Séamus Robinson (Irish: Séamus Mac Róibín; 6 January 1890 – 8 December 1961), an Irish rebel and later a politician, was born in Belfast. He served as monk in Scotland in his early adulthood until he got permission from the abbot to leave the monastery and fight in the push for Irish independence. He married Brigid Keating and they had eight children. He was a great friend of the Taoiseach Éamon de Valera.
Robinson and his brother Joesph Robinson joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913, and later participated in the Easter Rising of 1916. In 1917, he came to Tipperary and together with Seán Treacy, Dan Breen and Seán Hogan, he led the party which took part in an attack on a convoy transporting gelignite at Soloheadbeg in county Tipperary on the same day that 1st Dáil met. They shot two policemen dead and stole the explosives, and thus helped to ignite the Irish War of Independence.
Following Hogan's capture in 1919, Robinson took part in his rescue from a train at Knocklong railway station in East Limerick while Hogan was being transported from Thurles to Cork. Throughout the war, Robinson served in the Irish Republican Army, commanding the Third Tipperary Brigade. In April 1921, he became the second in command of the IRA Second Southern Division, under Ernie O'Malley.
In the 1921 general election, Robinson was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin TD for Waterford–Tipperary East. He was opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. When the Irish Civil War broke out over the Treaty, Robinson sent some of his Tipperary men to help the anti-Treaty IRA fighters in Dublin, after a plea from Oscar Traynor. However, the Tipperary contingent arrived too late to take part in the Battle of Dublin. He was a general during the rest of the civil war against the and fought bravley throughout the war.
After the Civil War, Robinson left the IRA and Sinn Féin and joined Fianna Fáil. Later on, Robinson was elected to Seanad Éireann as a Fianna Fáil Senator. In 1947 he was appointed one of the five founder members of the Bureau of Military History, associated with the history of the independence movement in 1913. Robinson died in Dublin on 8 December 1961. He is survived by his three daughters, his grandchildren and his greatgrandchildren.
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This page incorporates information from the Oireachtas Members Database