The Easter Rising, an armed insurrection staged by a small group of Irish nationalists in Dublin in 1916 that ended in total defeat, nevertheless set in motion the events that eventually led to an independent Ireland. Historian Jennifer Paxton explores the origins of the Easter Rising in the upheavals of the 19th century: the Potato Famine, the struggle for greater political autonomy from Britain, and the ongoing tensions between the majority Protestant northern part of Ireland and the overwhelmingly Catholic southern part. Prior to World War I, most Irish nationalists had worked to obtain home rule for Ireland by working through the British Parliament.

Paxton looks at how the outbreak of the First World War led many of them to abandon the peaceful struggle and take up arms for Ireland and how the Rising set Ireland on a course for both independence and partition. Paxton is the director of the university honors program, associate dean of undergraduate studies, and an associate professor in the department of history at The Catholic University of America.

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