Seán Russell

Seán Russell
The replacement statue of Seán Russell unveiled in 2009 (replacing the original, unveiled on Sunday, 8 September 1951)
Born	1893 Fairview, Dublin Ireland
Died	August 14, 1940(1940-08-14) (aged 46–47) U-65, Atlantic Ocean, 100 miles off Galway, Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Known for	Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army

Seán Russell (1893 – 14 August 1940) was an Irish republican who held senior positions in the IRA until the end of the Irish War of Independence. From 1922 until his death on board a Kriegsmarine U-Boat in 1940 he remained a senior member and chief of staff of the IRA, while it divided and was outlawed, and removed itself to the political fringe of Irish society.

Born in Fairview, Dublin in 1893, Russell joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913. He participated in the 1916 Easter Rising as an officer in Dublin Brigade's 2nd Battalion, under Thomas MacDonagh. Following the Rising he was interned in Frongoch and Knutsford. After the Irish War of Independence began, he was attached to the IRA General Headquarters Staff (GHQ) and became IRA Director of Munitions in 1920. In 1925, after the Irish Civil War, he was jailed in Mountjoy Prison but escaped on 25 November in a breakout he helped organise.

Russell was one of those within the much-reduced IRA pushing for more revolutionary activities in 1926. That year he and Gerald Boland travelled to the Soviet Union on an IRA weapons buying mission. On his return from Moscow Russell reported back to Seán Lemass. He was appointed IRA quartermaster general in 1927 and held that position until 1936. He travelled widely throughout Ireland reorganising the IRA during 1929-31. Russell was due to give the oration at the 1931 Bodenstown commemoration but was arrested on its eve.