On the afternoon of Monday, 4th May 2016, a Dublin City Council plaque commemorating poet, journalist and 1916 Proclamation Signatory Joseph Mary Plunkett was unveiled at his birthplace and family home in Dublin 2.
Located at 26 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, the plaque was unveiled by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Críona Ní Dhálaigh, on the centenary of Joseph Plunkett’s execution.
In attendance were several of Plunkett’s relatives, including his nephew Seóirse Plunkett, niece Siobhan Plunkett Gibney, great-grand-niece Honor Ni Brolchoin (who proposed the plaque), and Honor’s daughter Isolde Carmody (who recited some of her ancestor’s poetry at the event).
A member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood’s Military Council who devised the military plan for the Easter Rising, Plunkett was part of the GPO garrison in 1916, with Michael Collins serving as his aide-de-camp. Already dying from tuberculosis, he was executed in the stonebreaker’s yard at Kilmainham Gaol on 4th May 1916, hours after marrying fiancé Grace Gifford in the prison’s chapel. He was 28 years old.
Those wishing to learn more about the subject of the plaque should consult Honor Ni Brolchoin’s biography 16 Lives: Joseph Plunkett (O’Brien Press, 2013).
Submitted by historian in residence James Curry.