Easter, 1916 Easter, 1916 Easter, 1916 is a poem by W. B. Yeats describing the poet's torn emotions regarding the events of the Easter Rising staged in Ireland against British rule on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916. The uprising was unsuccessful, and most of the Irish republican leaders involved were executed for treason. The poem was written between May and September 1916, but first published in 1921 in the collection "Michael Robartes and the Dancer". Even though a committed nationalist, Yeats usually rejected violence as a means to secure Irish independence, and as a result had strained relations with some of the
Easter Rising Parliament on 14 December 1918, which resulted in a landslide victory for Sinn Féin, winning 73 seats out of 105, whose MPs gathered in Dublin on 21 January 1919 to form Dáil Éireann and adopt the Declaration of Independence. Shortly after the Easter Rising, poet Francis Ledwidge wrote ""O’Connell Street"" and ""Lament for the Poets of 1916"", which both describe his sense of loss and an expression of holding the same "dreams", as the Easter Rising's Irish Republicans. He would also go on to write "lament for Thomas MacDonagh" for his fallen friend and fellow Irish Volunteer. A few months