Edward “Ned” Daly, commandant of Dublin’s 1st battalion during the Easter Rising of 1916, is born on February 25, 1891, at 26 Frederick Street in Limerick.
Daly is the only son among the ten children born to Edward and Catherine Daly (née O’Mara). He is the younger brother of Kathleen Clarke whose husband, Tom Clarke, an active member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Daly’s father, Edward, a Fenian, dies five months before his son’s birth at the age of forty-one. His uncle, John Daly, is a prominent republican who had taken part in the Fenian Rising. It is through John Daly that Clarke meets his future wife.
Daly is educated by the Presentation Sisters at Sexton Street, the Congregation of Christian Brothers at Roxboro Road, and at Leamy’s commercial college. He spends a short time as an apprentice baker in Glasgow before returning to Limerick to work in Spaight’s timber yard. He later moves to Dublin where he eventually takes up a position with a wholesale chemist. He lives in Fairview with Kathleen and Tom Clarke.
Daly joins the membership of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, although the exact date is not known. In November 1913, Daly joins the newly founded Irish Volunteers and soon reaches the rank of captain. He is assiduous in his study of military manuals and the professionalism of his company gains the admiration of senior officers in actions such as the Howth gun-running of 1914. In March 1915, he is promoted to the rank of commandant of the 1st Battalion.
During the Easter Rising of 1916, Daly’s battalion is stationed in the Four Courts and areas to the west and north of the centre of Dublin. His battalion sees the most intense fighting of the rising. He surrenders his battalion on Saturday, April 29 after Patrick Pearse orders the surrender. He is held at Kilmainham Gaol.
Daly is given the same quick sham court-martial at Richmond Barracks as the other leaders of the Rising. In his trial, he claims that he was just following orders. Daly is convicted and is executed by firing squad on May 4, 1916, at the age of 25.
Irish patriot Roger Casement‘s body is returned to Ireland from the United Kingdom on February 23, 1965, forty-nine years after his execution for treason.
In October 1914, Roger Casement sails for Germany where he spends most of his time seeking to recruit an Irish Brigade from among more than 2,000 Irish prisoners-of-war taken in the early months of World War I and held in the prison camp of Limburg an der Lahn. His plan is that they will be trained to fight against Britain in the cause of Irish independence.
In April 1916, Germany offers the Irish 20,000 Mosin–Nagant 1891 rifles, ten machine guns and accompanying ammunition, but no German officers. It is a fraction of the quantity of arms that Casement has hoped. Casement does not learn of the Easter Rising until after the plan is fully developed. The German weapons never land in Ireland as the Royal Navy intercepts the ship transporting them.
In the early hours of April 21, 1916, three days before the beginning of the rising, Casement is taken by a German submarine and is put ashore at Banna Strand in Tralee Bay, County Kerry. Suffering from a recurrence of malaria and too weak to travel, he is discovered at McKenna’s Fort in Rathoneen, Ardfert, and arrested on charges of treason, sabotage, and espionage against the Crown. He is imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Casement’s trial for treason is highly publicized and he is ultimately convicted and sentenced to be hanged. He unsuccessfully appeals the conviction and death sentence. Among the many people who plead for clemency are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, W. B. Yeats, and George Bernard Shaw.
On the day of his execution, Casement is again received into the Catholic Church at his request. He is attended by two Irish Catholic priests, Dean Timothy Ring and Father James Carey, from the East London parish of St. Mary and St. Michael’s. Casement is hanged at Pentonville Prison in London on August 3, 1916. His body is buried in quicklime in the prison cemetery at the rear of the prison.
During the decades after his execution, many formal requests for repatriation of Casement’s remains are refused by the U.K. government. Finally, February 23, 1965, Casement’s remains are repatriated to the Republic of Ireland. Casement’s last wish, to be buried at Murlough Bay on the North Antrim coast, in what is now Northern Ireland, may never be satisfied as U.K. Prime Minister Harold Wilson‘s government releases the remains only on condition that they cannot be brought into Northern Ireland, as “the government feared that a reburial there could provoke Catholic celebrations and Protestant reactions.”
