Because I'm most familiar with, I'm going to give the names of everyone sentenced to death by the British Government for the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, and their occupations (de Valera and Markievicz had their sentences commuted for being a US citizen and being a woman, respectively). 1/x
Roger Casement: Internationally famous human rights activist and investigative journalist Countess Constance Markievicz: Landed gentry Patrick Pearse: Poet and school master Tom Clarke: lifetime revolutionary James Connolly: Labor union leader Thomas MacDonagh: Literature professor 2/x
Joseph Plunkett: Poet Eamonn Ceannt: Accountant Sean MacDermott: Newspaper manager Ned Daly: Shop clerk William Pearse: Theater teacher Michael O'Hanrahan: Journalist and author John MacBride: Lifetime revolutionary, soldier Michael Mallin - Soldier, union leader 3/x
Con Colbert: Bakery clerk Sean Heuston: Lifetime revolutionary Thomas Kent: Landed gentry Eamon de Valera: Mathematics professor So, yeah, revolutions tend to take all kinds of people in, and not all of them have the same agendas (Connolly was a radical communist the other leaders didn't like). 4/4
Pearse was also a (non-practicing) barrister.
deValera didn't have his sentence commuted because he was a US citizen - the backlash against the executions stopped them before they got to him - i.e. he wasn't important enough to be in the first wave.
Probably more fair to say that his execution was delayed as a result of his US citizenship until public sentiment turned against executions. He was the only commondant during the Rising not to be executed.
Interested to know what @mcculld.bsky.social thinks about it. Did deV even ever claim his US citizenship? His whole identity was about Ireland.
I don't have my copy of Coogan's biography handy, which goes into it in detail, but my understanding is that de Valera's wife raised his US citizenship to the American consulate, and the Consul contacted Dublin Castle about it, which delayed things long enough for public sentiment to take over.
He did not claim US citizenship. His mother and half-brother campaigned on his behalf in US, based on his American birth, but by the time campaign had any impact it was about his treatment in prison, as his sentence had already been commuted.
Why do you think deValera avoided execution? Was it luck at being far enough down the list that by the time they would have gotten around to him they realized the executions weren't a great idea?
Exactly
Looking forward to the documentary!
Apart from Thomas Ashe, sentenced to death on Sam day, also commuted due to public opinion backlash. Ashe was not born in US.
That's right! Forgot about him because he was outside of Dublin (although so was Casement, but of course his arrest and execution was a wholly different matter).