned instead?
I reckon De Valera and Collins would only have become minor figures in Irish history for sure! I also feel independence would not have been achieved so soon. No Fianna Fail (Mafia) party and no Fine Gael (Fascist) party would have existed to dominate Ieish politics and make a wholescale show of us down the subsequent years. A real Labour party might have evolved!
What if the lads had not been 'murdered' by the British imperialist forces and had been imprisoned instead?
I reckon De Valera and Collins would only have become minor figures in Irish history for sure! I also feel independence would not have been achieved so soon. No Fianna Fail (Mafia) party and no Fine Gael (Fascist) party would have existed to dominate Ieish politics and make a wholescale show of us down the subsequent years. A real Labour party might have evolved!