Start from the north side of St Stephen’s Green and walk north up Dawson Street, keeping to the right-hand side, to a sturdy two-storey Georgian building about 150yards (135m) from the corner, on your right. You could argue that this is where the modern Irish state was really born. Built in 1710, the Mansion House has been the residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin since 1715, but on 21 January 1919 it was co-opted as the seat of the first Dáil Éireann (Irish Parliament), formed by the Sinn Fein MPs who won a landslide victory in the elections of 1918 but refused to take their seats in the British Parliament at Westminster. From here, Michael Collins (1890–1922), the former post office worker who became the Dáil’s Éireann’s Minister of Finance, also directed the Irish Volunteers in an urban guerrilla campaign against the British. When the British brought in a crack team of undercover Special Branch officers, Collins traced them and had 14 of them assassinated. British reprisals only hardened support for Sinn Fein, but in 1921 a ceasefire was called and the Anglo-Irish Treaty created the Irish Free State. But the treaty did not go far enough for radical Republicans; within a year, they and the new Free State government were embroiled in civil war. Mansion House is not open to the public.

Continue for three blocks to the north end of Dawson Street. Cross Nassau Street and turn right. Go along Nassau Street with College Park on your left, continue along Leinster Street South and turn left into Lincoln Place. At the end of Lincoln Place turn left on to Westland Row. Follow this to its north end (with Pearse Station on the corner). Turn left at Pearse Street. Cross the road and take the second on your right, Shaw Street, and walk north for one block to Townsend Street. Cross, and continue north on Moss Street to the riverside. Cross the Liffey to the north bank. While walking across the bridge, admire the grand front of the Custom House beneath its green copper dome. Walk left along to Eden Quay, passing the new Rosie Hackett Bridge, opened in 2014. Cross, and continue north on Moss Street to the riverside. Cross the Liffey to the north bank. While walking across the bridge, admire the grand front of the Custom House beneath its green copper dome. Walk left along to Eden Quay, turn right into O’Connell Street. James Gandon, who designed the Custom House as well as many other Dublin landmarks, would be pleased to see his building looking so spruce more than 200 years after it was completed, in 1791. It has always been underused, and in 1921, with Sinn Fein fighters and British troops skirmishing in Dublin’s streets and a self-declared Sinn Fein government sitting in the Mansion House, Sinn Fein sympathisers torched this little-loved symbol of British rule. It burned for five days, and it wasn’t completely restored until 1991.

From Eden Quay, cross to the left-hand side of O’Connell Street for one short block to the bullet-scarred façade of the General Post Office. Turn left into the main hall of the building. The statue that dominates the main hall is the heroic warrior of Celtic myth, Cúchulainn, who was said to be so agile that he could turn around inside his own skin. Cúchulainn was the right-hand man of the legendary king Finn MacCool. The statue symbolizes the contingent of Republican volunteers who held out for six days here, led by James Connolly and Padraig Pearse, while being shelled by British artillery and gunboats. ‘A terrible beauty is born’, wrote W. B. Yeats of the Easter Rising. But then, he wasn’t there getting shot at. At least the 64 freedom fighters who died in the six days of fighting were volunteers, while most of the 130 British soldiers who were killed were regular army professionals. The 300 or more civilian casualties had less say in the matter, and the instigators of the rising were popularly reviled for causing their deaths. But the execution of Connolly, Pearse and other ringleaders turned them into martyrs.

Walk past the General Post Office on your left, and turn left into Henry Street. Pass Henry Place, almost immediately on your right from the corner, and take the next right on to Moore Street. Weekdays, this is a busy and colourful flower, fruit and vegetable market. No. 16 Moore Street is on the right-hand side, just north of the corner. A grey plaque on the wall of this unassuming brick building records (in Irish) that this was where the flame of the Easter Rising finally guttered out. On 28 April 1916, with the GPO in ruins, the members of the self-declared Provisional Government withdrew to Moore Street. The following day, Pearse sent a young nurse, Elizabeth O’Farrell, to the British commander, General Lowe, with his surrender. Protests against a proposed new shopping centre have been successful in part, although the new construction will still result in the demolition of many buildings in Moore Street. Houses numbering 14 to 17 will be retained and a 1916 Commemorative Centre is planned within the terrace, opening to coincide with the centenary of the Easter Uprising in 2016.

Walk up Moore Street to Parnell Street, cross to the north side, walk down Parnell Square West and turn right to enter the Garden of Remembrance at the north end of Parnell Square. This poignant little park is laden with memories of Irish freedom fighters. After the surrender of the Provisional Government, its leaders were held overnight here before being taken to Kilmainham Gaol, where Pearse, Connolly and five other signatories of the declaration of the Republic were tried for treason by a kangaroo court, convicted, and shot. In all, more than 90 people were sentenced to death by British courts in the aftermath of the rising and more than a thousand were jailed as sympathisers with the rebels. The garden was dedicated as a memorial in 1966, on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. The pool in the centre of the garden is decorated with a mosaic of broken weapons, symbolising an end to war.

Go to the northeast corner of Parnell Square, turn left, and walk along Frederick Street North to Dorset Street. Cross, and walk up Blessington Street, immediately opposite Frederick Street North. After one block, turn right on Berkeley Street, which curves north to the North Circular Road. Cross this busy main road and walk west along it until you turn right on Phibsborough Road. Walk north for three short blocks to the Cross Guns Bridge, and cross the Royal Canal and the railway line running parallel to it. After one block of Prospect Road, at a Y-junction fork left on Finglas Road. Ahead to your right is Glasnevin Cemetery. Enter by the southeast gate. This is the last resting place of a veritable roll-call of freedom fighters – including Daniel O’Connell – but it’s less gloomy than it sounds, as much of its 47 acres (19ha) is taken up by rose beds, glasshouses and botanic gardens. Opened in 1832, the cemetery has four grand Victorian gateways and a vast array of equally grand tombstones and monuments. The last hero of the war of independence to be buried here was Kevin Barry (1902–20), whose body was disinterred from nearby Mountjoy Prison in October 2001. Barry was hanged in Mountjoy for murder after being captured when his guerrilla squad ambushed a British army lorry in 1920. Three British soldiers died. Barry was taken prisoner after his pistol jammed. He was offered a reprieve in return for the names of his comrades, but refused, and was executed on 1 November 1920, aged 18.