A prominent Belfast Ulster Unionist helped save the life of former IRA leader and later tánaiste Seán MacEntee, newly-discovered papers have revealed.
The documents, found in a Belfast attic, show that Mr MacEntee was spared execution for his involvement in the 1916 Rising during which a policeman was shot dead by Irish Volunteers under his command in Castlebellingham, Co Louth.
Direct intervention by an Ulster Unionist member of Belfast Corporation, Mr TE (Tommy) Alexander, who knew the MacEntee family well, influenced the court martial which had originally sentenced MacEntee to death.
He never faced the firing squad for Constable McGee's killing and the reason has only just been publicised.
Historian Eamon Phoenix, writing in yesterday's Irish News, said Cllr Alexander informed the court martial that MacEntee was responsible for enforcing greater discipline over his men than would have otherwise been the case.
Alexander's crucial intervention, depicted in a letter from MacEntee to Daniel McCrea, a former Belfast journalist in 1967, was central to the sparing of the IRA leader.
"Tommy Alexander and my father were for many years the best of friends," MacEntee wrote. "I myself was greatly indebted to Tommy, not only because of his very favourable and impressive evidence at my court martial, but because of his indefatigable efforts to save me from being executed as, but for him, I would have been."
MacEntee was born in Belfast in 1889 and was influenced by the socialist republicanism of James Connolly, joining the militant wing of the Irish Volunteers in 1914.
He held the command of 60 volunteers in Co Louth during the events of Easter week 1916. His men had been ordered to commandeer cars returning north from the Fairyhouse races with a view to converging on Tara in Co Meath.
However, two RIC officers turned up and Constable McGee was shot by MacEntee's men during attempts to disarm them.
After his release in 1917 he was elected a member of the National Executives of both Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers and became Sinn Féin MP for south Monaghan in the 1918 general election.
During the War of Independence he acted as vice-commandant of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA until April 1921, when he was transferred to Dublin to direct a special anti-partition campaign. MacEntee later served as a Fianna Fáil minister in numerous departments before serving as tánaiste from 1959 until 1965.
The recently-discovered papers include his 70-page account of the Easter 1916 Rising and his dealings with Pádraig Pearse, Eoin MacNeill, James Connolly and others.
The documents are understood to be in the possession of "a collector", according to Dr Phoenix.