Sean Heuston was born into a working-class family in Dublin's inner-city slums in 1891. He worked as a railway clerk in both Limerick and Dublin and was heavily involved in Na Fianna Eireann, the nationalist boy scouts. A committed Volunteer, during the Rising he was took control of the Mendicity Institution, located on Usher's Quay on the River Liffey, which overlooked a key entry point into Dublin city. After surrender Heuston was caught with incriminating documents and his fate was sealed; he was executed by firing squad on 8 May 1916 aged just twenty-five. One of the youngest to be executed, after his death he was venerated as an ideal of brave, young, patriotic manhood. Each day Heuston's name features in thousands of journeys through the train station that bears it, but this is the first biography of a figure who could easily be described as a revolutionary everyman.