Casement’s remains lay in state at Arbour Hill in Dublin for five days, during which time an estimated half a million people file past his coffin. After a state funeral on March 1, the remains are buried with full military honours in the Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, with other militant republican heroes. The President of the Republic of Ireland, Éamon de Valera, who is in his mid-eighties and the last surviving leader of the Easter Rising, defies the advice of his doctors and attends the ceremony, along with an estimated 30,000 others.
Construction of Nelson Pillar, a large granite pillar topped by a statue of Horatio Nelson in the middle of O’Connell Street (formerly Sackville Street) in Dublin, begins with the laying of the foundation stone on February 15, 1808, by the Lord Lieutenant the Duke of Richmond.
News of Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar reaches Dublin on November 8, 1805, and is greeted with boisterous celebrations in the streets, alongside mourning for the death of the hero. Within a month the Lord Mayor of Dublin, James Vance, calls a meeting of nobility, clergy, bankers, merchants, and citizens to plan a monument in Nelson’s memory, which is to be funded by public subscription.
The duke, dressed in a general’s uniform and accompanied by the Duchess in deep mourning for the dead hero, arrive at the foundation stone laying in a state coach drawn by six horses. The procession from Dublin Castle to the site includes Horse Yeomanry and Foot Yeomanry, sailors, officers of the Army and the Navy, subscribers, the committee, the Provost and Fellows of Trinity College, the Lord Mayor, the Common Council, sheriffs, aldermen, and peers according to their degrees.
The pillar is a Doric column that rises 121 feet from the ground and is topped by a 13-foot-tall statue of Nelson carved in Portland stone, giving it a total height of 134 feet, some 35 feet shorter than Nelson’s Column in London. The diameter of the column is 13 feet at the bottom and 10 feet at the top. All of the outer and visible parts of the pillar are granite from the quarry of Goldenhill, Manor Kilbride, County Wicklow. The interior is black limestone.
The pillar is completed by August 1809 and the statue of Nelson is hoisted into place. The statue is the work of Thomas Kirk, a young Cork-born sculptor then at the beginning of a successful career. The statue adds £630 to the cost of the pillar, which totals almost £7,000.
The monument is opened to the public on Trafalgar Day, October 21, 1809, the fourth anniversary of the battle. It offers the citizens of Dublin an unprecedented perspective on their city. For the payment of ten pence, they can climb the 168 steps of the inner stone staircase to the viewing platform.
On October 29, 1955, a group of University College Dublin students lock themselves inside the pillar and try to melt the statue with flame throwers. From the top they hang a poster of Kevin Barry, a Dublin Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who is executed by the British during the Irish War of Independence. Gardaí force their way inside with sledgehammers. They take the students’ names and addresses and bring them downstairs. Rather than arrest the students, the Gardaí merely confiscate their equipment and tell everyone to leave quietly. None are ever charged.
At 1:32 AM on March 8, 1966, a bomb destroys the upper half of the pillar, throwing the statue of Nelson into the street. The bomb is planted by a group of former Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers in what is believed to mark the commemoration the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising.
Six days after the original damage, on the morning of Monday, March 14, 1966, Irish Army engineers blow up the rest of the pillar after judging the structure to be too unsafe to restore. This planned demolition causes more damage on O’Connell Street than the original blast, breaking many windows.
The rubble from the monument is taken to the East Wall dump and the lettering from the plinth is moved to the gardens of Butler House, Kilkenny.
Treacy leaves school at the age of 14 and works as farmer while also developing deep patriotic convictions. He is a member of the Gaelic League, and of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) from 1911 and the Irish Volunteers from 1913.
He is picked up in the mass arrests following the Easter Rising in 1916. He spends much of the following two years in prison, where he goes on hunger strike on several occasions.
In 1918, Treacy is appointed Vice Officer-Commanding of the 3rd Tipperary Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, which becomes the Irish Republican Army in 1919.
On January 21, 1919, Treacy and Dan Breen, together with Seán Hogan, Séamus Robinson, and five other volunteers, help to ignite the conflict that is to become the Irish War of Independence. They ambush and shoot dead Constables Patrick MacDonnell and James O’Connell of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), who are guarding a transport of gelignite explosives, during the Soloheadbeg Ambush near Treacy’s home. Treacy leads the planning of the ambush and briefs the brigade’s OC Robinson on his return from prison in late 1918. Robinson supports the plans and agrees they will not go to GHQ for permission to undertake the attack.
