His father, Thomas, was a cabinet maker and antique dealer who had been disinherited by his family for marrying an Irish Catholic, Maryanne Flynn.

Brugha was seen as an austere figure, not very different from Éamon de Valera, and was known not to smoke cigarettes, swear or drink alcohol.

[5][6] He met his future wife, Kathleen Kingston, at an Irish class in Birr, County Offaly, and they married in 1912 in the Church of Three Patrons in Rathgar (where fellow Belvederean James Joyce had sung in the choir before leaving for Europe).

Brugha, weak from loss of blood, continued to fire upon the enemy, and was found by Eamonn Ceannt singing "God Save Ireland" with his pistol still in his hands.

Owing to the absence of Éamon de Valera and Arthur Griffith, Brugha presided over the first meeting of Dáil Éireann on 21 January 1919.

[2] At a top-level IRA meeting in August 1920, Brugha argued against ambushes of Crown forces unless there was first a call to surrender, but it was dismissed as unrealistic by the brigade commanders present.

During the Treaty Debates, he pointed out that Collins had only a middling rank in the Department for Defence, which supervised the IRA, even though Griffith hailed him as 'the man who had won the war'.

In the months between the Treaty debates and the outbreak of Civil War, Brugha attempted to dissuade his fellow anti-treaty army leaders including Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows and Joe McKelvey from taking up arms against the Free State.

When they refused, Traynor ordered the occupation of the area around O'Connell Street in the hope of easing the pressure on the Four Courts and of forcing the Free State to negotiate.

The outbreak of the Irish Civil War ensued in the first week of July when Free State forces commenced shelling of the anti-treaty positions.

Most of the anti-Treaty fighters under Oscar Traynor escaped from O'Connell Street when the buildings they were holding caught fire, leaving Brugha in command of a small rearguard.

[12] In Thomas Lane he then approached the Free State troops, brandishing a revolver and sustained a bullet wound to the leg which 'severed a major artery causing him to bleed to death'.