Padraig Pearse’s brother had different dreams of being remembered

Padraig Pearse was willing to die for Ireland but his less famous brother wanted to live through his creative works, writes Róisín Ní Ghairbhí

Willie Pearse, brother of Padraig Pearse, was a sculptor, actor, and schoolteacher.

He was born in November 1881 to an English father, James, a monumental church sculptor who was sympathetic to Irish nationalism, and a Dublin-born mother, Margaret Brady, who had family connections to radical republicanism. Willie was executed along with three other rebels on May 4, 1916, on the second day of the Kilmainham executions.