John Boyle O'Reilly was an Irish poet, journalist, author and activist. As a youth in Ireland, he was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, or Fenians, for which he was transported to Western Australia. After escaping to the United States, he became a prominent spokesperson for the Irish community and culture through his editorship of the Boston newspaper The Pilot, his prolific writing and his lecture tours.
O'Reilly in 1871
Photograph of imprisoned O'Reilly, 1866
News clipping from the Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, 17 January 1868, announcing the arrival of the Hougoumont in Fremantle
John Boyle O'Reilly Tombstone Holyhood Cemetery Brookline Massachusetts USA
Irish Republican Brotherhood
The Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret oath-bound fraternal organisation dedicated to the establishment of an "independent democratic republic" in Ireland between 1858 and 1924. Its counterpart in the United States of America was initially the Fenian Brotherhood, but from the 1870s it was Clan na Gael. The members of both wings of the movement are often referred to as "Fenians". The IRB played an important role in the history of Ireland, as the chief advocate of republicanism during the campaign for Ireland's independence from the United Kingdom, successor to movements such as the United Irishmen of the 1790s and the Young Irelanders of the 1840s.
Thomas Osborne Davis
John Mitchel
James Stephens was the founding President of the IRB and a tireless organisor for the group
John O'Mahony was amongst many Fenians who saw the American Civil War as an opportunity to gain military experience that could be used in the liberation of Ireland.