sentences:  He left school aged 14 and worked as a farmer, also developing deep patriotic convictions; locally, he was seen as a promising farmer, calm, direct, ready to experiment with new methods, and intelligent.He was a member of the Gaelic League, and of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) from 1911 and the Irish Volunteers from 1913.He was picked up in the mass arrests in the aftermath of the Easter Rising in 1916 and spent much of the following two years in prison, where he went on hunger strike on several occasions.