John O’Leary (1830-1907) was a founding member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), editor of the Irish People newspaper in Dublin, and one of the most prominent intellectuals of the Fenian movement. Born in Tipperary town, O’Leary as a young man participated in the 1848 Young Ireland rebellion before studying law and medicine. Following a spell in Paris where he became acquainted with Irish republican exiles, he was a founding member of the IRB and became editor of its newspaper, the Irish People, in Dublin until its forcible disbandment in 1865. O’Leary was sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude in English prisons, but was released in 1871, exiled in Paris. In 1885, O’Leary returned to Ireland and became an influential nationalist intellectual to a new generation of nationalists, including W. B. Yeats, Arthur Griffith, Maud Gonne and Major John MacBride. His sister was the famed poet Ellen O’Leary, and also a key figure in nationalist circles. O’Leary would serve in later life as a founding member of Cumann na nGaedheal as well as serving in the Irish Transvaal Committee during the Boer War until his death in 1907.
Writings
John O’Leary’s Speech From The Dock (1865)
The New Delusion (1880)
The New Novelty and the Old—Semi-Socialism and Nationality (1880)
On The Dynamitards (1884)
Young Ireland—The Old and The New (1885)
Some Guarantees For The Protestant And Unionist Minority (1886)