The only leader of the 1916 Rising to be killed in action, Michael O'Rahilly died in a Dublin laneway after leading a charge against a British barricade in Moore Street. A letter to his wife, written during his last moments and pierced by the fatal bullet, was found in his breast pocket.

The O'Rahilly, as he became known, was the prime mover in the formation of the Irish Volunteers and its director of arms, organizing the purchase and delivery of the Howth rifles in July 1914. He was Pearse's aide-de-camp in the General Post Office during Easter Week and became commander of the garrison after Connolly was wounded.

The O'Rahilly: A Secret History of the Rebellion of 1916 is the last personal account of 1916. It honours the founding of the Irish state and salutes one of the individuals who made it possible. Poignant sketches of other key figures in the Rising — Casement, MacNeill, Redmond, Devoy, Hobson, Plunkett, Markievicz, Childers, Griffith, Pearse, Connolly — are woven together with unpublished documents and family letters, clothing the skeleton of history.