Search Results for 'Joseph Plunkett'

On Friday evening towards the end of the Easter Rising, there was one further horrific incident that convined Padraic Pearse that surrender, and quickly, was the only course open to the rebels.

On Friday evening towards the end of the Easter Rising, there was one further horrific incident that convined Padraic Pearse that surrender, and quickly, was the only course open to the rebels.

Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford were to have a joint wedding with his sister Geraldine Plunkett and her fiancé Tom Dillon, at the Rathmines church, Easter Sunday, April 24 1916. The confusion about the on/off Rising, the rumours about the possibility of Roger Casement being taken prisoner in Kerry, kept the couples guessing as to what would happen. But Joseph, one of the principle organisers of the Rising, probably knew more that what he said to his sister, that Grace ‘did not know the smallest thing about the political situation, and had no idea whatever of such things’.*

Padraic Pearse, the self-identified President of the Provisional Government, and Commandant-General of the Army of the Irish Republic was rushed to the gallows, or in this case to the grim stonebreakers yard at Kilmainham jail.

There are two contrasting shows coming up in Westport's Town Hall Theatre next weekend.

WHILE THE names of the men of 1916 - Pearse, Connolly, Clarke, Plunkett, and others - are well known, the significant contribution of women to the rebellion has long been over looked and underappreciated.

During the past few weeks I have tried to give some of the formative influences on the life of the writer Eilís Dillon as she grew up in Galway. The impact of her parents’ (Professor Tom Dillon and Geraldine Plunkett) commitment to the War of Independence, and her nightly fears of sudden raids on their home by the Black and Tans was a nightmare that stayed with her all her life. 

I am sure that the good sisters at the renowned Ursuline convent school, Sligo, had no idea what they were letting themselves in for when Eilís Dillon and her sisters landed as boarders at their door. The Dillon girls were confident, challenging and extremely well read. Much of that confidence came from their fiercely nationalistic mother and father and their commitment during the War of Independence. Both parents were imprisoned; their father, Professor Tom Dillon, was ‘on the run’ for most of that time.