What was Britain's reaction to sinn fein?

Answer 1

The Sinn Fein was an Irish party formed in 1900 to fight for Irish independence. However, it did not make its moves in a good time with most of continental Europe involved in the first world war, placing this Irish issue of domestic politics at the bottom of Europe's "to-do list". On Easter Sunday in 1916, a group of nationalists revolted in Dublin. Their plan to smuggle in arms from Germany had failed, and they had delusions of achieving victory. The British army decided to use military action against the insurgents and crushed the uprising in under a week. Although the revolution was a military disaster, it was actually a huge political success since Britain's relationship with its Irish Catholic subjects was severely damaged after publicly executing the rebel leaders. This created a sense of martyrdom in the cause of Irish nationalism and thus allowed it to gain more public support.