James McCormack (Irish revolutionary) most, their goal soon became the establishment of an independent and socialist Irish nation. Other prominent members included Constance Markievicz, Kit Poole, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, Seán O'Casey and P. T. Daly. In 1916, they took part in the Easter Rising – an armed insurrection aimed at ending British rule in Ireland. The ICA uniform was dark green with a slouched hat and badge in the shape of the Red Hand of Ulster. Their banner was the Plough and the Stars. The significance of the banner was that a free Ireland would control its own destiny from the plough to the stars,
Easter Rising country's militant past, and particularly the Easter Rising. The coalition government of 1973–77, in particular the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Conor Cruise O'Brien, began to promote the view that the violence of 1916 was essentially no different from the violence then taking place in the streets of Belfast and Derry. O'Brien and others asserted that the Rising was doomed to military defeat from the outset, and that it failed to account for the determination of Ulster Unionists to remain in the United Kingdom. Irish republicans continue to venerate the Rising and its leaders with murals in republican areas of