Sean MacDermott
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Image:Irish Stamp Sean MacDiarmada.jpg
Seán MacDermott (February 28, 1883 – May 12, 1916) was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland.
He was born John MacDermott in County Leitrim, where he was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers. Later in life he adopted the Irish form of his name: Seán MacDiarmada1. In 1908 he moved to Dublin, by which time he already had a long involvement in several Irish separatist organizations and cultural, including Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and the Gaelic League. He was soon promoted to the Supreme Council of the IRB and eventually elected secretary.
In 1910 he became manager of the radical newspaper "Irish Freedom", which he founded along with Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullough. He also became a national organizer for the IRB, and was taken under the wing of veteran Fenian Tom Clarke. Indeed over the year the two became nearly inseparable. Shortly thereafter MacDermott was stricken with polio and forced to walk with a cane.
In November 1913 MacDermott was one of the original members of the Irish Volunteers, and continued to work effortlessly to bring that organization under IRB control. In May 1915 MacDermott was arrested in Tuam, County Galway, under the Defense of the Realm Act for giving a speech against enlisting into the British Army. He was released in September, where upon he joined the secret Military Committee of the IRB, which was responsible for planning the rising. Indeed it was MacDermott and Clarke who were most responsible for it.
Being somewhat crippled, MacDermott took little part in the fighting of Easter week, but was stationed at the headquarters in the General Post Office. Following the surrender, he nearly escaped execution by blending in with the large body of prisoners, but was eventually recognized and summarily executed by firing squad on May 12 at the age of 33. The British Officer, Lee-Wilson, who identified him from the GPO and caused him to be shot, rather than imprisoned, was later killed on the orders of Michael Collins in Cork during the Anglo-Irish War)
Seán MacDermott Street in Dublin is named in his honour.
1 The form of his name used here, "Sean MacDermott", is a hybrid of the English and Irish forms of his name, and for that reason may be considered inaccurate. However, it is by that name that he is most often remembered.