44 Facts About Francis Sheehy-Skeffington

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was a friend and schoolmate of James Joyce, Oliver St John Gogarty, Tom Kettle, and Frank O'Brien.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington Skeffington was descended from Sir William Skeffington, who ruled most of Ireland in the early 16th century as the Lord Deputy of King Henry VIII.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was educated initially at home by his father, and later at the Jesuit school in St Stephen's Green, Dublin.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington manifested an early sympathy for radical politics, as attested by his enthusiasm for the constructed language Esperanto.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington stayed at the college long enough to earn a master's degree.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was active in student politics and debating societies, including the Literary and Historical Society, which he revived in 1897.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was an ardent proponent of women's rights, and wore a Votes for Women badge.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was an equally ardent advocate of pacifism and vegetarianism, and he denounced smoking, drinking, and vivisection.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington then took a job as the Registrar of University College.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington's father had been a Nationalist MP, and had been imprisoned no less than six times for revolutionary activities.

Shortly after they married, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington organised a petition to lobby for women to be admitted to University College on the same basis as men.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was President of the Socialist Party of Ireland.

In 1907, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington wrote a novel, In Dark and Evil Days, which was published in 1916, after his death.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was made co-editor of the League's newspaper, The Irish Citizen.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington counter-proposed that the word "not" be inserted after the words "be formed", and argued that ignoring the visit was the best compromise to satisfy both supporters and objectors to the visit.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was on friendly terms with Countess Markievicz: for instance he once escorted her to a police court after she had kicked a police officer during a Socialist Party meeting, which Francis Sheehy-Skeffington had attended.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington's testimony stated that he was in the street with a group of women caring for a person who had already been assaulted by the police when a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police charged towards this group with his baton raised.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington said that he was later abused by a gang of policemen showing clear signs of intoxication in the yard of the police station at College Green where he went to make his complaint, and that their officers had no control over their behaviour.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington supported the peace crusade of the American car manufacturer Henry Ford; and when Countess Markievicz advocated armed uprising by Irish nationalists, he challenged her to a debate on the subject.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington accepted the challenge in an open letter published in James Connolly's newspaper, The Workers' Republic.

In contrast, on the first day of the Rising Francis Sheehy-Skeffington risked crossfire to aid an English soldier outside Dublin Castle.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington learned that a British officer had been gravely wounded and was bleeding to death on the cobblestones outside the Castle gate.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington's next move was to cross the street, enter the GPO, and demand to speak to James Connolly, one of the principal leaders of the insurrection, who was a labour leader and sympathetic to Sheehy Skeffington's socialism.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington returned to the GPO, emerging around one o'clock, and began pasting up a typewritten flyer.

Hanna then returned home to mind their child Owen, and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington went to his meeting.

The meeting was poorly attended and no one volunteered to help Francis Sheehy-Skeffington stop the looting.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington detained Sheehy Skeffington, who said that he was "not a Sinn Feiner", but admitted to sympathy for the insurgents' cause, though he was opposed to violence.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was then arrested and taken back to the Portobello Barracks in Rathmines.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington had had a brief mental breakdown during the Retreat from Mons and had initiated a disastrous, premature attack at the First Battle of the Aisne.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington said he took responsibility for the shooting and, aware that shooting prisoners was a capital offence, he said that he "possibly might be hanged for it".

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington went around Dublin seeking to find where her husband was, and heard rumours of his fate.

Major Sir Francis Sheehy-Skeffington Vane was in charge of Portobello Barracks defences at the outbreak of the Easter Rebellion.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington returned to the barracks in the evening and was horrified to learn what had happened.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington stressed to Rosborough the critical importance of confining Bowen-Colthurst's activities to the barracks, and he delivered a stern lecture on martial law and its limitations to the barracks officers.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington said that he had gone to bed at three o'clock in the morning but stayed up till four reading his Bible, focusing in particular on the verse from St Luke : 'And these my enemies which will not have me to rule over them, bring them forth and slay them.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington said Bowen-Colthurst's taking Sheehy Skeffington hostage was 'the strangest thing any man of sixteen years' experience in the army could do.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington said that witnesses had described Bowen-Colthurst as impulsive and excited, but that impulsiveness and excitement were not the same as insanity.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington lobbied Irish MPs and she badgered Prime Minister Asquith into holding a formal inquiry into Bowen-Colthurst's actions and the army's response.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington went on to be involved with the Boy Scouts, then retired from public life in 1927 and died in 1934.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was released under medical supervision on 26 January 1918 and provided with a military pension.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington's obituary did not mention his role in the Easter Rising.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington became increasingly nationalist-minded, and supported the Anti-Treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington refused to send her son Owen to any school with a pro-Treaty ethos, and therefore opted to place him in the secular Sandford Park School when it was founded in 1922.

Owen Francis Sheehy-Skeffington became a lecturer in French at Trinity College, and, beginning in 1954, an Irish Senator.