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Last letter from Seán Mac Diarmada (1883-1916) to John Daly (1845–1916), uncle of Edward (Ned) Daly (1891–1916). Mac Diarmada provides an emotional account of his thoughts and feelings during the last hours before his execution. He emphasises the justification for the Rising, as well as his pride in the 'Irish nation'. He also takes time to offer sympathy to the Daly family for the loss of Edward Daly, who had been executed on 4 May 1916 for his involvement in the Easter Rising.Seán Mac Diarmada was one of the key organisers of the Easter Rising. He signed the Proclamation of the Irish Republic and was executed on 12 May for his involvement in the Rising. John Daly was a leading member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) for most of his adult life. Although bedridden with ill health by the end of the 1900s, Daly remained close friends with Thomas James (‘Tom’) Clarke (1858–1916), Seán Mac Diarmada, and Patrick Henry Pearse (1879–1916), who often visited him in his home in Limerick. During the Easter Rising British forces raided Daly's house, 15 Barrington Street, Limerick and he died soon after on 30 June. Edward (Ned) Daly was commandant of 1st Battalion in Dublin during the Easter Rising and was shot by firing squad on 4 May. He was the younger brother of Kathleen Clarke (1878-1972), wife of Thomas Clarke.
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).