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The IRB was too small in number and covert in operation to precipitate a full-scale rising. For this purpose, it hoped to use the Irish Volunteer Force (IVF). This organisation had been formed in 1913 by moderate nationalists, impressed by the impact of the Ulster Volunteer Force and frustrated by the delay in Britain granting Ireland self-government. It had recruited 180,000 men by mid-1914, but then formally split over whether its volunteers should enlist in British Forces and fight in the European war. Its more extreme rump of 11,000 men strongly opposed this and kept the original name (IVF). The Military Council members hoped to use this body as a strike force in the planned rebellion. Of necessity, their efforts to do so involved covert infiltration and deceit as some of the IVF leaders, notably Eoin MacNeill, rejected a wartime rising on grounds of principle. However, they did form an alliance with James Connolly, the revolutionary socialist and commander of the Irish Citizen Army.

During 1915, the rebel leaders’ preparations for a rising were gathering momentum. Their plan was centred on an insurrection in Dublin; to be supported by munitions, and hopefully troops from Germany, which were to be landed on the coast of County Kerry. Meanwhile, leadership positions within the IVF were successfully infiltrated, both in Dublin and elsewhere, and its rank and file members trained in street-fighting techniques. By January 1916 the Military Council had set the date for a rising – initially Good Friday, 21st April 1916, later changed to Easter Sunday, 23rd April. Their revolutionary intentions were to be masked behind publicly advertised and apparently routine manoeuvres arranged for that day.

On 19th April, IVF commandants were given details of the plan for insurrection, despite the risk of this information leaking to those members who opposed it or to the British authorities. Disaster threatened when MacNeill received confirmation of their true intentions on 21st April. After initial hesitation, he issued countermand orders cancelling the now publicised manoeuvres for Easter Sunday, by placing a note to this effect in that morning’s edition of the Sunday Independent.

By then news had reached Dublin that the ship transporting German arms to Ireland had been captured (21 April). In confusion and despair, the Military Council members met in emergency session on Sunday morning, 23rd April, to consider their options. They decided to proceed with the rising next day with such forces as they could muster.