{"id":4703,"date":"2021-04-23T09:03:30","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T09:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kildare.ie\/ehistory\/?p=4703"},"modified":"2025-10-29T17:10:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:10:47","slug":"donation-martin-obrien-conleith-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/donation-martin-obrien-conleith-martin\/","title":{"rendered":"DONATION: MARTIN O&#8217;BRIEN, &#8216;CONLEITH MARTIN&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Donation to Kildare Local Studies, Genealogy &amp; Archives Department<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Local Studies, Genealogy &amp; Archives Department, Kildare, gratefully acknowledge the recent donation from Se\u00e1n Connaughton, Newbridge, of a collection of poems by republican Martin O\u2019Brien (1899-1961).<\/p>\n<p>Martin O\u2019Brien was born in 1899 in Cork, but moved to Naas prior to 1901 where his father was a postmaster. He was a member of the IRA and Sinn F\u00e9in during the War of Independence and organised Green Cross concerts for republican prisoners\u2019 dependents. He took the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War. He was a noted athlete, marathon runner, and GAA figure and was winner of the Dublin to Naas and Navan to Croke Park marathon races; he was a founder member of Naas Athletic Club. Under the pen name Conleith Martin he wrote ballads, stories and plays for many national publications, including <em>The United Irishman.<\/em> He was an activist during the 1939-45 IRA Campaign and helped organise a secret communications system collecting and delivering messages to interned republican prisoners at the Curragh Camp. Martin O\u2019Brien died at his home on Sallins Road, Naas, on 25 June 1961, and was buried in St. Corban\u2019s Cemetery, Naas. A ten-foot-high Celtic Cross was unveiled over his grave on Sunday 2 June 1963 by a joint committee of Sinn F\u00e9in and Naas Athletic Club.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5269\" src=\"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Martin-O-Brien-1-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Martin-O-Brien-1-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Martin-O-Brien-1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Martin-O-Brien-1.jpg 810w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donation to Kildare Local Studies, Genealogy &amp; Archives Department The Local Studies, Genealogy &amp; Archives Department, Kildare, gratefully acknowledge the recent donation from Se\u00e1n Connaughton, Newbridge, of a collection of poems by republican Martin O\u2019Brien (1899-1961). Martin O\u2019Brien was born in 1899 in Cork, but moved to Naas prior to 1901 where his father was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":5269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decade-of-centenaries","category-people"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Martin-O-Brien-1.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Martin-O-Brien-1.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Kildare Local Studies","author_link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/author\/localstudies\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7286,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703\/revisions\/7286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}