Joseph Mary Plunkett (1887–1916)
Poet, journalist, and revolutionary
Extract from RIA Dictonary of Irish Biography by Lawrence William White
Though Plunkett supported, in the interests of unity, the co-option to the Volunteers’ provisional committee of nominees of Irish parliamentary party leader John Redmond (qv) (June 1914), he adamantly opposed Redmond's declaration at Woodenbridge, Co. Wicklow, pledging the support of the Volunteer movement for Britain in the first world war (September 1914). He attended the secret meeting of advanced nationalists summoned by Thomas Clarke (qv) and Sean Mac Diarmada (qv) at the Gaelic League headquarters, Parnell Square, that determined to stage an armed rising against British rule during the course of the war (9 September 1914). Increasingly more prominent within the rump movement of anti-Redmondite Irish Volunteers, at the body's first convention (October 1914) he was named to the twelve-member central executive; in December 1914 he was appointed to the newly formed headquarters staff as director of military operations with the rank of commandant.
...Inducted into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), and admitted into the small band of revolutionary conspirators headed by Clarke and Mac Diarmada, Plunkett became the chief strategist in the planning for the rising, working in concert with Patrick Pearse (qv) and Éamonn Ceannt (qv) on expanding the plans to include the entire country, and on devising the detail. It is probable that Plunkett thus originated the strategy of concentrating the insurrection in Dublin on the seizure and defence of large city-centre buildings.
He was instrumental in the genesis of the ‘castle document’, a seeming government order for sweeping arrests of nationalist leaders; long thought to have been an outright forgery accomplished by Plunkett and his cohorts, it was likely an authentic, leaked contingency plan, which Plunkett altered to appear more extensive in scope and imminent in intent. Its circulation was intended to galvanise sentiment within the Volunteers towards intensified military preparedness and probable armed resistance....