Seán MacDiarmada

17 Jan 1883: Seán Mac Diarmada (John Joseph MacDermott) was born at Corranmore, County Leitrim.

As a gossoon, he attended the local National School at Corradoona and later enrolled in night school at Tullynamoyle, County Cavan. It was here that he learned to read and write in Irish - eventually adopting the traditional Irish spelling of his name. 

Mac Diarmada would join the Gaelic Athletic League (GAA), Gaelic League and Ancient Order of Hibernians - eventually recruiting from the ranks of these social oganisations for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) -while managing the IRB's newspaper "Irish Freedom". Under the Defense of The Realm Act, Mac Diarmada would serve four months at Mountjoy Gaol, Dublin for publicly opposing John Redmond's push for Irishmen to join the British Army during WWI - itself an attempt to avoid conscription on the island. Owing to his previous battle with polio, Mac Diarmada was not physically able to hold a military rank. But upon his release from prison, he joined the IRB Military Council nonetheless. 

As one the seven leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising and signatory of the Proclamation of The Irish Republic he was executed at Kilmainham Gaol along with James Connolly on 12 May 1916.