Descríbe the background under which Easter 1916 a731 was written.

Written in September 1916 and published for the first time in the group of poems titled Michael Robertes and the Dancer, 1921 Easter 1916 is a great patriotic poem celebrating the heroism and noble sacrifices of the great Irish patriots who rebelled against the British rule.

For a long period of time the Irish nationalists had been fighting for liberation from English rule. Feeling was running high when the First World War broke out. But there was a swing in favour of England, and Ireland offered its support to the Allied cause. For a time it seemed as if Ireland and England were at last to be reconciled in the struggle against the common enemy (Germany), but suddenly there came the Easter Rising of 1916, an Irish revolt against the nglish. Militarily the Rising was almost insignificant. Only a few hundred men took part in the Dublin fighting. They were led by Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, Major MacBride, and James Connally. They seized several strategic points in the capital, and proclaimed the establishment of an Irish Republic with a provisional government. However their forces were defeated within a week, and sixteen of the leaders were shot by sentence of British courts-martial. In the poem W. B, Yeats admires the heroic achievement of the Irish patriots but he wonders whether this sacrifice of the martyrs wa really necessary. However, he ends his poem by granting the men of Easter week-MacDonagh, Connally, Pearse, and even MacBride-the , dignity and immortality of verse.