Chapter Two: ‘The Birth of the Fanning Sisters and The Birth of the Irish Nation: April, 1916’

Nellie and Nora Fanning were born at the Maternity Hospital in County Waterford on Easter Monday, April 24th, 1916. As they awoke to new life outside their mother’s womb, the dead bodies of their co-twins, lay wrapped nearby in a hospital shroud.

This momentous day also witnessed the birth of the Irish nation 120 miles away in Dublin City, where 'The Easter Rising' was taking place.

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Earlier that morning at 11.00 am, about 1,250 members of Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army started to assemble across Dublin City. Over the next hour, they began to occupy strategic buildings in the city. By noon, the Volunteers had seized weapons from the Magazine Fort in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, and twenty minutes later, they marched into the General Post Office and established the building as the headquarters of the Rising, after flying the rebel flag of the Tricolour from its rooftop.

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At 12.45 pm, a proclamation, declaring Ireland a Republic on behalf of the ‘Provisional Government was read out. Not all Dublin celebrated the uprising. Great Britain was at war with Germany at the time and thousands of Irish families had relatives fighting for the British troops in Europe.

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The uprising in Dublin was to last almost one week. On Saturday, April 29th, 1916, the rebels surrendered in the early afternoon. The Rising was over and the British arrested a total of 3,430 men and 79 women. The dead and wounded tally exceeded 1,350.
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