This is a very pretty, but confused telling of the 1914-1922 period in Ireland. There are too many characters who look and talk the same, and have little to distinguish them.
More significantly, we are given no idea that in the decades leading up to 1914 there actually were three different factions in Ireland with regard to the country's membership in or relationship to the United Kingdom:-
- Home Rule campaigners: they were the dominant political movement in Ireland. They looked to have the Irish Parliament reestablished in Dublin, as it had been prior to 1801. This initiative was finally passed by the Parliament in Westminster in 1913-1914, and would have been put in force had it not been for the outbreak of war in August 1914.
- Irish Republicans, or so-called Fenians: this was a small but vociferous minority that sought withdrawal from the UK and a total break from Great Britain. Unlike the Home Rulers, the Republicans preached armed revolution. ('Rebellion' suggests that this was the main independence faction in Ireland, but it most certainly was not.)
-The Unionists, who regarded Ireland as 'West Britain' and wanted no autonomy for Ireland at all.
With regard to the last, it's notable that this TV series leaves out the essential fact that rebellion in Ireland was initiated not by the Republicans but by the Unionists.
In 1914, just before Home Rule was to be put in effect, Unionist officers in the Curragh Barracks in Dublin declared themselves in defiance of the British government and readied for armed revolt. This so-called Curragh Mutiny was defused by the outbreak of the Great War. But it's crucial to know that it was senior British officers in Ireland, not Republicans or Home Rulers, who first rebelled and set the stage for the civil wars that followed. Without this backstory, the events set forth in 'Rebellion' really make no sense.
