Catalan leaders jailed: Resolution now more difficult

One of the half-forgotten, or at least half-ignored, truths of our history is that those who took part in the 1916 Rising, especially in Dublin, were excoriated by the majority of their fellow citizens until British authorities decided to execute them, making them martyrs for their cause.

That response was what some of the Rising’s leaders, especially Pádraig Pearse, had anticipated. Those executions were the rock on which British rule in southern Ireland sundered.