A continuation of: Plunkett’s Agenda: Count Plunkett against Friend and Foe, February-April 1917 (Part III)

A New Voice

“It is difficult for us at present to visualise the circumstances under which this Convention was held,” so the Monsignor Michael J. Curran recounted in later years about the Plunkett Convention that took place on the 19th April 1917. The closest thing Ireland had had to a ruling party since the days of Parnell, the Irish Parliament Party (IPP), was a spent force by then, drained and discredited, but who or what would take its place was by no means certain.

The most visible alternative for the moment was George Noble Plunkett. The 66-year old Papal Count had been better known in the past as a celebrated art scholar whose comfortable life of genteel indolence, along with much else in the country, had been upturned in the Easter Week of 1916. His eldest son had been executed for his part in the Rising, the other two imprisoned, and himself stripped of his National Museum directorship and exiled to England.

The wheel had turned yet again upon his election in January 1917 to the parliamentary seat of North Roscommon. Plunkett had not even needed to be present for the most part – he only returned to Ireland in the last few days before polling – with most of the work being done by an impromptu alliance of groups and individuals, united in their frustration at the political stagnation. Much had been promised by the IPP in the form of Home Rule, and yet Ireland was as much an unwilling ward of the British Crown as ever.

Immediately after his election, the Count had transformed from a respectable gentleman to a firebrand as he lambasted the failings of the IPP while half-promising, half-predicting a cleansing of the country’s woes with the certainty of a Biblical prophet. That attempts had been made, almost certainly by the IPP, to discredit him only inadvertently confirmed his status as standard-bearer of the new movement. Yet not everyone could look at the Count and agree with such elevation.

Police reports to Dublin Castle, while noting the apathy that gripped the Irish Party, commented on how “the Count as a party leader does not appear to inspire enthusiasm.” In that, the police, and many of Plunkett’s so-called allies, were unknowingly in accord.

Clouding matters further was there had been no elections, either for Parliament or local government bodies, since before the start of the war in Europe. These public bodies were left with men (they were invariably men) who did not necessarily speak for their constituents anymore, particularly the young, who had gone through such a dramatic transformation in the wake of the 1916 Rising. What opposition there was in Ireland to the IPP or British rule was unfocused, fragmentary and, as often as not, at odds with each other.

If nothing else, the convention called by Count Plunkett was the first attempt to voice the new feeling in the country and hear what it had to say. If it could somehow smooth over the differences in the various opposition groups as well, then so much the better.[1]

Who’s Who

Differentiating these factions was not always easy, for in their hostility to the IPP and the desire to break the British connection, they could often appear indistinguishable to each other. Nonetheless, several distinct strands of thought could be discerned from the morass of post-1916 feeling:

Sinn Féin, as envisioned by its founder, Arthur Griffith, with a preference for constitutional methods.

Sinn Féin but remoulded on more Republican lines, an option popular among those who had fought in the Rising.

The Liberty Clubs, set up by Count Plunkett as a hard-line alternative. [2]

Another group was the Irish Nation League. Formed in Derry in July 1916 as an anti-Partition lobby, it had spread from the Ulster counties to the rest of the country, holding a rally in Dublin in September which had been attracted considerable attention. But that had been the high point for the League. Now it was stagnating for lack of drive and a failure to secure the newly popular radical ground. The League’s mistake had been to try and replace the Irish Party at the time when the IPP was a failed model.[3]

Of these bodies, the Liberty Clubs were the most recent, being formed from May 1917 while riding the momentum of the Plunkett Convention from the month before. Sinn Féin, meanwhile, was the oldest and enjoyed the benefits of being an already established name. It was perhaps only fitting that the two men at the heads of these two groups, Plunkett and Griffith respectively, should be at loggerheads from the start.

They stood on the opposite ends of the Nationalist spectrum, the Count demanding immediate action, against a more cautious Griffith. But there were times when the animosity spilled from the strictly political to the unpleasantly personal. According to the Count’s daughter, Geraldine, in her not-unbiased memoirs, Griffith had written “several savage letters”, accusing him of making political capital out of his dead son, to which the Count had managed to reply “with his habitual courtesy.”[4]

At the Plunkett Convention, however, its namesake would prove to be the aggressive one, attempting what amounted to a hostile takeover of Sinn Féin, forcing Griffith on the defensive.

‘Sinn Féin’?

