Seán Mac Diarmada (27 January 1883 – 12 May 1916), also known as Seán MacDermott, was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

republican political activist and revolutionary leader. He was one of the seven leaders of the

Easter Rising The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the ...

of 1916, which he helped to organise as a member of the Military Committee of the

Irish Republican Brotherhood The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB; ) was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland between 1858 and 1924.McGee, p. 15. Its counterpart in the United States ...

(IRB) and was the second signatory of the

Proclamation of the Irish Republic A proclamation (Lat. ''proclamare'', to make public by announcement) is an official declaration issued by a person of authority to make certain announcements known. Proclamations are currently used within the governing framework of some nations ...

. He was executed for his part in the Rising at age 33. Brought up in rural

County Leitrim County Leitrim ( ; gle, Contae Liatroma) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Connacht and is part of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the village of Leitrim. Leitrim County Council is the local authority for th ...

, he was a member of many associations which promoted the cause of the

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and wa ...

Gaelic revival The Gaelic revival ( ga, Athbheochan na Gaeilge) was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language (also known as Gaelic) and Irish Gaelic culture (including folklore, mythology, sports, music, arts, etc.). I ...

and

Irish nationalism Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cu ...

in general, including the

Gaelic League (; historically known in English as the Gaelic League) is a social and cultural organisation which promotes the Irish language in Ireland and worldwide. The organisation was founded in 1893 with Douglas Hyde as its first president, when it eme ...

and (early in his career) the

Irish Catholic Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...

fraternity the

Ancient Order of Hibernians The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH; ) is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Members must be male, Catholic, and either born in Ireland or of Irish descent. Its largest membership is now in the United States, where it was founded in N ...

. He was national organiser for

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gri ...

, and later manager of the newspaper '' Irish Freedom'', started in 1910 by

Bulmer Hobson John Bulmer Hobson (14 January 1883 – 8 August 1969) was a leading member of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) before the Easter Rising in 1916.D.J. Hickey & J. E. Doherty, ''A New Dictionary of Irish History from ...

and others.

Early life

Mac Diarmada was born John MacDermott in Corranmore, close to

Kiltyclogher Kiltyclogher () is a small village in County Leitrim, Ireland. It is on the border with County Fermanagh, close to the hamlet of Cashelnadrea. Population The population of the electoral division in which Kiltyclogher lies was 233 residents a ...

, an area where the landscape was marked by reminders of poverty and oppression. His father Donald McDermott was a member of the IRB and a friend of John Daly. Surrounding Mac Diarmada in rural Leitrim, there were signs of Irish history throughout the area. There was an ancient

sweat-house A sweat lodge is a low profile hut, typically dome-shaped or oblong, and made with natural materials. The structure is the ''lodge'', and the ceremony performed within the structure may be called by some cultures a purification ceremony or simply ...

Mass rock Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

s from the penal times and the persecutions of the 17th and 18th centuries, and deserted abodes as an aftermath of the hunger of the 1840s. He was educated at Corradoona national school. In 1908 he moved to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 cen ...

, by which time he already had a long involvement in several Irish nationalist and cultural organisations, including

, the

(IRB), the

and the

. He was soon promoted to the Supreme Council of the IRB and eventually elected secretary. He originally refused to join the IRB as it was condemned by the Catholic church but Bulmer Hobson convinced him otherwise. In 1910 he became manager of the radical newspaper ''Irish Freedom'', which he founded along with

and Denis McCullough. He also became a national organiser for the IRB, and was taken under the wing of veteran

Fenian The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated ...

Tom Clarke. Indeed, over the year the two became nearly inseparable. Shortly thereafter Mac Diarmada was stricken with

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe sy ...

and forced to walk with a cane. In November 1913 Mac Diarmada was one of the original members of the

Irish Volunteers The Irish Volunteers ( ga, Óglaigh na hÉireann), sometimes called the Irish Volunteer Force or Irish Volunteer Army, was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists and republicans. It was ostensibly formed in respons ...

, and continued to work to bring that organisation under IRB control. In May 1915 Mac Diarmada was arrested in

Tuam Tuam ( ; ga, Tuaim , meaning 'mound' or 'burial-place') is a town in Ireland and the second-largest settlement in County Galway. It is west of the midlands of Ireland, about north of Galway city. Humans have lived in the area since the Bron ...

County Galway "Righteousness and Justice" , anthem = () , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Galway.svg , map_caption = Location in Ireland , area_footnotes = , area_total_km2 = ...

, under the

Defence of the Realm Act 1914 The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed in the United Kingdom on 8 August 1914, four days after it entered the First World War and was added to as the war progressed. It gave the government wide-ranging powers during the war, such as the p ...

for giving a speech against enlisting into the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...

during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighti ...

Easter Rising

Following his release in September 1915, he joined the secret Military Committee of the IRB, which was responsible for planning the rising. Indeed, Mac Diarmada and Clarke were the people most responsible for it. Mac Diarmada, like the rest of the signatories of the proclamation believed a "blood sacrifice" was necessary. In 1914 he said "the Irish patriotic spirit will die forever unless a blood sacrifice is made in the next few years.” Due to his disability, Mac Diarmada took little part in the fighting of Easter week, but was stationed at the headquarters in the

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...

