Eoin MacNeill

Eoin MacNeill was an Irish scholar, Irish language enthusiast, nationalist activist, and Sinn Fin politician. MacNeill has been described as the father of the modern study of early Irish medieval history. A key figure of the Gaelic revival, he was a cofounder of the Gaelic League, to preserve Irish language and culture. In 1913 he established the Irish Volunteers and served as their ChiefofStaff. He held this position at the outbreak of the Easter Rising but had no role in it or its planning, which was carried out by IRB infiltrators. MacNeill helped countermand the Easter Monday uprising, after learning about it and confronting Patrick Pearse, by placing a last minute news advertisement advising Volunteers not to take part. He was later elected to the First Dil as a member of Sinn Fin.

MacNeill was born John McNeill, one of five children born to Archibald McNeill, a Roman Catholic working class baker, sailor and merchant, and his wife, Rosetta McNeill, also a Catholic. He was reared in Glenarm, County Antrim, an area which still retained some Irishlanguage traditions.

Source: Wikipedia