How the Fingal battalion created a template for guerilla warfare

Paul Maguire on the spectacular success of the fifth battalion of the Dublin Brigade against a large Royal Irish Constabulary force in Ashbourne, Co Meath

ON EASTER Friday, 1916, the noose tightened around the neck of the Irish Volunteers in Dublin City.

Surrounded on all sides, the country’s failure to rise in response to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic meant defeat was all but assured.