This film from the Imperial War Museum shows Dublin before the insurrection of April 1916. Members of the Irish Volunteers - who had refused to join Redmond´s Irish National Volunteers in supporting participation on the war, and broke away in August 1916 - openly paraded the street in full uniform and equipment. The government, in particular the Irish Chief Secretary Augustine Birrell, decided that to prevent such parades would be provocative. In fact when members of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army set out from Liberty Hall on Easter Monday 1916 to seize the General Post Office and other buildings, the authorities and the general public thought this was just a routine parade. The film shows the damage inflicted on central Dublin by the gunboat ´Helga´ and artillery firing with a high trajectory from the grounds of Trinity College and, later, from the corner of D´Olier Street and Westmoreland Street. The whole of Sackville Street (now known as O´Connell Street) was severely damaged but the worst affected were the buildings opposite the GPO where stores of paraffin created fierce fires. Liberty Hall, on the quays, was destoyed by the gunboat. The troops were able to use the Custom House as a headquarters because the insurgents had not tried to take it. The barricade made out of overturned vehicles was one of several in Sackville Street (O´Connell Street) erected during the first two days of the rising. The barricade of sandbags manned by soldiers (mainly of the Sherwood Foresters and the South Staffs regiment) almost certainly was filed at the end of the rebellion.