Kevin reveals dad’s amazing Rising story

A computer has helped a pensioner discover his father’s amazing role in the 1916 Rising, and now he wants families nationwide to find out more of their own family histories ahead of the centenary in 2016.

Kevin Kavanagh, 85, said: “I believe I was named after Kevin Barry and Michael Collins, but now I know so much more, including how my father, Capt Seamus Kavanagh, was arrested after the surrender at the College of Surgeons. He was sent to jail in Wales while others were sent to Kilmainham Gaol, where most were executed.”

His father “rarely spoke about those times, but for my 80th birthday my wife and two daughters gave me a laptop. I never had one before so I went online to look at the census and to research him”.