Sir, - I refer to An Irishman's Diary of April 24th by Padraig O'Cuanachain. Mr O'Cuanachain's article is about the murder, on the orders of a British officer, Captain Bowen-Colthurst, on Easter Monday, 1916, of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and two other journalists. Mr O'Cuuanachain writes:
"It was never suggested that they had the slightest connection with the rebels. Sheehy-Skeffington, a well-known pacifist and a determined fighter for votes for women, was trying to prevent looting when he was arrested." The last sentence is quite true, as far as it goes. But it is not true that Skeffington did not have "the slightest connection with the rebels". On the contrary, he was very closely connected with James Connolly, one of the two principal leaders of the Rising, who appointed Skeffington as his literary executor, a function he would never have assigned to anyone in whom he did not have complete political confidence.
Skeffington was arrested, probably because he was on a list of people to be detained after the outbreak of the Rising. He was on the list because of his vocal and effective opposition to recruitment in Ireland for the British Army. His execution - which was politically embarrassing for the British authorities, and was certainly not intended by them - took place because it happened that the officer who arrested him, Captain Bowen-Colthurst, was particularly deranged and a religious fanatic.
In Skeffington's presence, he murdered a boy named Coade who told Colthurst he was coming from his "devotions". Saying, "Take that for your devotions", Colthurst hit with the butt of his revolver and killed him. Skeffington warned him that he would expose this action in print. Colthurst gave orders that Skeffington was to be shot (meaning, as a hostage) if there was any further rebel firing in the city. When the firing in the city was renewed, Skeffington was executed by firing squad.
The complex political background to Skeffington's involvement with Connolly is examined in my book Memoir: my Life and Themes, Chapter 1, pages 15-19; pages 23-4; and page 30. - Yours etc.,
Conor Cruise O'Brien, Whitewater, Howth Summit, Dublin.