Joseph Mary Plunkett (21 November, 1887 –
4 May, 1916) was an Irish
nationalist, poet, journalist, and leader of the 1916 Easter Rising. His father,
George Noble Plunkett, was a papal count and curator of the National Museum,
although his father's cousin, a Protestant named Horace Plunkett was a Unionist
who sought to reconcile both sides, but instead witnessed his own home burned down during the Anglo-Irish War.
Born in Dublin, at a young age Plunkett was stricken with tuberculosis, and spent part of his youth in the warmer climates of the Mediterranean and north Africa. He studied at the Jesuit Colleges, Belvedere College, in Dublin and
Stonyhurst College, in Lancashire, and acquired
some military knowledge from the Officers' Training Corps there.
Throughout his life, Joseph Plunkett took an active interest in Irish heritage and the Irish
language, and also studied Esperanto. Plunkett was one of the founders of the Irish
Esperanto League.[1] He joined that Gaelic League, and took on as a tutor Thomas MacDonagh,
with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. The two were both poets with an interest in theater, and both were early members of
the Irish Volunteers, joining their provisional committee. Plunkett's interest in Irish
nationalism spread throughout his family, notably to his younger brothers George and John, as well as his father, who allowed his
property in Kimmage, south Dublin, to be used as a training camp
for young men who wished to escape conscription in England during World War I. Men there were instead trained to fight for Ireland.
Sometime in 1915 Joseph Plunkett joined the Irish Republican
Brotherhood, and soon after was sent to Germany to meet with Roger Casement who
was negotiating with the German government on behalf of Ireland. Casement's role as emissary was self-appointed, and as he was
not a member of the IRB, that organization's leadership wished to have one of their own contact Germany to negotiate German aid
for an uprising the following year. He was seeking (but not limiting himself to) a shipment of arms. Casement, on the other hand,
spent most of his energies recruiting Irish prisoners of war in Germany to form a
brigade to fight instead for Ireland. Most nationalists in Ireland saw this as a fruitless endeavor, and preferred to seek
weapons. Plunkett successfully got a promise of a German arms shipment to coincide with the rising.
Plunkett was one of the original members of the IRB Military Committee that was responsible for planning the rising, and it
was largely his plan that was followed. As such he may be held partially responsible for the military disaster that ensued,
though one should realize that in the circumstances any plan was bound to fail. Shortly before the rising was to begin, Plunkett
was hospitalized following a turn for the worse in his health. He had an operation on his neck glands days before
Easter and had to struggle out of bed to take part in what was to follow. Still bandaged, he took
his place in the General Post Office with several other of the rising's
leaders such as Patrick Pearse and Tom
Clarke, though his health prevented him from being terribly active. His energetic aide de camp was Michael Collins.
Following the surrender Plunkett was held in Kilmainham Gaol, and faced a
court martial. Hours before his execution by
firing squad at the age of 28, he was married in the prison chapel to his sweetheart Grace
Gifford, a Protestant convert to Catholicism, whose sister, Muriel, had years before also converted and married his best
friend Thomas MacDonagh, who was also executed for his role in the Easter Rising. The
main railway station in Waterford City is named after him.
External links
Further reading
- Plunkett Dillon, Geraldine (edited Honor O Brolchain): All in the Blood (A. & A. Farmar)
- Gannon, Charles: Cathal Gannon - The Life and Times of a Dublin Craftsman (Lilliput
Press).[1]
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