The Easter Rising of 1916 would not have happened without our Union. Under the leadership of James Connolly, the acting general secretary of the ITGWU, the predecessor of SIPTU, was at the very centre of the Rising.
Connolly was a driving force behind the planning for the Rising. With Irish men facing conscription to fight for a British Empire most opposed, he had already decided in late 1915 that with or without the support of radical nationalists the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), the armed wing of the ITGWU, would make a stand against the authorities.
By the Spring of 1916, the ITGWU headquarters in Liberty Hall had become a bastion of opposition to British rule. The banner on the building since late 1914 stated that; ‘We Serve Neither King Not Kaiser But Ireland’.
It was in Liberty Hall the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, the manifesto of the Easter Rising, was printed and it was from there that both the ICA, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Volunteers marched to take over the GPO on Easter Monday.