Ruairí Ó Brádaigh

His father, Matt Brady, was an IRA volunteer who was severely wounded in an encounter with the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1919.

He was the first Sinn Féin TD on the run since the 1920s.

His mother, May Caffrey, was a Cumann na mBan volunteer and graduate of University College Dublin, class of 1922, with a degree in commerce.

His maternal grandmother was a French-speaking Swiss Lutheran.

His father died when he was ten, and was given a paramilitary funeral led by his former IRA colleagues.

Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (born Peter Roger Casement Brady; 2 October 1932 – 5 June 2013) was an Irish republican political and military leader.

Ó Brádaigh was educated at Melview National School at primary level and attended secondary school at St. Mel's College, leaving in 1950, and University College Dublin, from where he graduated in 1954 with a commerce degree (BComm), like his mother, and certification in the teaching of the Irish language.

That year he took a job teaching Irish at Roscommon Vocational School in Roscommon.

Ó Brádaigh was a deeply religious Catholic who refrained from smoking or drinking.

He joined Sinn Féin in 1950.

While at university, in 1951, he joined the Irish Republican Army.

In September 1951, he marched with the IRA at the unveiling of the Seán Russell monument in Fairview Park, Dublin.

A teacher by profession, he was also a Training Officer for the IRA.

In 1954, he was appointed to the Military Council of the IRA, a subcommittee set up by the IRA Army Council in 1950 to plan a military campaign against Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks in Northern Ireland.

On 13 August 1955, Ó Brádaigh led a ten-member IRA group in an arms raid on Hazebrouck Barracks, near Arborfield, Berkshire.

It was a depot for the No. 5 Radar Training Battalion of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

It was the biggest IRA arms raid in Britain and netted 48,000 rounds of .303 ammunition, 38,000 9 mm rounds, 1,300 rounds for .380 weapons, and 1,300 .22 rounds.

In addition, a selection of arms were seized, including 55 Sten guns, two Bren guns, two .303 rifles and one .38 pistol.

Most if not all of the weapons were recovered in a relatively short period of time.

A van, travelling too fast, was stopped by the police and IRA personnel were arrested.

Careful police work led to weapons that had been transported in a second van and stored in London.

The IRA Border Campaign commenced on 12 December 1956.

As an IRA General Headquarters Staff (GHQ) officer, Ó Brádaigh was responsible for training the Teeling Column (one of the four armed units prepared for the Campaign) in the west of Ireland.

During the Campaign, he served as second-in-command of the Teeling Column.

On 30 December 1956, he partook in the Teeling Column attack on Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks in Derrylin, County Fermanagh.

RUC Constable John Scally was killed in the attack; Scally was the first fatality of the new IRA campaign.

Ó Brádaigh and others were arrested by the Garda Síochána across the border the day after the attack, in County Cavan.

They were tried and jailed for six months in Mountjoy Prison for failing to account for their whereabouts.

O'Bradaigh was a leading abstentionist, upon his arrest he refused to recognize the authority of the Irish government and refused to renounce violence in exchange for his release.

Although a prisoner, he was elected a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Longford–Westmeath constituency at the 1957 Irish general election, winning 5,506 votes (14.1%).

Running on an abstentionist ticket, Sinn Féin won four seats which went to Ó Brádaigh, Eighneachán Ó hAnnluain, John Joe McGirl and John Joe Rice.

They refused to recognise the authority of Dáil Éireann and stated they would only take a seat in an all-Ireland parliament—if it had been possible for them to do so.

He was Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from 1958 to 1959 and again from 1960 to 1962, president of Sinn Féin from 1970 to 1983, and president of Republican Sinn Féin from 1987 to 2009.

Ó Brádaigh, born Peter Roger Casement Brady, was born into a middle-class republican family in Longford that lived in a duplex home on Battery Road.

On 27 September 1958, Ó Brádaigh escaped from the camp along with Dáithí Ó Conaill.

While a football match was in progress, the pair cut through a wire fence and crept from the camp under a camouflage grass blanket and went "on the run".

This was an official escape, authorised by the officer commanding of the IRA internees, Tomás Óg Mac Curtain.

Ó Brádaigh did not retain his seat at the 1961 Irish general election, and his vote fell to 2,598 (7.61%).

Upon completing his prison sentence, he was immediately interned at the Curragh Military Prison, along with other republicans.

His mother, prominent as the Secretary for the County Longford Board of Health, lived until 1974.