As a result of the Soloheadbeg Ambush, South Tipperary is placed under martial law and declared a Special Military Area under the Defence of the Realm Act. After Soloheadbeg ambush party member Seán Hogan is arrested on May 12, 1919, Treacy, Breen, and Séamus Robinson are joined by five men from the IRA’s East Limerick Brigade to organise Hogan’s rescue. Hogan is brought to the train which is intended to take him from Thurles to Cork city on May 13, 1919. As the train steams across the Tipperary border and into County Limerick, the IRA party boards the train in Knocklong. A close-range struggle ensues on the train. Treacy and Breen are seriously wounded in the gunfight and two RIC men die, but Hogan is rescued. His rescuers rush him into the village of Knocklong where a butcher cuts off his handcuffs using a cleaver.
A search for Treacy and the others is mounted across Ireland. Treacy leaves Tipperary for Dublin to avoid capture. In Dublin, Michael Collins employs Treacy on assassination operations with “the Squad“. In the summer of 1920, he returns to Tipperary and organises several attacks on RIC barracks before again moving his base of operations to Dublin.
By spring 1920 the political police of both the Crimes Special Branch of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and G-Division (Special Branch) of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) have been effectively neutalised by IRA counterintelligence operatives working for Michael Collins. The British thoroughly reorganise their administration at Dublin Castle and begin to import dozens of professional secret service agents from all parts of the British Empire into Ireland to track down IRA operatives and Sinn Féin leaders.
On October 11, 1920, Treacy and Breen are holed up in a safe house on the north side of Dublin when it is raided by a police unit. In the ensuing shootout, two senior British officers are wounded and die the next day while Treacy and Breen are wounded, Breen seriously. Treacy and Breen manage to escape through a window and shoot their way through the police cordon.
Treacy is discovered at the Republican Outfitters shop at 94 Talbot Street on October 14 a British Secret Service surveillance team led by Major Carew and Lt. Gilbert Price. They were stalking him in hopes that he would lead them to Collins or to other high-value IRA targets. Treacy realises that he is being followed and runs for his bicycle but grabs the wrong bike, taking one that is far too big for him, and falls. Price draws his pistol and closes in on Treacy. Treacy draws his parabellum automatic pistol and shoots Price and another British agent before he is hit in the head, dying instantly.
Treacy is buried at Kilfeacle graveyard where, despite a large presence of British military personnel, a volley of shots is fired over the grave.
Redmond is born at Ballytrent House, his grandfather’s old family mansion, in Kilrane, County Wexford. As a student at Clongowes Wood College, he exhibits the seriousness that many soon come to associate with him. After finishing at Clongowes, Redmond attends Trinity College, Dublin to study law, but his father’s ill health leads him to abandon his studies before taking a degree and, in 1876, goes to live with him in London. As a clerk in the House of Commons he increasingly identifies himself with the fortunes of Charles Stewart Parnell, one of the founders of the Irish Land League.
Redmond first attends political meetings with Parnell in 1879. Upon the death of his father, a Member of Parliament for Wexford, in 1880, Redmond writes to Parnell asking for adoption as the Nationalist Party, which becomes the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1882, candidate in the by-election to fill the open seat, but is disappointed to learn that Parnell has already promised the next vacancy to his secretary Timothy Healy. When a vacancy arises in New Ross, he wins election unopposed as the Parnellite candidate for the seat. He served as MP for New Ross from 1881 to 1885, for North Wexford from 1885 to 1891 and finally for Waterford City from 1891 until his death in 1918.
In 1890, the Irish Parliamentary Party splits over Parnell’s leadership when his long-standing adultery with Katharine O’Shea is revealed in a spectacular divorce case. Redmond stands by Parnell and works to keep the minority faction active. When Parnell dies in 1891, Redmond takes over leadership of the Parnellite faction of the split party, called the Irish National League (INL). The larger anti-Parnellite group forms the Irish National Federation (INF) under John Dillon.
