Joseph Mary Plunkett was born 21 November, 1887, at 42
Upper Mount Street, to George Noble Plunkett and Josephine Cranny. Joe was the
second of seven children and was reared at 27 Fitzwilliam Street Upper. Joe’s was a wealthy family—his father was a scholar and
nationalist, and his mother neglectful and distant. Joe was chronically of poor
health and suffered from glandular tuberculosis from age two and his formal
education was peripatetic as a result. He attended Catholic University School,
Leeson Street for his primary education. He briefly attended a Marist school in
Paris before returning to Dublin and entering Belvedere College. At Belvedere
he did well at Latin and English but failed to impress his masters of
mathematics—his 1901 report said that he ‘does nothing’. A fellow Belvederian
later wrote of him:
Friendship with him was no pretense, it was part of his
religion. He was exacting in his demands…His frigid exterior was only a cloak
which he employed to hide his innate shyness. Among friends he was entirely
different…He was ardent and enthusiastic by nature…His was a warm and impulsive
heart.
He was intelligent child with a curiosity across many
subjects. His illness gave him plenty of time to read and he actively engaged
his interests that included poetry, chemistry, photography and dancing. Jack
Plunkett mentioned that the three Plunkett brothers were also at St. George’s
College, Weybridge, Surrey.
When Joe was eighteen years old, he attended Stonyhurst
College, Lancashire, as a ‘Gentleman philosopher’. This left a lasting impact
on Joe, as he was immersed in a community of students and scholars, likeminded
young men with whom he discussed and pursued his wide range of scientific,
literary and philosophical interests.
When Joe was preparing for the university matriculation
examinations in Dublin, he sought out a tutor in the Irish language and met
Thomas MacDonagh, a teacher and poet. The two were to become close friends as
both were interested in poetry, religion and mysticism. The friendship gave Joe
a sense of intellectual self-confidence and MacDonagh encouraged Joe’s interest
in poetry. Ill-health caused Joe to seek warmer weather and so he travelled the
Eastern Mediterranean for much of 1911. On his return, he published, with the
assistance of MacDonagh, a book of verse, The
Circle and the Sword. After a bout of illness in early 1912, Joe moved to a
family property, 17 Marlborough Road, Donnybrook, with his sister, Geraldine.
Joe purchased the literary journal, the Irish Review, June, 1913, and assumed
the editorial chair. He began working with MacDonagh to use the periodical to
reflect his new-found political interests. Padraic Colum, who, with MacDonagh,
Plunkett and David Heuston, ran the Irish
Review, recalled that:
He looked very frail, but firm. He had a strong voice when
he spoke; and MacDonagh and he took over the Irish Review as a propaganda machine.
The Strike and Lock-Out of 1913 gave Plunkett his first
role in public affairs. Joe was appointed assistant to Thomas Dillon, honorary
secretary of the Dublin Industrial Peace Committee, a group established to
mobilise intellectuals and clergy behind independent mediation efforts.
In 1914, Joe, along with Thomas MacDonagh and Edward
Martyn (another Old Belvederian) founded the Irish Theatre, occupying the same
premises on Hardwicke Street in which St Francis Xavier’s College (later
Belvedere College) had been founded in 1832.
Joe was present at the inaugural meeting of the Irish
Volunteers, 25 November, 1913, at the Rotunda Rink and he was elected to the
provisional committee. Initially Joe voted for the acceptance of John Redmond's
nominations to the Volunteer committee in the interest of unity, but was later
increasingly frustrated and opposed Redmond’s call for the Irish Volunteers to
join the British Army. Geraldine, Joe’s sister, recalled that he
did not join the IRB until Redmond's nominees were on the Executive. He
attended meetings centred on Thomas Clarke and Seán Mac Diarmada and became
prominent in the anti-Redmondite Irish Volunteers, becoming part of headquarter
staff, December, 1914, as director of military operations with the rank of
commandant. Working closely with the small group of IRB revolutionaries, Joe
started planning military operations for Dublin city and became the chief
strategist for the rising and in early 1916 he was busy
with the heavy study of maps and military manuals.
Geraldine recounted that ‘Joe's first really
important task for the IRB was the trip to Germany.’ In March, 1915, Joe
travelled to Berlin—taking a circuitous route to avoid suspicions—to meet Sir Roger
Casement and negotiate with the German foreign office to assist an Irish
rising. Joe drafted a declaration to be made by Casement’s Irish Brigade,
‘formed in Germany of [Irish] prisoners of war’, May 1915. Though the German
government rejected the plans—which included a German invading expeditionary
force in Ireland—they did agree to land a shipment of arms on the eve on an
Irish rebellion. Joe was made a member of the exclusive IRB military council on
his return. He travelled to New York in Autumn, 1915, to report to John Devoy,
Clan na Gael leader, on preparations for a rising.