Their initial point of contention was absentionism. The Count knew exactly where he stood there: he would not under any circumstances take his seat for North Roscommon at Westminster. As well as making this publicly clear, he expected his allies to commit to the same principle. At a meeting in Plunkett’s house in February, the trade unionist William O’Brien voiced his concerns that taking such a definite stand so soon would risk alienating the wider Irish public. He was taken aback when Griffith, who was also present, agreed.[5]

O’Brien had reason to be surprised, for Griffith had long pioneered absentionism as a means of separating the country from Britain. For this, Geraldine and her brother Joseph – the future 1916 signatory – had admired him, along with his “fine historical sense….and policy of self-reliance” for Ireland. But in the new post-Rising country, Griffith’s position was more tenuous than he cared to admit.[6]

‘Sinn Féin’ had been popularised, in one of those quirks of history, by the British authorities who had labelled the Irish Volunteers as such due to the perception of the actual Sinn Féin as a quixotic cause. The journalist Darrell Figgis remembered how the pre-1916 Sinn Féin “was a title of opprobrium. It was a title of a small minority, considered to be more noisy than numerous, expostulant but powerless.”[7]

This was a view shared by Seán T. O’Kelly, who estimated that Sinn Féin, of which he was a joint-honorary secretary, had had no more than a hundred members in Dublin before the Rising.[8]

And now – what a difference! Sinn Féin Clubs were everywhere, with affiliation fees pouring into the head offices of 6 Harcourt Street, allowing Griffith the luxury of keeping two paid organisers on the road. That the front-page header of the Nationality (the latest newsletter of his) bore the subtitle ‘edited by Arthur Griffith’, the first time his name had been so displayed, showed how much of an asset his name had become.[9]

And it had been thanks to Dublin Castle’s misnomer of the Easter Rising as the ‘Sinn Féin Rebellion’ that it was now the leading political brand in Ireland. This was despite Sinn Féin having had nothing to do with the insurrection, a misunderstanding that Griffith was in no hurry to correct, much to the annoyance of those who had actually been involved in the fighting and were resentful of his piggybacking on their efforts.

Besides, Griffith was seen as far too moderate for their tastes. In Count Plunkett, they saw a more agreeably hard-line totem around which to rally.[10]

The Game of Politics

Some disdained the use of politics altogether. In Frongoch Camp, those prisoners who were initiates in the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) held a series of meeting to determine their future course of action. At one, attended by Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy, it was agreed that, upon being freed, they would bring the IRB into the realm of politics in order to best serve the national cause. After all, news from Ireland told of how the IPP was weak and their own popularity strong, so the time seemed ripe to replace the old establishment with one more in tune with their aims.

One IRB member, Eamon T. Dore, had not been invited to this particular meeting, which he attributed to a falling-out he had had with the increasingly influential Collins. In any case, Dore did not approve of the decision, fearing that the IRB would be enmeshed with the usual intrigue and compromise of politics.

Dore met with Mulcahy and another Frongoch alumni/IRB member, Michael Staines, in Sackville (now O’Connell) Street, Dublin, after their release. It was February 1917 and the North Roscommon by-election was underway. Mulcahy persuaded the other two to come with him to Griffith’s house in the North Strand, as he wanted his advice on what to do next. Evidently a generous man with his time, Griffith told them that, in his opinion, they should focus on bringing Ireland’s case to the Peace Conference, set to be held in Paris after the war in Europe was over.

This was not to Dore’s liking. He argued that if Britain won the war, it would never give Ireland a fair chance and, if it lost, well, then it would be in no position to tell them what to do anyway. To Dore, this exchange was symptomatic of the sort of woolly thinking that was all too common amongst men like Griffith.[11]

Even those willing to lend a hand in the political arena disdained those who were too involved. Laurence Nugent had helped organise the Plunkettite campaign in North Roscommon. He was close to Rory O’Connor, one of the few Rising leaders who had escaped imprisonment. For his part, O’Connor was working both on the Count’s behalf and in helping to reorganise the Irish Volunteers. Through O’Connor, Nugent witnessed the attitudes of many who adapted to the new political landscape while remaining contemptuous of it.

“We were not politicians, although we were now well initiated into the game of politics,” was how Nugent put it. The politicians were a different breed: “They saw no hope of recovery on Republican lines,” preferring instead the passive resistance espoused by Sinn Féin.