Through the initiative of William O’Brien and his United Irish League (UIL), the INL and the INF re-unite on February 6, 1900, within the Irish Parliamentary Party. Redmond is elected its chairman, a position he holds until his death in 1918, a longer period than any other nationalist leader with the exceptions of Éamon de Valera and Daniel O’Connell.
The achievement of Home Rule is his life’s goal, having strongly supported William Gladstone’s Home Rule bills of 1886 and 1893. His best opportunity arises when the Irish Parliamentary Party holds the balance of power under H. H. Asquith in the period from 1910 onwards. Opposition by the Ulster Unionists frustrates his plans, his main worry being that Home Rule will result in the permanent exclusion of at least some of the Ulster counties. He also fears that the activities of the Irish Volunteers might hinder the enactment of Home Rule. To guard against this eventuality, he secures the control of the organisation in June 1914. He welcomes the Government of Ireland Act, 1914 as the only measure of Home Rule then possible. Its suspension for the duration of the war postpones addressing the issue of partition.
To ensure the success of the war effort and the speedier implementation of Home Rule, Redmond offers the services of the Irish Volunteers for the defence of the country, an offer rejected by the government. By encouraging the Volunteers to join the British army, he splits the organisation. The vast majority, totaling 170,000 and thereafter known as the National Volunteers, follow Redmond, many of them enlisting in the British army. Those who aspire to an Irish republic or who have lost faith in Home Rule remain as the Irish Volunteers, their numbers now reduced to about 10,000.
Consequently, the 1916 Easter Rising takes him completely by surprise. Committed to keeping Ireland within the Union, he regards the Rising as treason and a “German intrigue.” He has no sympathy with the leaders or their objective of a republic. Nevertheless, he pleads for leniency in the House of Commons.
An operation in March 1918 to remove an intestinal obstruction appears to progress well at first, but then he suffers heart failure. He dies a few hours later at a London nursing home on March 6, 1918. One of the last things he says to the Jesuit Father who is with him to the end is, “Father, I am a broken-hearted man.”
The Gore-Booths are known as model landlords in County Sligo as they provide free food for the tenants on their estate. Perhaps being raised in this atmosphere of concern for the common man has something to do with the way Constance and her younger sister, Eva, conduct their later lives.
Gore-Booth decides to train as a painter and, in 1892, she enters the Slade School of Art in London because, at the time, only one art school in Dublin accepts female students. While in school in London Gore-Booth first becomes politically active and joins the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.
She later moves to Paris and enrolls at the prestigious Académie Julian where she meets her future husband, Count Casimir Markievicz. They are married in London on September 29, 1900, making her Countess Markievicz. The Markieviczes relocate to Dublin in 1903 and move in artistic and literary circles, with Constance being instrumental in founding the United Artists Club.
In 1908, Markievicz becomes actively involved in nationalist politics in Ireland and joins Sinn Féin and Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland), a revolutionary women’s movement founded by Maud Gonne. In the same year, Markievicz plays a dramatic role in the women’s suffrage campaigners’ tactic of opposing Winston Churchill‘s election to Parliament during the Manchester North West by-election. Churchill ultimately loses the election to Conservative candidate William Joynson-Hicks.
In 1909, Markievicz founds Fianna Éireann, a para-military nationalist scouts organisation that instructs teenage boys and girls in the use of firearms. Patrick Pearse says that the creation of Fianna Éireann is as important as the creation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913. She is jailed for the first time in 1911 for speaking at an Irish Republican Brotherhood demonstration organised to protest against George V’s visit to Ireland.
As a member of the Irish Citizen Army, Markievicz takes part in the 1916 Easter Rising. Under Michael Mallin and Christopher Poole, she supervises the erection of barricades as the Rising begins and is in the middle of the fighting all around Stephen’s Green. Mallin and Poole and their men and women, including Markievicz, hold out for six days, ending the engagement when the British bring them a copy of Patrick Pearse’s surrender order.
