On Easter Saturday 1916, a tense meeting took place in Dublin. At stake was nothing less than whether or not the Rising would go ahead.
There were five men at that meeting, four of them well know to us - Pearse, MacDonagh, Plunkett and MacDiarmada - but the fifth was Corkman Diarmuid Lynch. At this vital meeting, the decision was made to go ahead with the Rising two days later - a decision that changed the course of Irish history. Four of the five men present at that meeting were subsequently executed. One month later, only one survived - Diarmuid Lynch. So who was this mysterious man from Tracton, Co. Cork, at the centre of power behind the Rising but with no monuments to his name - no roads, schools or public buildings named after him? How did he survive the Rising and why doesn’t history remember his name? |
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