Nothing could have been further from the minds of those like O’Connor who were using the period of calm to prepare for the next round in the fight against Britain, one that would not be confined to Dublin but with the whole of Ireland as its battlefield. As O’Connor had said of his men when he saw that the Rising was doomed: “Send them home. We shall want them again.”[12]

Keeping it in the Family

While waiting for the resumption of war, O’Connor was hard at work arranging the Plunkett Convention for April. He was helped in this by Thomas Dillon, the Count’s son-in-law. Dillon had married Geraldine on Easter Sunday 1916, following which the newlyweds had watched from their hotel balcony on Sackville Street as her brothers marched up towards the General Post Office (GPO) at the head of their men to begin the Rising. When Geraldine asked to help inside the GPO, it was O’Connor who was sent out to turn her away on Joseph’s behalf.[13]

O’Connor was also romantically involved with a Plunkett daughter, and had worn throughout that turbulent week in Dublin a holy medal in his pocket, given to him by Fiona Plunkett. He would remain on close terms with the family up until his execution in the Civil War. According to Nugent, Josephine Plunkett, the Count’s wife, acted as go-between for O’Connor while he was occupying the Four Courts in 1922, as “speaking to her was the same as speaking to Rory.”

He and Fiona never got as far as marriage, with Geraldine describing their romance as a “very frustrating” one for her sister. Nugent, as O’Connor’s friend, put it more delicately: “the bullet that killed him in Mountjoy affected the life of a lady member of a great Irish family.”[14]

Another budding revolutionary leader who benefitted from the support of the Plunketts was Michael Collins. Geraldine first met him when he was a “very tired young man”, newly arrived from London. He was put to work handling their rent books, answering official letters and filing away papers. Collins took lunch with the Plunketts and quickly made an impression, at least on Geraldine, in whose opinion: “no one ever had a better clerk.”[15]

(Not every member of the family had such a fond image of the Big Fella. Eoghan Plunkett, Geraldine’s nephew, remembered the future hero as a “pup, a nasty piece of work.” Among his sins was avoiding the living-room carpet in favour of the bare part of the floor in order to make more noise. However, Eoghan would not have been born then and his stories are second-hand).[16]

Michael Collins

Under Collins’ supervision, the muddled financial books began to take some semblance of order (no one in the family could be accused of being too worldly). But Collins did not intend to shuffle papers and juggle sums forever. He had been recommended to Joseph by the IRB in London, of which Collins had been a member, and he continued to act in that capacity in Dublin, helping Joseph to organise the embryonic uprising while serving as his bodyguard in a measure of the growing trust between them.[17]

Collins became a common sight on the family property at Larkfield, south-west of Dublin. The Volunteers who were based there would see him passing as they churned out shotgun pellets and cast-iron grenades in preparation for the coming insurrection. He impressed them with his “sense of hurry and earnestness,” while causing annoying with his brusqueness and amateurish attempts to instruct them in their work.[18]

Collins’ lack of tact did not seem to have improved by the time of the North Roscommon by-election at the start of 1917. “The reactions of many being that he was a typical Corkman – some people thought he was a pusher [as in pushy] – and he was resented at that time,” according to William O’Brien, who met Collins while they were both assisting in the Plunkett campaign.[19]

On the other hand, another canvasser, Kevin O’Shiel accredited Collins – along with Griffith and Father Michael O’Flanagan – with the smooth running of the election by convincing his more bellicose colleagues of the gains to be had through the electoral process.[20]

Collins’ influence was such that many observers attributed the rise of the Liberty Clubs not so much to Count Plunkett but to him and the IRB. To Richard Walsh, a future TD and a member of the IRB himself at the time, the Clubs were “the public or outward expression” of the IRB which sponsored the Clubs in order “to give public expression and support to the IRB’s policy of physical force.”

Certainly, the militant philosophy espoused by the Clubs was in line with the IRB’s. Furthermore, as Walsh described, “Collins’ position as Secretary to Count Plunkett meant that he was acting as Secretary of the Liberty Clubs.”[21]

Dillon also linked the growth of the Clubs to Collins and the IRB:

The Liberty Clubs proposed by Count Plunkett were being founded, probably [emphasis mine] under the aegis of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which Michael Collins had begun to reorganise throughout the country immediately after his release from internment in Frongoch, at the end of 1916.[22]

The use of word ‘probably’ indicates that not even the Count’s son-in-law was entirely sure what was going on.

