Thomas Clarke Luby (1822-1901) was a revolutionary republican and founding member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Born as the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman, Clarke Luby would join the Repeal Association and later on, the Young Irelanders. Having failed to instigate a rebellion in 1849, Clarke Luby went into exile in France in the hopes of joining the French Foreign Legion. He would however return to Ireland several years later and help to establish the Irish Republican Brotherhood alongside James Stephens, John O’Leary and Charles Kickham. In 1863, the Irish People newspaper was established as the IRB’s official organ, with Clarke Luby acting as one of the editors. He would be arrested however in 1865 and sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude, although he spent only six years in prison on condition he served the remainder of his sentence in exile in America. He would not return to Ireland, dying in Jersey City in 1901 at the age of 79.
Writings
Graveside Oration at Terence Bellew MacManus’s Funeral (1861)
’82 and ’29 (1863)
Doubters and Shams! (1864)
A Heroic Capital! (1865)