Eoin MacNeill

Eoin MacNeill (1867-1945) was a founding figure in the Gaelic League, the Irish Volunteers, and the government of Ireland. As Professor of Early (including Mediaeval) History at University College Dublin was also one of the foremost Irish historians of his generation. As a professor, a politician, and the leader of a paramilitary organisation, MacNeill fused scholarship and activism into a complex life that both followed and led the course of Irish independence from gestation to maturation. • A