A hundred and ten years from the historic Easter Rising, Irish people everywhere will pause with a quiet solemn act of remembrance. It was Easter Monday 1916 when a small band of brave fighters – teachers, writers, poets, trade unionists – stepped forward in Dublin and dared to declare a republic free of 700 years of British colonial rule. They seized the General Post Office and other buildings, raised the tricolour, and read the Proclamation that promised to cherish “all the children of the nation equally,” Protestant, Catholic and other. Their stand lasted just a few days before overwhelming British violence – “Britannia’s Huns with their long range guns” – crushed it. Yet something shifted forever in the Irish soul, and bells tolled across the Empire: your days are numbered.

The executions that followed — 16 leaders shot, including the wounded socialist and workers’ leader James Connolly tied to a chair — turned military failure into a moral victory. Although the Rising had initially elicited widespread opposition among the Irish people, including in Dublin, the vengeful cruelty of the empire’s response backfired. A quiet rage spread across the country. What began with a brave few grew into the War of Independence, the push for freedom, and the eventual breaking of direct colonial rule over most of the island. 

Their courage reminds us that empires can tremble when even a handful refuse to bow.

Threads of international solidarity

That spirit of defiance never stood alone. From the very beginning, Ireland’s fight found quiet echoes and hands of friendship in distant lands fighting the same empire.

In the 1890s, long before the Rising, Irish votes played a major part in a milestone for Indian freedom. In London’s Central Finsbury constituency, where my University is located, Dadabhai Naoroji – the “Grand Old Man of India,” who first laid bare how British rule drained India’s wealth – stood for Parliament as a Liberal. He won by the slimmest margin of just five votes, despite a racist campaign demanding “England for the English”. Irish nationalist supporters, many of them working people who knew the pain of foreign rule, turned out in strength to help elect him. Naoroji proudly backed Irish Home Rule in return, while Irish National Land League founder Michael Davitt became a close ally, even suggesting Naoroji might one day take an Irish seat. It was a small, heartfelt moment of solidarity: two peoples, one shared hope.

That bond deepened in the years that followed. In the 1930s, Irish and Indian activists came together in the Indian-Irish Independence League, standing shoulder to shoulder. They dreamed of full freedom for both nations and worked to build bridges between their struggles. Annie Besant, born in Ireland, carried the flame to India, launching a Home Rule movement there inspired by the Irish example. News of the 1916 Rising stirred hearts in India, showing how a bold few could awaken a nation.

The Irish were England’s first colony. Everything the colonialists did elsewhere in the empire, they did first in Ireland, including millions starved, forcibly displaced and forced to migrate, through engineered famines.

Similar ripples touched Egypt’s growing calls for independence, African resistance against colonial powers, and freedom movements far and wide. Irish republicans saw their fight as part of something larger – a shared longing for dignity and self-rule that crossed seas and borders.

A living legacy of empathy

More than a century later, that same tender thread of solidarity still runs through Irish life. Many on the island feel a deep, instinctive kinship with those still living under occupation or the shadow of greater powers.

Nowhere is this felt more than in the widespread support for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. From street demonstrations, peace murals to cultural expressions including huge banners at football matches, there’s a quiet yet steely recognition of shared histories of dispossession and resilience. Ireland has offered generous humanitarian aid and was among the first in Europe to recognise the State of Palestine. Calls continue for stronger steps, including joining the Hague Group of nations working to uphold international law and accountability. In places like Belfast and Derry, republican and left voices – including the fiery rap group Kneecap, who weave Irish language, rebellion, and Palestinian flags into their music – keep the connection vivid and alive.

This same instinct leads many Irish people to question wider wars and interventions, including those affecting Iran and the broader West Asia. Rooted in a hard-won tradition of neutrality and a memory of what foreign domination feels like, on a still-partitioned island, there remains a determined and steady solidarity with all those who challenge empire in all its forms.

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The quiet power of the brave few

The Easter Rising showed the world that freedom often begins not with armies, but with the stubborn hope of a committed few. A handful of men and women in 1916 could not win on the battlefield, yet they changed everything by refusing to accept the old order.

Their story, intertwined with Indian friends from the Finsbury polling stations to the independence leagues, reminds us that no struggle is ever truly solitary. Today, that same generous spirit — linking Ireland’s past with the hopes of Palestinians, Indians, Africans, Iranians, and all who yearn to breathe free — flows on.

As the old rebel song Foggy Dew that still stirs the heart reminds us:

Right proudly high over Dublin town They hung out the flag of war ’Twas better to die ’neath an Irish sky Than at Suvla or Sud-El-Bar

And the world did gaze, in deep amaze, at those fearless Men, but few who bore the fight that freedom’s light Might shine through the foggy dew

And later, with dignified defiance:

But to and fro in my dreams I go And I kneel and pray for you For slavery fled, O glorious dead When you fell in the foggy dew

A hundred and ten years on, the misty dew still carries their memory. In Ireland’s heartfelt solidarity with the oppressed everywhere, the brave few of 1916 live on — not in anger, but in a firm, enduring call for a world where every people can stand tall, equal, and free.

Inderjeet Parmar is professor of international politics and associate dean of research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City St George’s, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and writes the American Imperium column for The Wire. His Twitter handle is @USEmpire. He is the author of several books, including Foundations of the American Century, and is currently writing on the history of the US foreign policy establishment, and Trump and the crisis of American Empire.

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