ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces readers to the book’s scope, themes, and objectives. It then provides a baseline overview of the key actors and political, geographical, cultural, ethnonational, religious, and economic factors that laid the foundation for the 1916 Rising in Ireland. This includes a concise brief history of national struggles in Ireland prior to the Rising. It then contextualizes this relatively small and poorly executed rebellion within the larger, charged milieu of World War I and the Irish Home Rule Bill that had been temporarily suspended as a result of the outbreak of the war.
