O’HIGGINS, Brian. The Soldier’s Story of Easter Week. Poems of 1916. Prison Letters, 1917-20 (hitherto unpublished).

With sketches of the leaders by Liam C. Martin. Dublin: Brian O’Higgins, 1966. Crown octavo. pp. 117. Very good in illustrated wrappers.
Brian O’Higgins (1882-1966) was born in Kilskyre (Gleann na Mona), County Meath, moved to Dublin where he became an active member of the Gaelic League and then became secretary of O’Curry Gaelic College at Carrigaholt, County Clare. He took part in the Easter Rising, serving in the GPO garrison and was deported to Frongoch. On his release O’Higgins participated in the building up of both the new Sinn Féin organisation and the Irish Volunteers. These activities led to his deportation again in February 1917 as part of the arrests of the first ‘German’ plot. O’Higgins was elected as T.D. for West Clare in the 1918 general election and, in June of the following year, he set up one of the first arbitration courts under the authority of Dail Eireann. He opposed the Treaty; he opposed the founding of Fianna Fail by de Valera; and, remaining a committed member of Sinn Féin and the Second Dail to the last, he signed the delegation conferring the Second Dail’s authority to the I.R.A. in 1938. Apart from publishing poems, ballads and prayers, often under the name of Brian na Banban, O’Higgins was also editor of the ‘Wolfe Tone Weekly’ and the ‘Wolfe Tone Annual’ in the 1930s and 1940s.

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