April and May

Thomas MacDonagh

April and May

Dublin

Sealey Bryhers & Walker

1902

Thomas MacDonagh was executed on May 3, 1916, as a commandant in the Rising. This volume of his poetry was inscribed by twenty-four Republican prisoners, many sentenced to death for their roles in the rebellion, but whose sentences were commuted. They include Éamon de Valera, who later became Taoiseach; Constance Markiewicz, who became the first woman elected to the Westminster Parliament; Eoin MacNeill, chief-of-staff of the Irish Volunteers; and Thomas Ashe, founding member of the Irish Volunteers. Most signatories have added their prisoner numbers. This book was likely inscribed following their release from jail in the amnesty of June 1917.