This work was originally published by Maynooth University in Ireland in
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This is a letter from Alfred O'Rahilly to Mary Ellen O'Rahilly concerning the death of Mary's brother Michael. Alfred begins hi letter with an apology for his delay in writing to her but he did not want to intrude as their letters would be examined by English spies. The letter speaks of Mary's imprisonment and hopes that her son Dick will stay strong until he too is released. Alfred also writes of his hope that evidence will be collected regarding 'the Huns' (British) atrocities as a day will come when it can be published.Alfred O'Rahilly (1884–1969) was a priest, university scholar and first cousin to Micheal O'Rahilly. Michael Joseph 'The' O'Rahilly (1875–1916) was a nationalist and a journalist. In 1916 he aligned himself with Eoin MacNeill and Bulmer Hobson who opposed a preemptive rising. Although O'Rahilly played a large role in delivering MacNeill's countermanding order he felt obligated to stand with the men he recruited and trained. O'Rahilly was fatally wounded on the Thursday 27 April when the GPO was being evacuated. Nell was also involved in the Nationalist movement as a member of Cumann na mBan and was imprisoned after the Rising for her role.
The data in these XML files was generated based on a data dump from the Magellan database (https://github.com/Maynooth-Center-for-Digital-Humanities/Magellan). Each database record has been converted to a JSON file (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/json). The element section of the JSON file contains the TEI-encoded contents of the letters. The TEI XML has been cleaned and made well-formed using a Python script (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/src).