Eoin MacNeill

Eoin MacNeill (Irish: Eoin Mac Néill; 15 May 1867 – 15 October 1945) was an Irish scholar, nationalist, revolutionary and politician. MacNeill has been described as "the father of the modern study of early Irish medieval history." He was a co-founder of the Gaelic League, to preserve Irish language and culture, going on to establish the Irish Volunteers (prompted and encouraged by the Irish Republican Brotherhood), and becoming Chief-of-Staff. Though he held this position at the outbreak of the Easter Rising, he took no role in it or its planning, and even went so far as to try to prevent it. He was later elected to the First Dáil as a member of Sinn Féin.