Seán MacDíarmada moved in the shadows, ultra-cautious about what he committed to paper, aware that his letters could be intercepted by the police. Because of this, history has not allocated MacDíarmada the prominent role he deserves in the organisation of the Easter Rising.

This book gives Seán MacDíarmada his proper place in history. It outlines his substantial role in the detailed planning of the Rising, which led to him signing the Proclamation of the Irish Republic: second only to Tom Clarke.

In his well-researched book on the most enigmatic of the Rising’s leaders Brian Feeney addresses the difficulty of writing a biography of a figure who left little in the way a documentary trail … This short volume is a fine addition to the ever increasing literature on this period. MacDiarmada comes across as a committed and driven man, charming and sometimes funny yet single-minded and capable of manipulation. In the run-up to the centenaries the great dangers are to be on the one hand overly reverential or on the other overly critical. Feeney avoids these dangers

emerges from the ashes of the Rising and Frongach as the real leader in waiting of the nascent post-Rising revolutionary movement

views will still be divided on the whole question of the Easter Rising and its unforeseen consequences, with which this island is still living. But these books go some way to filling out the facts behind the mythology that has so long surrounded the events of Easter Week