They are taken to Dublin Castle and Markievicz is transported to Kilmainham Gaol, where she is the only one of 70 women prisoners who is put into solitary confinement. At her court martial on May 4, 1916, Markievicz is sentenced to death, but General Maxwell commutes this to life in prison on “account of the prisoner’s sex.” It is widely reported that she tells the court, “I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me.” Markievicz is transferred to Mountjoy Prison and then to Aylesbury Prison in England in July 1916. She is released from prison in 1917, along with others involved in the Rising.
In the 1918 general election, Markievicz is elected for the constituency of Dublin St Patrick’s, making her the first woman elected to the British House of Commons. However, in line with Sinn Féin abstentionist policy, she does not take her seat in the House of Commons. She is re-elected to the Second Dáil in the elections of 1921. Markievicz serves as Minister for Labour from April 1919 to January 1922, holding cabinet rank from April to August 1919, becoming both the first Irish female Cabinet Minister and only the second female government minister in Europe.
Markievicz leaves government in January 1922 along with Éamon de Valera and others in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. She fights actively for the Republican cause in the Irish Civil War. She is returned in the 1923 general election for the Dublin South constituency but again, in common with other Republican candidates, she does not take her seat.
She joins Fianna Fáil on its foundation in 1926, chairing the inaugural meeting of the new party in La Scala Theatre. In the June 1927 general election, she is re-elected to the 5th Dáil as a candidate for the new Fianna Fáil party, which is pledged to return to Dáil Éireann.
Before she can take up her seat, Markievicz dies at the age of 59 on July 15, 1927, in a public ward “among the poor where she wanted to be” of complications related to appendicitis. One of the doctors attending her is her revolutionary colleague, Kathleen Lynn. Also at her bedside are Casimir and Stanislas Markievicz, Éamon de Valera, and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington. Refused a state funeral by the Free State government, Markievicz is buried at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, and de Valera gives the funeral oration.
After his participation as a leader of the Easter Rising of 1916, de Valera is arrested and sentenced to death for his role in the uprising, but the sentence is later commuted due to his American citizenship. Following his release from prison in 1916, he quickly gains fame on the Irish political scene, ultimately becoming the leader of Sinn Féin. He also gains notoriety amongst the British political elites, which ensures his eventual re-arrest and imprisonment in Lincoln Gaol.
De Valera is sent to Lincoln Gaol presumably for his participation in a “German Plot” against the British. Once incarcerated at Lincoln, de Valera, wanting to embarrass the English, quickly begins to plan his escape with the assistance of Milroy and McGarry. Irish Republicans on the outside, including Boland and Collins, also assist in the planning.
Open fields surrounded by barbed wire are to the rear and east of the prison. The Republicans hope to use this to their advantage by sneaking de Valera through a rear door. The plans are sung in Gaelic to de Valera through a window in his cell by a fellow Irish inmate in order to confuse the guards. The first song tells him of the escape route and the second gives him instructions to obtain a copy of the master-key for the prison.
De Valera, being a deeply religious man, is active in the prison’s chapel from the beginning of his internment. Using his connections within the chapel, over time he manages to steal candles from the altar. While Mass is being read, he “borrows” the master-key of the chaplain and makes an impression of it in the candle wax. The mould is then wrapped in paper and tossed over the prison wall so a duplicate can be made.
The key is duplicated and smuggled back into the prison concealed in a cake and the escape begins on the evening of February 3, 1919. While Collins and other members of Sinn Féin cut through the barbed wire, a group of Irish girls are sent to flirt with the prison guards to ensure they are preoccupied. With the guards’ attention diverted, de Valera, wrapped in a fur coat, McGarry, and Milroy are able to walk to the back door of the prison and, after some difficulty with the key, walk away from the prison.
They stroll down Wragby Road to the Adam & Eve Pub where a taxi driver, unaware of who his passengers are, awaits them. De Valera is swiftly moved to the railway station where they split up. Collins and Boland catch a train to London from St. Mark’s while the rest drive to Worksop where another innocent taxi driver drives them to Sheffield. De Valera then returns to Ireland briefly before traveling on to the United States. The prison officials, realizing that the men will be virtually impossible to locate, concede defeat after a one-day search of the city.