Not so easily impressed was Dore, whose account of how he and Collins came to the Plunkett Convention puts the latter in a different light to the near-omniscient mastermind as he is often portrayed. Collins, Dore, Staines and some others were hanging about Dublin one lazy afternoon when they heard there was something going on at the Mansion House. Arriving late, they were only allowed in because Dore knew one of the doormen.[23]

A Union of Advanced Thought

Delegates from the various public bodies throughout Ireland arrived at the Mansion House on the 19th April as per the instructions sent out by Count Plunkett. Admission tickets were checked at the doors by members of the Irish Volunteers acting as stewards, a sign of how the closely the new radical politics and the military men were in concord.

The large number of female attendees was notable, as were those from the younger male generation, politics in Ireland previously being the reserve of elderly or middle-aged men. Even the Freeman’s Journal, an organ of the IPP and thus a bitter critic of the Count, recognised that something exceptional was taking place with its headline NATIONALISM – NEW STYLE – COUNT PLUNKETT’S “UNION” OF ADVANCED THOUGHT.

In keeping with the mood of the country, Sinn Féin badges were conspicuously displayed throughout the hall. Rousing cries of “Up Sinn Féin” greeted Count Plunkett as he made his way on the platform to take the chair. The callers may not have done so had they known what the Count truly thought of Sinn Fein and Griffith, and vice versa.

Plunkett began by thanking his guests for attending, particularly those who had had to travel from great distance. He then asked for a vote of commemoration to be made: “That this assembly, at its first meeting, desire to honour the memory of the men who have died for Ireland.”

The audience stood in respect as the vote was passed. The second request was also accepted without condition: “In honour of those who faced death for Ireland and who are now in prison as felons, and those men and women who had been exiled.”

Unstated, but palatable, was the knowledge that among these said men were members of the Plunkett family: Joseph, executed before a firing squad, Jack and George, both sentenced to lengthy penal sentences, and their father, the Count himself, banished to England until two months ago. After all, as Griffith had cruelly (if not altogether inaccurately) said, Plunkett had built a fine career out of such loss.

A Free-Souled Nation

Count Plunkett said he would not insult these captives in question by asking for their release, insisting instead that they should be treated as prisoners of war. These men should be paid at least the same respect that a German or any other foreign POW would be treated, instead of degraded with the status of criminals.

“It is an honour,” a voice interrupted from the assembly. Plunkett said that he knew that these men took it as such and that they were prepared to suffer accordingly but – in a statement that was especially meaningful coming from him – “we should not suffer it for them.”

After the resulting applause had died down, Plunkett congratulated his audience and Ireland upon the occasion of this great and representative gathering. It was hard to realise that this was the first free assembly of Irishmen on their own soil for many a century (cheers). It was the one of the first assemblies in the history of the country in which the leading note was a disregard for all aliens (cheers).

“In your name,” continued the Count, warming to his theme, “I made a series of declarations which you can assent by standing up. They are that –”

We proclaim Ireland to be a separate nation.

We assert Ireland’s right to freedom from all foreign control, defying the authority of any foreign Parliament to make laws for the country.

We affirm the right of the Irish people to declare their will in law, and enforce their decisions in their own land.

To maintain the status of Ireland as a distinct nation, we demand representation at the coming Peace Conference in Paris.

It is the duty of those nations taking part in the said Conference to guarantee the liberty of small nations like Ireland.

Our claim to complete independence is founded on human right and the law of nations.

We declare that Ireland has never yielded in our power to attain complete liberty.

Each of these declarations was greeted with hearty cheers and the standing in assent by all those present. Further capturing the mood were the two women who, after the lunch break, draped a tricolour over Plunkett’s table on the podium, prompting fresh acclaim and refrains of ‘A Soldier’s Song’ and ‘Who Fears to Speak of Easter Week’.

A New Organisation?

So far, so good – nothing said had been met by anything other than approval and enthusiasm. Plunkett introduced the two Labour delegates from the Dublin Trades Council. Its vice-president, Thomas Farren, wished God-speed to the work started that day.

“We believe,” Farren said, “that this is the start of a pure political organisation for this country. Organised labour in Ireland is prepared at all times to make any sacrifice necessary on behalf of an Irish Republic.”

The other Labour man, William O’Brien, spoke next. He was brief but precise, with a promise to adhere to every word of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, making this the only explicitly republican – as opposed to merely separatist – utterance made at the event.

After the hour for lunch, the Count resumed proceedings by announcing his wish to explain his proposals for the national organising of Ireland. He added that he was not calling it the reorganisation as the country within their time had never been organised – at least, not in any way to speak on behalf of its people (hear, hear).