Following
his return from the United States of America, Joe lived at Larkfield House, a
property bought by his mother, in Kimmage. The Larkfield estate was used as a
training ground, an explosives factory and a refuge for Irishmen fleeing
conscription in England to enlist in the Irish Volunteers. Grace Gifford later
recalled Joe at this time:
He
was all the time in bad health…He had glands in the neck. Of course, he was
completely reckless about his health. He would ramble about the house in his
pyjamas, looking for books. He was terribly careless. He was all the time composing
poetry.
Joe
was severely ill in early April, 1916, having had surgery on tubercular glands
in his neck and convalesced in a nursing home on Mountjoy Square. Joe was
instrumental in the fiasco created by the so-called ‘Castle document’. It
seemed to be a government order for the arrest of many leaders from the
nationalist movement. It has been thought a forgery or a document altered by
Joe to create suspicions towards the Dublin Castle authorities and intensify
military preparedness. Grace Gifford remembered it clearly:
I
remember the document that was published in Holy Week, because I wrote it out
myself for Joe, sitting on the edge of his bed, in Larkfield House… It did come out from the
Castle. That is quite certain.
Joe
moved to the Metropole Hotel, Sackville Street, Good Friday, 21 April, 1916. On
Easter Monday Michael Collins (Joe's
aide-de-camp) and W.T. Brennan-Whitmore brought Joe to Liberty Hall. He wore
elaborate military uniform and wore a sword that was owned by Robert Emmet.
They marched on to the GPO. Despite his illness and inability to involve
himself in the physical military actions, he remained cheerful throughout the
week which greatly inspired the Irish Volunteers under his command. Mrs. Catherine Rooney
said of Joe that
He was looking very bad, very thin and
ghastly, as if he was going to pass out. He wrote the dispatch and I noticed as
he was writing that he had a gold bangle on his arm.
Winfred Carney, James Connolly’s secretary also noticed
Joe’s bangles and was critical of his jewellery and his dress. Connolly said to her that
Joseph Plunkett can do and
wear what he pleases. And as for military science, he can teach us a thing or
two. He’s a clear-minded man, and he’s a man of his word.
Connolly also told his son, Roddy, that Joseph Plunkett
had more courage in his little finger than all the other leaders combined.
On the Saturday morning, following the evacuation of the
GPO, Joe was present in Moore Street buildings occupied by the leaders of the
rising. On Saturday, 29 April,1916, ‘about noon,’ ‘Somewhere on Moore St.’ Joe
wrote a note to Grace, his beloved:
This is just a little note
to say I love you and to tell you that I did everything I could to arrange for
us to get married but it was impossible. Except for that I have no regrets. We
will meet soon. My other actions have been as right as I could see and make
them and I cannot wish them undone. You at any rate will not misjudge them.
Give my love to my people and friends. Darling darling child I wish we were
together. Love me always as I love you. For the rest all you will please me. I
told a few people that I wish you to have everything that belongs to me. This
is my last wish so please do see to it.
Joe was at the meeting on Moore Street when the decision
to surrender was taken. With Willie Pearse, Joe led the surrender of the Irish
Volunteers who were left in Moore Street. The next morning, he was in Richmond
Barracks, exhausted. Joe faced a court-martial, 3 May, 1916 and was sentenced
to death and was brought to Kilmainham Gaol that night.
Joseph Mary Plunkett was married to Grace Gifford that
night, 3 May, 1916, by Fr McCarthy in the Roman Catholic chapel in Kilmainham
Gaol. Grace had to leave immediately after the ceremony but was allowed to
return for final goodbyes—they were given ten minutes together—very late that
night. Grace recalled:
I saw Joe twice that day before his execution
- when we were married, and again that night. I saw him again that night, to
say good-bye.
Grace later made a sketch of Joe, as she
remembered him in prison, that was included in The Poems of Joseph Mary Plunkett, published later in the year. Joe was the last of four rebels executed 4
May in the Stonebreakers' Yard at Kilmainham Gaol. He was attended by Fr
Sebastian OFM Cap. and spoke to other clergy too before his death. At his
execution, it was said that he displayed a ‘distinguished tranquility—that came
from his nobility of soul and his faith—nothing more.'
In 1923, Grace wrote a moving note on Joe’s final day:
Glorious &
unconquerable to the end, & passionately content at having with his own
hands set the hall-mark of freedom on his country—he joyously stretched out his
arms to his God.
