16Lives – serie

James Connolly (1868-1916) became a leading Irish socialist and revolutionary, and was one of the leaders of Ireland's rebellion in 1916. As a youth he had served in the British army in Ireland and, seeing how they treated the local population, became hugely disillusioned with the British Army. He became involved in socialism in Scotland and was the driving force behind the creation of Ireland’s trade union movement. He was Commandant of the Dublin Brigade in the Easter Rising and, too injured to stand before the firing squad, was executed tied to a chair.Written in an entertaining, educational and assessible style, this biography is an accurate and well-researched portrayal of the man behind the uprising. Including the latest archival evidence, James Connolly is part of the Sixteen Lives series which looks at the events, lives and deeds of the sixteen men executed for their role in Ireland’s Easter 1916 Rising.

A fascinating examination of the life of Thomas Clarke, a member of the Fenians and a key leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1916. Clarke spent fifteen years in penal labour for his role in a bombing campaign in London between 1883 and 1898. He was a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB from 1915 and was one of the rebels who planned the 1916 Rising. He was the first signatory of the Proclamation of Independence and was with the group that occupied the GPO. He was executed on 3 May 1916.This accessible biography outlines Clarke's life, from joining the Republican Brotherhood as an eighteen year old, to his execution at the age of fifty-nine.

On 24 April 1916, as President of the Provisional Government, Patrick Pearse appeared under the GPO Grand Portico on Dublin’s O’Connell Street and read aloud the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Nine days later, he was the first of the rebel leaders to be executed. Pearse was born in Dublin on 11 November 1879, to an English father and an Irish mother. Considered the face of the 1916 Easter Rising, for many he was also its heart. In this definitive biography, using a wealth of primary sources, Dr Ruán O’Donnell establishes as never before the significance of Pearse’s activism all across Ireland, as well as his dual roles as Director of Military Operations for the Irish Volunteers and member of the clandestine Military Council of the IRB.On 3 May 1916, Pearse was executed in the Stonebreakers Yard at Kilmainham Gaol, at the age of thirty-six.

A fascinating examination of the extraordinary life of Roger Casement, executed as part of the 1916 rising, fighting the empire that had previously knighted him. Roger Casement was a British consul for two decades. However, his investigation into atrocities in the Congo led Casement to anti-Imperialist views. Ultimately, this led him to side with the Irish Republican movement, leading up to the 1916 rising. Arrested by the British for gun trafficking, he was incarcerated in the Tower of London and then placed in the dock at the Royal Courts of Justice in an internationally-publicised state trial for high treason. He was hanged in Pentonville prison on the 3 August—two years to the day after Britain’s declaration of war in 1914.

Major John MacBride, who was Born in Westport, County Mayo in 1868, was a household name in Ireland when many of the leaders of the Easter Rising were still relatively unknown figures.As part of the ‘Irish Brigade’, a band of nationalists fighting against the British in the Second Boer War, MacBride’s name featured in stories in the Freeman’s Journal and Arthur Griffith’s United Irishman. The Major went on to travel across the United States, lecturing audiences on the blow struck against the British Empire in South Africa. His marriage to Maud Gonne, described as ‘Ireland’s Joan of Arc’, led to further notoriety. Their subsequent bitter separation involved some of the most senior figures in Irish nationalism.MacBride was dismissed by William Butler Yeats as a ‘drunken, vainglorious lout; Donal Fallon attempts to unravel the complexities of the man and his life and what led him to fight in Jacob’s factory in 1916.John MacBride was executed in Kilmainham Gaol on 5 May 1916, two days before his forty-eighth birthday.

Born in Limerick in 1891, John Edward or 'Ned' Daly was the only son in a family of nine. Ned's father, Edward, an ardent Fenian, died before his son was born, but Ned's Uncle John, also a radical Fenian, was a formative influence. John Daly was prepared to use physical force to win Ireland's freedom and was imprisoned for twelve years for his activities. Ned's sister Kathleen married Tom Clarke, a key figure of the Easter Rising. Nationalism was in the Daly blood.Yet young Ned was seen as frivolous and unmotivated, interested only in his appearance and his social life. How Edward Daly became a professional Volunteer soldier, dedicated to freeing his country from foreign rule, forms the core of this biography.Drawing on family memories and archives, Edward Daly's grandniece Helen Litton uncovers the untold story of Edward Daly, providing an insight into one of the more enigmatic figures of the Easter Rising.As commandant during the Rising, Ned controlled the Four Courts area. On 4 May 1916, Commandant Edward Daly was executed for his part in the Easter Rising. Ned was twenty-five years old. His body was consigned to a mass grave.

From a staunchly Republican family, Michael O’Hanrahan’s outwardly quiet and serious demeanour concealed a burning desire to see an independent Ireland. He was instrumental in setting up the first branch of the Gaelic League in Carlow. Michael also helped found the workingman’s club in Carlow, which he left when they decided to admit a British soldier. After moving to Dublin, he played important roles in both Sinn Fein and the Irish Volunteers. As quartermaster of the Volunteers, he was responsible for the procurement of many of the arms used in the Easter Rising. Michael O’Hanrahan was also a talented journalist and novelist whose development was cut short by his execution in 1916.In this new biography Conor Kostick brings to life a man who helped launch the 1916 Rising.