Kidnapped: Bulmer Hobson, the IRB and the 1916 Easter Rising

The kidnapping of nationalist leader Bulmer Hobson is one of the more intriguing sideshows of the Easter Rising of 24-9 April 1916. The Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB)1 was responsible for planning and leading the weeklong rebellion against British rule in Ireland. Members of the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan and Na Fianna Éireann participated in the rising, which mainly took place in Dublin. The British authorities later executed sixteen men, including the seven members of the Military Council, for their involvement in the insurrection.2 Hobson has the dubious distinction of having been held against his will by his IRB comrades from the afternoon of Good Friday, 21 April 1916 until the evening of Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, the day the rebellion broke out