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Unidentified 1916 leader?

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  • 30-04-2014 8:41pm
    #1
    Gloomtastic!
    Registered Users Posts: 8,438 ✭✭✭


    Doing some research on family history and discovered my Grandad's brother was in the Royal Dublin Fusilers and right in the thick of the 1916 rising - fighting the rebels!

    Here's a link to a letter he sent my great grandmother.

    http://dh.tcd.ie/letters1916/diyhistory/scripto/transcribe/653/1611

    Seemingly, it is the only recorded eye witness account of the burial of the executed rebels. In the second to last page he mentions 'I had the pleasure of helping to bury the three Ring-leaders who were Pierce, Connolly and Byrne'.

    But who is Byrne? No mention of him being executed on any of the sites I've read so far.


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    #2
    Santa Cruz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,126 ✭✭✭Santa Cruz


    I'd say your granduncle was a spoofer.

    Pearse and Connolly were executed 10 days apart in Kilmainham not Arbour Hill. As for Byrne there was no one executed under that name


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    #3
    Gloomtastic!
    Registered Users Posts: 8,438 ✭✭✭Gloomtastic!


    According to the Professor in charge of the 1916 letters project, there was no Byrne. My Great Uncle must have got his facts wrong.

    She may be correct as one thing I've discovered since that doesn't add up - The letter is dated 5th May yet James Connolly was not executed until the 12th May!!!


    Family claim to fame sinking rapidly........... :(


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    #4
    Santa Cruz
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,126 ✭✭✭Santa Cruz


    Gloomtastic! wrote: »
    According to the Professor in charge of the 1916 letters project, there was no Byrne. My Great Uncle must have got his facts wrong.

    She may be correct as one thing I've discovered since that doesn't add up - The letter is dated 5th May yet James Connolly was not executed until the 12th May!!!


    Family claim to fame sinking rapidly........... :(

    "got his facts wrong" surely you mean got his fiction wrong.


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    #5
    CeannRua
    Closed Accounts Posts: 470 ✭✭CeannRua


    Were the people working on this project already aware that there are issues about the veracity of the letter? I don't see anything on the site indicating this.


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    #6
    Gloomtastic!
    Registered Users Posts: 8,438 ✭✭✭Gloomtastic!


    CeannRua wrote: »
    Were the people working on this project already aware that there are issues about the veracity of the letter? I don't see anything on the site indicating this.

    She (SUSAN SCHREIBMAN) was aware of the letter as she quoted it in a posting to the Irish Times.......

    http://www.irishtimes.com/debate/letters/stories-from-the-rising-1.1663227


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