He raised the workers' flag and the republic's on a single staff
Too wounded to stand, he was shot tied to a chair — Kilmainham Gaol, 12 May 1916
A socialist revolutionary who fused Marxism with Irish national liberation. He founded the Irish Citizen Army, commanded the Dublin Brigade in the 1916 Easter Rising, and was executed by the British after its suppression.
Career timeline
- 1896Founds the Irish Socialist Republican Party
- 1903–1910IWW organizer in America
- 1910–1914Leads the ITGWU through the 1913 Dublin Lockout
- 1910Published Labour in Irish History
- 1913Founds the Irish Citizen Army
- 1915Published The Re-Conquest of Ireland
- 1916.4Easter Rising — Dublin commandant, signatory of the Proclamation
- 1916.5Shot at Kilmainham Gaol
A British diplomat whose judgments narrowed as the Moscow negotiations closed in
Seeds judged Molotov to possess “rather foolish cunning of the type of the peasant.”
William Seeds was a British diplomat who served in missions across Europe and the Americas before becoming ambassador in Moscow in 1939. He represented Britain in the negotiations for a British-French-Soviet mutual-assistance treaty, as Western hesitation collided with Soviet demands for binding security guarantees. His dismissive reports on Vyacheslav Molotov after Maxim Litvinov's removal reveal both a contemporary observer's insight and the limits of British diplomacy as the talks failed.
Career timeline
- 1904–1907British diplomatic mission, Washington
- 1908–1910British Legation, Peking
- 1913–1919Chargé d'affaires and consul general, Lisbon
- 1928–1930British High Commissioner for the Rhineland
- 1930–1935British ambassador to Brazil
- 1939–1940British ambassador to the Soviet Union, leading the Moscow triple-alliance negotiations
- 1973Died in London
A British historian of modern Soviet history
For Stalin, the 'creation of the idea of the perpetual enemy' was indispensable.
Martin McCauley is an Irish-born historian of Soviet and East European politics. A former senior lecturer at UCL's School of Slavonic and East European Studies, he wrote widely on Stalinism, the Khrushchev era, the Cold War, and the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. He interpreted the 20th Party Congress speech both as an effort to restore a functioning Party, freeing officials from fear of repression, and as a move in Khrushchev's struggle to weaken rivals.
Career timeline
- 1953–1956Studied surveying at the University of Westminster
- 1961Studied French civilisation at the Sorbonne in Paris
- 1962–1968Studied at the University of London and earned a PhD
- 1968–1978Senior lecturer at the University of London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies
- 1975Edited and published The Russian Revolution and the Soviet State
- 1976Published Khrushchev and the Development of Soviet Agriculture
- 1995Published The Khrushchev Era: 1953–1964
- 2007Published The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union
Irish scholar of Middle East international politics and South Yemen
His 1985 LSE thesis on the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen and the 1990 book built on it are the standard study cited when assessing the South Yemeni socialist state's achievements and limits.
Simon Frederick Peter Halliday (1946–2010) was an Irish writer and scholar of international relations and the Middle East, born in Dublin. He read PPE at Queen's College, Oxford, took an MSc in Middle East politics at SOAS, and sat on the New Left Review editorial board from 1969 to 1983. His 1985 LSE doctorate on South Yemen's foreign relations became the standard study of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, and he taught international relations at the LSE, as professor from 1985 until 2008.
Career timeline
- 1967Graduated in PPE from Queen's College, Oxford
- 1969Took an MSc in Middle East politics at SOAS, University of London
- 1969–1983Member of the New Left Review editorial board
- 1973–1985Fellow of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam and Washington
- 1974Published his first major book, Arabia Without Sultans
- 1985Awarded his LSE doctorate on South Yemen's foreign policy
- 1985–2008Professor of International Relations at the LSE
- 1990Published Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967–1987
- 2002Elected a fellow of the British Academy
