IRELAND: Independence Day

On Easter Monday 33 years ago a pale, impassioned schoolmaster named Patrick Pearse marched out of the door of Dublin's General Post Office, hauled a flag of green, white and orange to the peak of the flagpole and in a ringing voice hurled a challenge at his British overlords: "Supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe ... Ireland strikes in full confidence of victory . . . We hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State."

The words were answered by a rattle of gunfire....

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