The escape from Lincoln Gaol is major news and is covered in all the national papers. Prison officials blame the escape on the ability of special prisoners to interact with the general prison population. The escape proves to be an important moment in Irish history – when a cake, a wax key, and some pretty Irish girls help spring the future Irish president from Lincoln Gaol.
MacDonagh grows up in a household filled with music, poetry, and learning and is instilled with a love of both English and Irish culture from a young age. He attends Rockwell College and spends several years in preparation for a missionary career but soon realizes that it isn’t the life for him and leaves the college. He teaches briefly at St. Kieran’s College in Kilkenny and, from 1903, is employed as a professor of French, English, and Latin at St. Colman’s College, Fermoy, County Cork, where he forms a branch of the Gaelic League. He moves to Dublin and establishes strong friendships with such men as Eoin MacNeill and Patrick Pearse.
In Dublin, MacDonagh joins the staff St. Enda’s School upon its establishment in 1908, as a French and English teacher and Assistant Headmaster. In January 1912 he marries Muriel Gifford and takes the position of lecturer in English at the National University, while continuing to support St Enda’s. MacDonagh remains devoted to the Irish language and, in 1910, he becomes tutor to a younger member of the Gaelic League, Joseph Plunkett.
In 1913, MacDonagh and Plunkett attend the inaugural meeting of the Irish Volunteers and join its Provisional Committee. MacDonagh is later appointed Commandant of Dublin’s 2nd battalion and eventually made commandant of the entire Dublin Brigade. MacDonagh develops strong republican beliefs and joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in the summer of 1915. Around this time, Tom Clarke asks MacDonagh to plan the grandiose funeral of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, which is a resounding propaganda success largely due to the graveside oration delivered by Pearse.
MacDonagh joins the secret Military Council that is planning the rising in April 1916, just weeks before the rising takes place. Although joining the Council during the late stages of the planning process, MacDonagh is, nevertheless, a signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
During the rising, MacDonagh’s battalion is stationed at the massive Jacob’s Biscuit Factory complex. On the way to this destination the battalion encounters veteran Fenian John MacBride, who joins the battalion as second-in-command.
Although MacDonagh’s battalion is one of the strongest, they see little fighting as the British Army avoids the factory and establishes positions in central Dublin. MacDonagh receives the order to surrender on April 30, although his entire battalion is fully prepared to continue the engagement. Following the surrender, MacDonagh is court martialled and executed by firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin on May 3, 1916, at the age of thirty-eight.
MacCurtain is born at Ballyknockane in the Parish of Mourne Abbey on March 20, 1884. He attends Burnfort National School until the family moves to Blackpool on the north side of Cork city in 1897, where he attends The North Monastery School. He becomes active in numerous cultural and political movements and joins the Blackpool branch of the Gaelic League, becoming its secretary in 1902. He works in his early career as a clerk and in his free time teaches the Irish language. He joins the Fianna Éireann in 1911 and is a founding member of the Irish Volunteers.
At the outset of the Easter Rising in April 1916, MacCurtain commands a force of up to 1,000 men of the Irish Volunteers who assemble at various locations around County Cork. MacCurtain and his officers await orders from the volunteer leadership in Dublin, but conflicting instructions and confusion prevail, and the Cork volunteers never entered the fray. A tense week-long stand-off develops when British forces surround the volunteer hall. A negotiated agreement leads to the surrender of the volunteers’ arms to then Lord Mayor of Cork Thomas Butterfield on the understanding that they will be returned. The weapons are not returned and MacCurtain is jailed in the Frongoch Prisoner of War camp in Wales. Eighteen months later, after the general amnesty of participants in the Rising, MacCurtain returns to active duty as a Commandant of what is now the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
By 1918, MacCurtain is a brigade commander in the IRA. During the Conscription Crisis in the autumn 1918, he actively encourages the hiring of the women of Cumann na mBan to cater for Volunteers. MacCurtain is personally involved with Michael Collins‘ Squad that attempts to assassinate Lord John French, whose car is missed as the convoy passes through the ambush positions. Despite the setback he remains brigadier of No.1 Cork when he is elected the Sinn Féin councillor for NW Ward No. 3 of Cork in the January 1920 council elections and is chosen by his fellow councillors to be the Lord Mayor. He begins a process of political reform within the city.