“Two things the Irishman could not separate from life were,” said the Count grandly, “first, his reverence and subjection to God, and, secondly, his duty to his fellows in establishing liberty.”

Plunkett proceeded to outline how this establishment of liberty would be done. Clubs or circles would be formed in villages, towns and parishes, under a central body in Dublin and supported by an annual subscription from each member.

A New Name?

Their first business would be to prepare for future elections. “However long delayed,” the Count said, relishing the imminent fate of the hapless IPP, “the axe will fall, and political executions will be considerable.”

In the lead-up to this, he continued, they must prepare themselves. Every parish in the country was to have groups of men ready to secure the polling booths and ensure that the will of the people be carried out.

Luckily, a new generation of young men had emerged and were standing for Ireland (hear, hear). They could not vote but they had the future of the country in their hands, and so should be used accordingly as a national army (cheers).

Now at his most demagogic, Plunkett strove to leave his audience in no doubt as to the immediacy of the situation:

They might be required to at any moment to have a movement going like lightning across the whole of Ireland, stirring the whole people, making them as one man, establishing a series of resistance which no government could ignore and which no government could withstand.

There might be, the Count admitted, almost as an afterthought, certain impediments to these ambitions of his, namely the presence of similar societies already in existence. In this regard, Plunkett was prepared to be accommodating – within certain parameters.

Any such group would have a right to be included in the new organisation, providing that they adhere to certain standards, namely abstentionist and a demand for nothing short of complete independence for Ireland. If they agreed to these terms, then they would be accepted as a valid part of the organisation. It was an offer of assimilation that the Count clearly believed to be a generous one.

Offhandedly, he added, he would be prepared to accept a new name to fit this new organisation. Most of the audience would have assumed that this was simply the Count thinking aloud. They would have had little idea that his stated willingness to discard old names – names like, say, Sinn Féin – amounted to a declaration of war on some others who were present.

A New Alliance?

A close friend and ally of Griffith’s, Seán Milroy, spoke next. He moved that there existed an urgent need for united action between such bodies as Sinn Féin, the Irish Nation League, the Irish-American Alliance, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Labour Party.

In order to effect this coalition, a body to be called the Executive Council of the Irish National Alliance should be formed, consisting of five members elected by the convention, with three more appointed by each of the groups involved. Such level of detail suggested that Milroy, and possibly Griffith, had spent some time thinking this out beforehand.

From there, they would begin the process of contesting the next elections and presenting Ireland’s case at the coming Peace Conference. The culmination of this broad front would be the formation, at the earliest possible date, of a constitutional assembly to be known as the Council of the Irish Nation. Griffith seconded this motion, warning the audience that unless they banded together, the IPP would return to prominence.

Herbert Pim also weighed in with his support, saying that he spoke on behalf of Sinn Féin, one of the groups responsible for these proceedings. Had it not been for Sinn Féin, Pim said, this convention would not now be happening. Speaking as the self-confessed jealous guardian of the Sinn Féin name, he joked that it would be a pity to lose a brand so distasteful a flavour in the mouths of their Saxon friends (laughter).

There was but the slightest of elbowing here, with Plunkett’s advocacy of an entirely new organisation rubbing up against Pim’s reminder of the work Sinn Féin had already accomplished. Still, neither Milroy, Griffith nor Pim had ventured anything irretrievably at odds with the Count’s grand vision.

A New Problem

Had the mood been different, the relationships more trusting, this might have been taken as healthy discourse, different takes on essentially the same thing. Instead, the Count heard their stated preference for a confederation of groups, as opposed to his single centralised one, as a sop to those who were not yet sold on the abstentionist policy. It was not a point Plunkett was interested in stepping back from.

Standing his ground, Plunkett told them that they had pledged against sending their representatives to Westminster. From now on, Ireland must approach the Peace Conference as nothing other than a separate nation. He added a warning that perhaps doubled as a threat: did they think the young men of Ireland would support them otherwise?

There was only one sacrifice, the Count continued, to be asked of an Irish patriot, and that was to put his life at the behest of the nation (hear, hear). He had not left his comfortable position as Director of the National Museum to be told his policy was too advanced or that he was alone in his views.

(Technically, Plunkett had not so much left the Museum as was fired, but no one was churlish enough to point this out.)

