Séamus Robinson

Who was Séamus Robinson?

Séamus Robinson was an Irish republican and politician.

Born in Belfast, he served as monk in Scotland in his early adulthood until he got permission from the abbot to leave the monastery and fight in the push for Irish independence. He married Brigid Keating and they had eight children.

Robinson and his brother Joseph Robinson joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913, and later participated in the Easter Rising of 1916. In 1917, he came to Tipperary and together with Seán Treacy, Dan Breen and Seán Hogan, he led the party which took part in an attack on a convoy transporting gelignite at Soloheadbeg in county Tipperary on the same day that 1st Dáil met. They shot two policemen dead and stole the explosives, and thus helped to ignite the Irish War of Independence.

Following Hogan's capture in 1919, Robinson took part in his rescue from a train at Knocklong railway station in East Limerick while Hogan was being transported from Thurles to Cork. Throughout the war, Robinson served in the Irish Republican Army, commanding the Third Tipperary Brigade. In April 1921, he became the second in command of the IRA Second Southern Division, under Ernie O'Malley.