Ireland’s Easter Rising: archives reveal hardship faced by the families of those killed in 1916

The General Post Office building on Sackville Street in Dublin served as the HQ for the leaders of the Easter Rising. Wikimedia/National Library of Ireland, CC BY

On November 26, 1923, a woman named Anne McCormack applied for a military dependent’s pension on the grounds of her husband, James McCormack’s death. He had been a soldier in the Irish citizen army, under the socialist and revolutionary leader, James Connolly. This group was committed to the establishment of a workers’ republic. Its members...