He was *not* alone, he assured the hall. They must show England that they were not half-hearted, that they would resolutely hold on to the principles for which their martyred compatriots, his son included, had died (cheers).

Accordingly, Plunkett moved for the following resolution:

That we, the assembly of Irish Independence, desire to establish an organisation to unite Irish advanced opinion and provide for action, as the result of its conclusions.

The Convention secretary was at hand to second it. The resolution for a new organisation was declared carried, but the accompanying cries of ‘no, no’ from the hall indicated that this was not a unanimous, or even popular, decision. The tension gestating beneath the surface, away from public sight since the Roscommon election two months ago, was finally rising to the surface, ready to ooze out.[24]

To be continued in: Plunkett’s Liberty: Count Plunkett and the Liberty Clubs, April-August 1917 (Part V)

References

[1] Curran, M. (BMH / WS 687), pp. 218-9 ; Police reports from Dublin Castle records (National Library of Ireland), POS 8543

[2] Brennan, Robert (BMH / WS 779), p. 10

[3] Irish Times, 04/08/1916, 11/09/1916 ; O’Shiel, Kevin (BMH / WS 1770 – Part IV) pp. 144-5

[4] Plunkett Dillon, Geraldine (edited by O Brolchain, Honor) In the Blood: A Memoir of the Plunkett family, the 1916 Rising, and the War of Independence (Dublin: A. & A. Farmar Ltd, 2006), p. 257

[5] O’Brien, William, Forth the Banners go: Reminiscences of William O’Brien, as told to Edward MacLysaght (Dublin: The Three Candles Limited, 1969), pp. 146-7

[6] Plunkett Dillon, p. 257

[7] Figgis, Darrell. Recollections of the Irish War (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., [1927?]), p. 98

[8] O’Brien, Forth the Banners go, p. 118

[9] Dillon, Tommy, ‘Birth of the new Sinn Féin and the Ard Fheis 1917’, Capuchin Annual 1967, p. 395 ; McGee, Owen, Arthur Griffith (Sallins, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2015)

[10] O’Brien, William (BMH / WS 1776), p. 101

[11] Dore, Eamon T. (BMH / WS 392), pp. 5-6

[12] Nugent, Laurence (BMH / WS), pp. 68-9

[13] Plunkett Dillon, pp. 222, 226

[14] Ibid, p. 230, 313 ; Nugent, pp. 44, 271-2

[15] Plunkett Dillon, Geraldine (edited by O Brolchain, Honor) In the Blood: A Memoir of the Plunkett family, the 1916 Rising, and the War of Independence (Dublin: A. & A. Farmar Ltd, 2006), p. 194

[16] McGreevy, Ronan (29/06/2015) ‘On 1916, and why Michael Collins ‘was a pup’’, The Irish Times (accessed 08/01/2017)

[17] Plunkett Dillon, p. 195

[18] Good, p. 6

[19] O’Brien, William, Forth the Banners go, p. 144

[20] O’Shiel, pp. 9-11

[21] Walsh, Richard (BMH / WS 400), p. 37

[22] Dillon, p. 395

[23] Dore, p. 8

[24] Freeman’s Journal, 20/04/1917

Bibliography

Newspaper

Freeman’s Journal

Books

Figgis, Darrell. Recollections of the Irish War (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., [1927?])

O’Brien, William, Forth the Banners go: Reminiscences of William O’Brien, as told to Edward MacLysaght (Dublin: The Three Candles Limited, 1969)

McGee, Owen, Arthur Griffith (Sallins, Co. Kildare: Merrion Press, 2015)

Plunkett Dillon, Geraldine (edited by O Brolchain, Honor) In the Blood: A Memoir of the Plunkett family, the 1916 Rising, and the War of Independence (Dublin: A. & A. Farmar Ltd, 2006)

Bureau of Military Statements

Brennan, Robert, WS 779

Curran, M., WS 687

De Róiste, Liam, WS 1698

Dore, Eamon T., WS 392

Nugent, Laurence, WS 907

O’Brien, William, WS 1776

O’Shiel, Kevin, WS 1770

Walsh, Richard, WS 400

Articles

Dillon, Tommy, ‘Birth of the new Sinn Féin and the Ard Fheis 1917’, Capuchin Annual 1967

McGreevy, Ronan (29/06/2015) ‘On 1916, and why Michael Collins ‘was a pup’’, The Irish Times (Accessed 08/01/2017)

National Library of Ireland Collection

Police Report from Dublin Castle Records