O'Donoghue, Florence (‘Florrie’) (1897–1967), revolutionary, soldier, and historian, was born 6 May 1897 in Rathmore, Co. Kerry, the only son of six children of Timothy O'Donoghue, a farmer of Gortdromakerry, and Julia O'Donoghue (née Murphy). His father had served time in prison during the land war. Educated locally, he moved to Cork (1910) to work as a draper's apprentice in a shop owned by his mother's cousin Michael Nolan at 55 North Main St. He took evening classes at the school of commerce, joined the CYMS, and became an avid cyclist. After the death of his cousin Pat O'Connor in the Easter rising, he joined the Irish Volunteers in early 1917 and formed a Volunteer cycling company. He was also sworn into the IRB in 1917, eventually becoming county centre for Cork city in 1921 and a member of the supreme council. Promoted to adjutant and intelligence officer of Cork no. 1 Brigade in March 1918, he spent much of 1918–19 organising and training Volunteers and establishing lines of communication between all Volunteer battalions in Cork. In March 1920 he left his job to undertake full-time Volunteer work, travelling under the alias of George Egan, sales representative for Dripsey woollen mills. During the war of independence he was principally involved in intelligence work, obtaining and deciphering British codes, recruiting and training intelligence agents, and establishing secure communications. Adjutant and intelligence officer (April 1921–March 1922) of the 1st Southern Division, he was from March to June 1922 adjutant-general of the anti-treaty IRA and a member of its army executive, and was a leading figure in unsuccessful efforts to reunite the pro- and anti-treaty IRA factions prior to the civil war. In June 1922 he resigned from the anti-treaty IRA, opposing plans to interfere with the 1922 general election. Remaining neutral during the subsequent civil war, he formed the Neutral IRA Association along with Sean O'Hegarty (qv) in December 1922. This organisation was unsuccessful in seeking a peaceful settlement and was wound up in March 1923.
A rate collector with Cork county council during the 1930s and 1940s, after the outbreak of the second world war he reenlisted in the army as a private (June 1940), and was rapidly promoted to the rank of major. Intelligence officer of 1st Division, Southern Command (April 1943–October 1945), he was responsible for the establishment and operation of the supplementary intelligence service (SIS), formed initially to help preempt an invasion along the south coast of Ireland. When such an invasion failed to materialise, the SIS concentrated on gathering intelligence and was responsible for preventing the escape of the German agent Herman Goertz (qv) and for the recapture of former special-branch member Jim Crofton. Because of his standing with people on both sides of the treaty split, he was able to recruit a number of IRA veterans, including republicans, to the SIS. From March 1943 to October 1945 he was editor of the army journal An Cosantóir and the 1st Division journal An Barr Buadh.
From December 1946 to May 1948 he was a member of the advisory committee of the Bureau of Military History. A member of the Irish Historical Society and the Military History Society, he wrote widely during the 1950s and 1960s on the history of the Irish revolution. His principal publications include No other law (1954) – a biography of Liam Lynch (qv) – and Tomás MacCurtain (1958); edited versions of Diarmuid Lynch's (qv), The IRB and the 1916 insurrection (1957), and Karl Spindler's, The mystery of the Casement ship (1965); and numerous articles in the Capuchin Annual, An Cosantóir, University Review, and Cork Historical and Archaeological Society Journal. He was also a committee member of the Cork Tostal council, the finance committee of the Cork film festival, and the Cork international choral festival.
He married (27 April 1921) (Mary) Josephine Marchment Brown, youngest of ten children of Henry James McCoy, an RIC officer from Pallaskenry, Co. Limerick, and Bridget McCoy (née O'Sullivan), from Bonane, Kenmare, Co. Kerry. Her first husband, Coleridge Marchment (alias Brown) had been killed in the first world war, and when she lost custody of her eldest son to her parents-in-law, members of the Cork IRA brought him back to Cork from Wales. O'Donoghue was influential in organising this operation, and during 1919–21 Josephine, who worked as a typist in Victoria (latterly Collins) Barracks in Cork, was one of his most important intelligence agents. They lived at Loughlene, Eglantine Park, Douglas Road, Cork, with their two sons and two daughters, and her two sons from her first marriage. He died 16 December 1967 in Mercy Hospital, Cork, leaving an estate of £14,487. His papers are in the NLI and his statement to the Bureau of Military History is in the Military Archives.