 Members of the Irish Volunteers, led by schoolmaster and Irish language activist Patrick Pearse, joined by the smaller Irish Citizen Army of James Connolly and 200 women of Cumann na mBan, seized strategically important buildings in Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic.The British Army brought in thousands of reinforcements as well as artillery and a gunboat.There was street fighting on the routes into the city centre, where the rebels slowed the British advance and inflicted many casualties.