John O'Leary (Fenian)
John O'Leary | |
---|---|
President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood | |
In office 1891 – 16 March 1907 | |
Preceded by | John O'Connor Power |
Succeeded by | Neal O'Boyle |
Personal details | |
Born | Irish Republican | May 23, 1830
John O'Leary (23 July 1830 – 16 March 1907[1]) was an Irish separatist and a leading Fenian. He studied both law and medicine but did not take a degree and for his involvement in the Irish Republican Brotherhood he was imprisoned in England during the nineteenth century.
Early life
Born in the town of
He began his studies in law at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1847, where, through the Grattan Club, he associated with Charles Gavan Duffy, James Fintan Lalor and Thomas Francis Meagher.
1848 rising
After the failure of the 1848
Irish Republican Brotherhood
O'Leary abandoned his study of law at Trinity College, because he was unwilling to take the oath of allegiance required of a barrister. He enrolled at Queen's College,
Arrest and trial
On 16 September 1865,
Later life in Dublin
On the expiry of his 20-year prison term and therefore of the conditions associated with his release in 1885, he returned to Ireland. He and his sister, the poet
Political outlook
O'Leary was a separatist, believing in complete Irish independence from Britain. However, he was not a republican but a constitutional monarchist. He believed in physical force, but was opposed to individual acts of violence such as those promoted by O'Donovan Rossa with his Skirmishing Fund, believing that revolutionary action should be thoroughly prepared. He was strongly opposed to the land agitation promoted by Michael Davitt and Parnell. For most of his life, he was opposed to any form of parliamentary action, being particularly hostile to the former Fenian M.P. John O'Connor Power. However, he supported Parnell during the early days of the Split of 1890–91. He was a secularist, believing that the Church should stay out of politics. In an article published in the Dublin University Review in 1886, he showed some awareness that Protestants would require guarantees of their liberties within an independent Ireland. Like most intellectuals of his generation, he was not interested in the Irish language, although sympathetic to organisations of the Gaelic revival of the 1880s onwards.[8]
Personal life
O'Leary never married, although he had an early love affair with a young woman, who is thought to have later entered a convent. He acted as best man for James Stephens, in 1864. He was brought up Catholic, but abandoned the religion for all of his life, until close to his death, when he was reconciled to the church, around Christmas 1906. He inherited property from his family in the town of Tipperary. For most of his life, this provided a reasonably comfortable income, so that he did not have to earn money and was able to assist fellow separatists financially. However, he did become a victim of agitation during the Plan of Campaign in 1889–91, when rental payments to him largely ceased. He was remembered in the town of Tipperary as a 'hard landlord'.[9]
Yeats' Tribute
- "Romantic Ireland's dead and gone;
- It's with O'Leary in the grave."[10]
He also mentions O'Leary in his poem "Beautiful Lofty Things":
- "Beautiful lofty things: O'Leary's noble head;" [11]
Works
- Young Ireland: The Old and the New (1885)
- Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism, 2 vols, London, 1896
References
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006
- ^ Bourke (1967), pp. 19, 27.
- ^ Dictionary of Irish Biography
- ^ O'Leary Vol II, p.205 & 211; Bourke (1967), pp. 98–99
- ^ Bourke (1967), pp.128ff.
- ^ Deirdre Toomey, O'Leary, Ellen (1831–1889), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
- ^ Bourke (1967), p.180ff., 222
- ^ Bourke (1967), pp. 37–8, 144, 145, 160, 177, 195, 228
- ^ Bourke (1967), pp. 49, 196–8, 209–10, 230
- ^ Collected Letters, 1.503
- ^ "Beautiful Lofty Things Poem by William Butler Yeats - Poem Hunter".
Sources
- Bourke, Marcus, John O'Leary: A Study in Irish Separatism, Tralee, Anvil Books, 1967
- Dr. Mark F. Ryan,Fenian Memories, Edited by T.F. O'Sullivan, M. H. Gill & Son, LTD, Dublin, 1945
- John O'Leary, Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism, Downey & Co., Ltd, London, 1896 (Vol. I & II)
- Leon Ó Broin, Fenian Fever: An Anglo-American Delemma, Chatto & Windus, London, 1971, ISBN 0-7011-1749-4.
- Ryan, Desmond. The Fenian Chief: A Biography of James Stephens, Hely Thom LTD, Dublin, 1967
- Four Years of Irish History 1845–1849, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. 1888.
- Christy Campbell, Fenian Fire: The British Government Plot to Assassinate Queen Victoria, HarperCollins, London, 2002, ISBN 0-00-710483-9
- Owen McGee, The IRB: The Irish Republican Brotherhood from The Land League to Sinn Féin, Four Courts Press, 2005, ISBN 1-85182-972-5
- Speeches From the Dock, or Protests of Irish Patriotism, by Seán Ua Cellaigh, Dublin, 1953