James Aubrey (Seamus) Deakin (19 June 1874 – 10 December 1952) was an Irish nationalist and member of the
Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), of which he was president from 1913 to 1914.
Biography
He was born at Mount Auburn, Richmond, Dublin, the son of James Deakin, a traveller, and Mary Anne Tate. His family was
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland (, ; , ) is a Christian church in Ireland, and an autonomy, autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the Christianity in Ireland, second-largest Christian church on the ...
. In 1901, he was living at 27 Millmount Avenue,
Drumcondra, with his wife, Catherine, a Scottish-born Presbyterian. Ten years later, the couple was living at 37 Thomond Terrace, Inn's Quay, Dublin, with their three children.
Deakin worked as a chemist in Hoyt's pharmacy in
O'Connell Street
O'Connell Street () is a street in the centre of Dublin, Ireland, running north from the River Liffey. It connects the O'Connell Bridge to the south with Parnell Street to the north and is roughly split into two sections bisected by Henry ...
and later owned his own shop in
Phibsborough.
Deakin became involved in the Irish nationalist movement during the early 1900s, along with other
Protestant nationalists such as
George Irvine,
Ernest Blythe
Ernest William Blythe (; 13 April 1889 – 23 February 1975) was an Irish journalist, politician and managing director of the Abbey Theatre. He served as Minister for Local Government from 1922 to 1923, Minister for Finance from 1923 to 1932 ...
and
Seán O'Casey, and within a short time became a high-ranking member in the
Drumcondra branch of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. In 1913, he succeeded
John Mulholland as president of the IRB before acceding to
Denis McCullough the following year. Deakin resigned from the Supreme Council and from the IRB about August 1914.
It is a common belief that he emigrated to the US, but that is almost certainly not true.
[ He died of a coronary thrombosis on 10 December 1952 in Drumcollogher, ]County Limerick
County Limerick () is a western Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Reg ...
– where he had moved from Dublin about a decade previously – and was buried in the local cemetery.
Further reading
*Martin, Francis X. ''The Irish Volunteers, 1913–1915: Recollections and Documents''. Dublin: James Duffy & Co., 1963.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deakin, Seamus
1874 births
1952 deaths
Early Sinn Féin politicians
Irish Anglicans
Irish Republican Army (1919–1922) members
Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood
Protestant Irish nationalists