The Mainspring

Seán Mac Dıarmada was born in Leitrim, left for Glasgow at age 15, and after two years returned to Belfast in 1905 and – according to the new mural above – spoke from the back of a coal lorry in Clonard Street, outside the Clonard branch of the Ancient Order Of Hibernians. Mac Dıarmada was for a short time an AOH member, before moving on to the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Irish Volunteers, which led to his participation in the 1916 Easter Rising and execution on May 12th of that year.

The title of today’s post is historian F.X. Martin’s assessment of Mac Dıarmada, quoted in a pamphlet on Mac Dıarmada from the National Library Of Ireland. The NLI made many letters from and to Mac Dıarmada available in 2016. (See also this Irish Times write-up).

Previously: A 2013 gable-sized board to Mac Dıarmada in Ardoyne and a 2009 small board, also in Ardoyne.

Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2016 Peter Moloney
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