On his 36th birthday, March 20, 1920, MacCurtain is shot dead in front of his wife and son by a group of men with blackened faces in retaliation for the shooting of a policeman. MacCurtain’s house in the city’s Blackpool area is also ransacked. The assassins are found to be members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) by the official inquest into the event.
The killing causes widespread public outrage. The coroner’s inquest passes a verdict of wilful murder against British Prime Minister Lloyd George and against certain members of the RIC. Michael Collins later orders his personal assassination squad to hunt down and kill the police officers involved in the attack. RIC District Inspector Oswald Swanzy, who had ordered the attack, is fatally shot with MacCurtain’s own revolver while leaving a Protestant church in Lisburn, County Antrim on August 22, 1920, sparking a “pogrom” against the Catholic residents of the town. MacCurtain is buried in St. Finbarr’s Cemetery, Cork.
After his father’s execution for his participation in the Easter Rising of 1916, Seán is sent to school at Mount St. Benedict’s, Gorey, County Wexford in Ireland. In 1919, at the age of 15, he joins the Irish Volunteers, which fights as part of the Irish Republican Army, and takes part in the Irish War of Independence. He is imprisoned by the Irish Free State but is released in 1924 and resumes his IRA activities. He returns to Dublin in 1927 and becomes the Director of Intelligence of the IRA.
Toward the end of the 1920s, after many supporters have left the IRA to join Fianna Fáil, some members start pushing for a more left-wing agenda. After the IRA Army Council votes down the idea, MacBride launches a new movement, Saor Éire (“Free Ireland”), in 1931. Although it is a non-military organisation, Saor Éire is declared unlawful along with the IRA, Cumann na mBan, and nine other organizations.
In 1936, MacBride becomes Chief of Staff of the IRA after Moss Twomey is sent to prison for three years. At the time, the movement is in a state of disarray, with conflicts between several factions and personalities. In 1937, MacBride is called to the bar and then resigns from the IRA when the Constitution of Ireland is enacted later that year. As a barrister, MacBride frequently defends IRA political prisoners, but is not unsuccessful in stopping the execution of Charlie Kerins in 1944 who is convicted of killing Garda Detective Dennis O’Brien in 1942. In 1946, during the inquest into the death of Seán McCaughey, MacBride embarrasses the authorities by forcing them to admit that the conditions in Portlaoise Prison are inhumane.
In 1946, MacBride founds the republican/socialist party Clann na Poblachta, hoping it would replace Fianna Fáil as Ireland’s major political party. In October 1947, he wins a seat in Dáil Éireann at a by-election in the Dublin County constituency. However, at the 1948 general election Clann na Poblachta wins only ten seats.
MacBride is serving as Minister of External Affairs when the Council of Europe drafts the European Convention on Human Rights. He serves as President of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe from 1949 to 1950 and is credited with being a key force in securing the acceptance of this convention, which is finally signed in Rome on November 4, 1950. He is instrumental in the implementation of the Repeal of the External Relations Act and the Declaration of the Republic of Ireland in 1949.
In 1951, Clann na Poblachta is reduced to only two seats after the general election. MacBride keeps his seat and is re-elected again in 1954. Opposing the internment of IRA suspects during the Border Campaign (1956–62), he contests both the 1957 and 1961 general elections but fails to be elected both times. He then retires from politics but continues practicing as a barrister. He expresses interest in running as an independent candidate in the 1983 Irish presidential election but does not receive sufficient backing and ultimately does not enter the contest.
Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, MacBride works tirelessly for human rights worldwide. He is a founding member of Amnesty International and serves as its international chairman from 1961 until 1975. During the 1980s, he initiates the Appeal by Lawyers against Nuclear War which is jointly sponsored by the International Peace Bureau and the International Progress Organization.
MacBride is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974 as a man who “mobilised the conscience of the world in the fight against injustice.” He later receives the Lenin Peace Prize (1975–76) and the UNESCO Silver Medal for Service (1980).
Seán MacBride dies in Dublin on January 15, 1988, just eleven days shy of his 84th birthday. He is buried in a simple grave in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.
seamus dubhghaill 