“To commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the Irish building supply company Chadwick’s is offering MilitaryHistoryNow.com this infographic exploring some of the O’Connell Street landmarks that were damaged and destroyed during the battle.”

FOR MANY, Dublin’s famous O’Connell Street is considered ‘ground-zero’ for the Easter Rising of 1916.

At the start of the five-day insurrection, which ran from April 24 to 29 of that year, rebel forces stormed the General Post Office headquarters on the city’s legendary main thoroughfare, known then as Sackville Street, and transformed the handsome Georgian-era office building into a fortified stronghold.

After rebel leader Patrick Pearse read aloud a declaration proclaiming an independent Irish Republic from the post office steps, more than 1,200 insurgents fanned out across Dublin to occupy strategic points and to seize weapons from local armouries.

Within 48 hours, British reinforcements moved in to retake the capital. Fighting raged in a number of spots across Dublin with much of the violence concentrated on Sackville Street. In fact, British artillery zeroed in on the rebel-controlled postal building specifically – a gunboat on the River Liffey lobbed dozens of shells onto the area. By the time the battle was over, thousands of Dubliners were dead or wounded and the city’s main boulevard looked like a Western Front war zone.

To commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the Irish building supply company Chadwick’s is offering MilitaryHistoryNow.com this infographic exploring some of the O’Connell Street landmarks that were damaged and destroyed during the battle.