Charles Patrick Donnelly (10 July 1914 – 27 February 1937) was an Irish poet, republican and left wing political activist.

At this time also, Charles met and was befriended by radical political activists from the IRA, the Communist Party of Ireland and the left-Republican group, Saor Éire.

His father and aunts then got Charles an apprenticeship with a carpenter, but he gave this up after a year to enroll in University College Dublin in 1931, where he studied Logic, English, History and the Irish language.

He also became involved in a romantic relationship with another republican activist, Cora Hughes,[3] Éamon de Valera's goddaughter and later partner of George Gilmore.

[5] The Republican Congress split at its first annual meeting in September 1934, but the 20-year-old Donnelly was elected to the National Executive of the truncated organisation.

While in London he remained a regular contributor to the Republican Congress newspaper (edited by Frank Ryan) and various left wing publications.

[7] Together with two other poets, Leslie Daiken and Ewart Milne, he was one of the founders of a duplicated publication called Irish Front (the London journal of the Republican Congress).

[6] Eoin McNamee recalled Donnelly as "a frail looking Dublin man with a Tyrone background...he was something of an intellectual and clearly the theorist of the Irish Republican Congress in London at that time.

He was well versed in Marxism, wrote for the Congress and Communist press, and frequently appeared on left wing public platforms.

A Canadian veteran recalled, We ran for cover, Charlie Donnelly, the commander of an Irish company is crouched behind an olive tree.

On the eve of the 71st anniversary of his death, 26 February 2008, Charles was commemorated with the unveiling of a plaque in his alma mater, UCD, attended by 150 people.

The commemoration, organised jointly by a group of UCD students and the Donnelly family, was hosted by the School of English and also included a lecture by Gerald Dawe on Charlie's life and poetry.

[17] Discussing his work, Colm Tóibín said it "mixed an Audenesque exactitude with a youthful romanticism... his poem The Tolerance of Crows belongs in any anthology of modern poetry".