James Stephens (1825-1901) was a founding member and leading figure of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Stephens was born in Kilkenny and in his youth trained as a civil engineer, holding revolutionary nationalist views from an early point in his life. He would fight in the 1848 Young Ireland rebellion and following its failure, fled to exile in Paris alongside John O’Mahony. Whilst in Paris, he would set out to establish a new secret society to fight British rule in Ireland organising in both Ireland and among the Irish diaspora in America, the fruition of this would become the Irish Republican Brotherhood founded in 1858. In 1863, Stephens was the main force behind the establishment of the Fenian organ The Irish People, which would last until its suppression in 1865. Stephens would shortly be arrested, but with the help of sympathetic Fenian prison wardens escaped from prison and fled to France. He would die in 1901 in Blackrock, Dublin, at the age of 76.
Writings
Isle, Race, and Doom (1863)
Bane and Antidote (1863)
Felon-Setting (1863)