Seán MacDiarmada devoted life to freedom

Seán MacDiarmada overcame polio to produce a masterplan for the 1916 Rising , writes historian Brian Feeney

SEÁN MacDIARMADA organised the Easter Rising. Professor F.X. Martin called him ‘the mainspring’.

Organising was what MacDiarmada did best. He had been doing it all his adult life since the Belfast Irish Republican Brotherhood appointed him in 1907 at the age of 24 as full-time organiser for their republican Dungannon Clubs.