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A letter from Mortimer O'Connell to his wife Jo, written on the 17th of April, 1916.
Mortimer was one of the men responsible for guarding Bulmer Hobson when he was kidnapped at the outset of the Rising. After the rising O'Connell was imprisoned in Frongoch Internment Camp.
John Bulmer Hobson was a leading member of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) before the Easter Rising in 1916. He founded Na Fianna Éireann in 1902 as a Republican scouting movement, and later served as the editor for the republican newspaper Irish Freedom.
Hobson was member of the IRB, but was kept unaware of the plans for the Rising. He opposed the Rising as he was convinced it would be a failure, instead believing that the Volunteers should employ guerilla tactics. Hobson was kidnapped by the Rising's organisers to stop him from spreading news of MacNeill's order to cancel all Volunteer actions, and held at gunpoint in a safehouse in Phibsborough until events were well underway.
(Patrick Maume. "Hobson, (John) Bulmer." Dictionary of Irish Biography.)
Donated by O'Connell's granddaughter.