Grace was the second youngest of twelve children. Her sisters, Nellie and Muriel, were also avid nationalists as well as converts to Catholicism. Muriel married Thomas MacDonagh, who was executed in Kilmainham earlier on the day Grace married Joe Plunkett. It was said of the Gifford girls: “whenever those vivacious girls entered a gloomy Sinn […]
“More and more I realised that Ireland could rely only on force, in some form or another, to free herself.” –Maud Gonne MacBride The daughter of an Irish army officer and his English wife, Maud Gonne converted to republicanism by an eviction she saw during the 1880s, and became a speaker for the Land League. […]
Francis Skeffington, writer and pacifist, was born in Bailieborough, Co Cavan on the 23 December 1878 to Joseph Bartholomew Skeffington and his wife Rose née Magorian. The family moved to Co Down shortly after his birth. He was educated by his father, a schools inspector and enrolled in University College Dublin (UCD) in 1896. While […]
Fuair siad bás ar son Saoirse na hÉireann! Commandant de Valera, Lieutenant Michael Malone of the 3rd Battalion, James Grace (Section Commander) and the other volunteers set out on the day of the Rising to march to Boland’s Mill. Their task was to secure Boland’s Mill and Mount Street Bridge, which was a well-known route […]
Thomas Traynor was a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) hanged in Mountjoy Gaol during the Irish War of Independence. Traynor was born on 27 May 1882 in Tullow, Co Carlow, and was 38 at the time of his death. He was an experienced soldier having been a member of the Boland’s Mill garrison […]
Francis Xavier Flood, known as Frank, was a 1st Lieutenant in the Dublin Active Service Brigade during the Irish War of Independence. He was executed by the British authorities in Mountjoy Gaol and was one of the men commonly referred to as ‘The Forgotten Ten’. Flood was the son of a policeman and the 1911 […]
‘Self-government is our right, a thing born in us at birth; a thing no more to be doled out to us or withheld from us by another people than the right to life itself.’ Roger Casement was born at Sandycove, Co Dublin in 1864. He joined the British colonial service and was knighted in 1911 […]
Ernie O’Malley, Frank Teeling and Simon Donnelly escaped from Kilmainham Gaol. The escape was carried out under the orders of Michael Collins, and he had specific reasons for arranging the escape of each of the men. Simon Donnelly had only been in the prison for four days, but he was well-known to the authorities and […]
THE FENIAN MOVEMENT – The Fenians wanted one simple desire for Ireland – Independence from British rule. The Great Hunger had a massive impact on Ireland. Many in Ireland believed that the government in London, to solve the ‘Irish Problem’, had deliberately did as little as possible to aid the people of Ireland – in […]
Countess Markievicz, born Constance Georgine Gore Booth, politician, revolutionary, tireless worker with the poor and dispossessed, was a remarkable woman. Born into great wealth and privilege, she lived at Lissadell House in Co Sligo. She is most famous for her leadership role in the 1916 Easter Rising and the subsequent revolutionary struggle for freedom in […]
