On Easter Sunday, April 23, 1916, the members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood's military council put their names to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, declaring that they were the provisional government of an Ireland free from British rule. In effect, each man had knowingly signed his own death warrant. Since then, the Seven have been eulogized and used as political weapons by many, but today there is an increasing recognition within Ireland that it's time for an honest re-discussion of the Easter Rising.

One hundred years on, award-winning author Ruth Dudley Edwards explores how...