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1859, France
Miles Byrne (1780–1862) was born in Ballylusk, Co. Wexford, and at the age of 18 he became a unit commander in the 1798 Irish Rebellion. The rebellion, launched by the underground republican society the United Irishmen, aimed to sever the connection with Great Britain and establish an Irish Republic. The military uprising was put down with great bloodshed in the summer of 1798, and some of its leaders, notably Theobald Wolfe Tone, were killed or died in imprisonment, while many others were exiled. Byrne was a trusted lieutenant of Robert Emmet in the 1803 Rebellion and later fought for Napoleon. He is buried in Montmartre, Paris. As a result of the 1798 Rebellion, the Irish Parliament, which had existed since the thirteenth century, was abolished and, under the Acts of Union (1800), Ireland was ruled directly from London until January 1922.
THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER (1823–1867)
c.1862, USA
Meagher was an Irish nationalist and leader of the Young Irelanders during the 1848 Rebellion. He was initially sentenced to death after being convicted of sedition, but this was commuted to transportation for life to Van Diemen’s Land (in modern-day Tasmania). Meagher was born in Waterford City, where his father was twice elected Mayor. In 1848, Meagher and William Smith O’Brien travelled to France to understand the revolution there, and returned with the new flag of Ireland, a tricolour of green, white and orange made and given to them by French women sympathetic to the Irish cause. Following his escape from Tasmania and arrival in New York, Meagher emerged as a national leader of Irish-America. During the US Civil War, he recruited and led the ‘Irish Brigade’, which was one of the Union Army’s most celebrated units. He is seen here in the uniform of a Union Brigadier General. Meagher died in mysterious circumstances while serving as Montana’s acting territorial governor.
JOHN MITCHEL (CENTRE) WITH JOHN MARTIN AND FATHER JOHN KENYON (DETAIL)
1866, Dublin
This image depicts John Mitchel (1815–1875), John Martin (left, 1812–1875) and Father John Kenyon (right, 1812–1869). Mitchel was one of the most influential Irish nationalists of the nineteenth century, as well as being a publisher and journalist. In May 1848, he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation, arriving in Hobart, Tasmania, in April 1850. There he resided with his fellow Young Irelanders leader and friend John Martin, who’d been transported for treason in 1849. In 1853, Martin escaped by disguising himself as a priest and sneaking aboard a ship to Sydney, before making his way to San Francisco. Pardoned in 1858, he returned to Ireland and was elected to parliament in 1871. Mitchel became a vocal supporter of the Confederacy in the American Civil War, and lost two sons who served in the Confederate Army. Martin died in March 1875, having contracted bronchitis while attending Mitchel’s funeral. Father John Kenyon was a controversial and outspoken priest whose opinions on physical force and opposition to Daniel O’Connell led to him being suspended twice from clerical duties. He was a member of both the Young Ireland movement and the Irish Confederation.
JEREMIAH O’DONOVAN ROSSA (1831–1915) c.November 1866, Mountjoy Prison
O’Donovan Rossa was born in Reenascreena, Co. Cork. In 1856 he co-founded the Phoenix National and Literary Society in Skibbereen, which later amalgamated with the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). In 1865, he was arrested, tried on a charge of conspiracy, and given a life sentence. While imprisoned, he suffered greatly at the hands of his jailers. After an inquiry into the treatment of Fenian prisoners, he was given an amnesty in 1871, emigrated to the US and became involved in republican circles there.
c.1866, Mountjoy Prison
Born near Kill, Co. Kildare, Devoy would go on to become a man described by The Times in London as ‘the most dangerous enemy of this country [Britain] Ireland has produced since Wolfe Tone’. Sworn into the IRB in 1861, he was tried for treason in 1866 and endured a severe regime in Irish and English jails. In 1871 he was exiled to the US, where he became instrumental in forming Clan na Gael, the American wing of the IRB. Over the next half century, he was the most prominent leader of the Irish-American nationalist movement.
THE INVINCIBLES
c.1867–1882, Dublin and London
On 6 May 1882, Frederick Cavendish, the newly appointed chief secretary, arrived in Dublin. As he and Undersecretary Thomas Henry Burke walked through the Phoenix Park that day, they were targeted by seven Invincibles, a militant group within the IRB. The two officials were brutally stabbed to death – the highest-ranking British officials ever assassinated in Ireland. Clockwise from top left are James Fitzharris, Joe Brady, James Carey and Lord Frederick Charles Cavendish.
CARDINAL PAUL CULLEN (1803–1878) c.1860–1870
The influence of the Kildare-born Cardinal Paul Cullen on Irish society and culture from the mid-nineteenth century cannot be o...