(GPO), as one of the Provisional Republican Government. Following the surrender, he nearly escaped execution by blending in with the large body of prisoners. He was eventually recognised by Daniel Hoey of

G Division G (detective) Division was a plainclothes divisional office of the Dublin Metropolitan Police concerned with detective police work.Patrick Maume, ‘Mallon, John (1839–1915)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2 ...

.James Mackay, "Michael Collins: A Life", p.135. Following a court-martial on 9 May, Mac Diarmada was executed by firing squad in

Kilmainham Gaol Kilmainham Gaol ( ga, Príosún Chill Mhaighneann) is a former prison in Kilmainham, Dublin, Ireland. It is now a museum run by the Office of Public Works, an agency of the Government of Ireland. Many Irish revolutionaries, including the leade ...

on 12 May at the age of 33. In September 1919 Hoey was shot dead by Michael Collins's

Squad In military terminology, a squad is among the smallest of military organizations and is led by a non-commissioned officer. NATO and US doctrine define a squad as an organization "larger than a team, but smaller than a section." while US Army doc ...

. Likewise, the British Officer Lee-Wilson, who ordered Mac Diarmada be shot, rather than imprisoned, was also killed in Cork on Collins's order during the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence () or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and United Kingdom of Gre ...

. Mac Diarmada had been in regular correspondence with Nell Ryan. In his final letter he wrote: "Miss Ryan, she who in all probability, had I lived, would have been my wife". "Min" Josephine Ryan and her sister, Phyllis, had been couriers to the GPO. They also visited Kilmainham Gaol, before his execution, and managed to evade arrest. Min, a founder of

Cumann na mBan Cumann na mBan (; literally "The Women's Council" but calling themselves The Irishwomen's Council in English), abbreviated C na mB, is an Irish republican women's paramilitary organisation formed in Dublin on 2 April 1914, merging with and dis ...

, managed to escape from Ireland to America; she later married

Richard Mulcahy Richard James Mulcahy (10 May 1886 – 16 December 1971) was an Irish Fine Gael politician and army general who served as Minister for Education from 1948 to 1951 and 1954 to 1957, Minister for the Gaeltacht from June 1956 to October 1956, L ...

. Before his execution, Mac Diarmada wrote, "I feel happiness the like of which I have never experienced. I die that the Irish nation might live!”

Commemoration

Seán McDermott Street Seán McDermott Street is a street in northeast Dublin, Ireland. It is divided into Seán McDermott Street Lower (east end) and Seán McDermott Street Upper (west end). Located in the north inner city, it runs west-east as an extension of Catha ...

(formerly Gloucester Street) in

is named in his honour. So too is Sligo Mac Diarmada railway station in

Sligo Sligo ( ; ga, Sligeach , meaning 'abounding in shells') is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of approximately 20,000 in 2016, it is the largest urban cent ...

, and

Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada {{Infobox stadium , name = {{lang, ga, Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada , nickname = , image = Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada.jpg , caption = Leitrim Gaelic football team training at Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada , location = Carrick- ...

, the

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional ...

stadium in

Carrick-on-Shannon Carrick-on-Shannon () is the county town of County Leitrim in Ireland. It is the largest town in the county of Leitrim. A smaller part of the town lies in County Roscommon. The population of the town was 4,062 in 2016. It is situated on a strate ...

. Sean MacDermott tower in

Ballymun Ballymun () is an outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland, at the northern edge of the Northside, the green-field development of which began in the 1960s to accommodate a housing crisis in inner city areas of Dublin. While the newly built housing was s ...

, demolished in 2005, was also named after him. In his hometown of

a statue inscribed with his final written words – see above – was erected in the village centre, his childhood home has become a

National Monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a spec ...

. The building which holds the national bus station (

Busáras Busáras (; from ''bus'' + '' áras'' "building") is the central bus station in Dublin, Ireland for Intercity and regional bus services operated by Bus Éireann. Designed in the International Modern style, Busáras is also a stop on the Red Li ...

) and the

Department of Social Protection The Department of Social Protection ( ga, An Roinn Cosanta Sóisialta) is a department of the Government of Ireland, tasked with administering Ireland's social welfare system. It oversees the provision of income support and other social services ...

is known as Áras Mhic Dhiarmada.

Cultural legacy

Leitrim native Seán Fox portrayed Mac Diarmada in RTÉ's 2016 series '' Rebellion''. Mick Blake, Leitrim singer/songwriter, wrote "Sean MacDiarmada (the Pride of Corranmore)" to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Rising. The song was commissioned by New York businessman Joseph Mc Manus.

References

External links

Seaghán Mac Diarmada

Census of Ireland, 1911 The 1911 Census of Ireland was the last census that covered the whole island of Ireland. Censuses were taken at ten-year intervals from 1821 onwards, but the 1921 census was cancelled due to the Irish War of Independence. The original records o ...