City Hall on Dame Street in Dublin, some years before the Easter Rising

On Easter Monday Captain Seán Connolly of the Irish Citizen Army and his company of approximately thirty men convened at Liberty Hall. They marched up College Green and Dame Street and occupied City Hall and adjacent buildings, including the Evening Mail premises on the corner of Parliament Street and Dame Street. The ICA contingent in City Hall included Dr Kathleen Lynn and Helena Molony.

Constable James O’Brien of the Dublin Metropolitan Police was shot dead as he tried to close the gate of Dublin Castle. The guardroom was taken, and the six soldiers present were disarmed and imprisoned. Apart from sixty-five wounded service men in the hospital, there were fewer than twenty-five soldiers on duty in Dublin Castle. The City Hall and the other occupied buildings soon came under intense rifle and machine gun fire. In the course of the afternoon, Captain Seán Connolly was shot and killed by a sniper on the Bedford Tower in Dublin Castle. City Hall and the associated positions were assaulted by superior numbers later that evening. Following a number of casualties, the rebel forces surrendered that night.