John Mitchel was an Irish nationalist writer and journalist chiefly renowned for his indictment of British policy in Ireland during the years of the Great Famine. Concluding that, in Ireland, legal and constitutional agitation was a "delusion", Mitchel broke first with Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association and then with his Young Ireland colleagues at the paper The Nation. In 1848, as editor of his own journal, United Irishman, he was convicted of seditious libel and sentenced to 14-years penal transportation for advocating James Fintan Lalor's programme of co-ordinated resistance to landlords and to the continued shipment of harvests to England.
Young Ireland was a political and cultural movement in the 1840s committed to an all-Ireland struggle for independence and democratic reform. Grouped around the Dublin weekly The Nation, it took issue with the compromises and clericalism of the larger national movement, Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association, from which it seceded in 1847. Despairing, in the face of the Great Famine, of any other course, in 1848 Young Irelanders attempted an insurrection. Following the arrest and the exile of most of their leading figures, the movement split between those who carried the commitment to "physical force" forward into the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and those who sought to build a "League of North and South" linking an independent Irish parliamentary party to tenant agitation for land reform.
Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa was an Irish Fenian leader who was one of the leading members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Born and raised in Rosscarbery, County Cork, he witnessed the Great Famine. Rossa founded the Phoenix National and Literary Society and dedicated his life to working towards the establishment of an independent Irish Republic. He joined the IRB, was arrested by the British and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1869 he was elected to the British parliament while in prison. After being exiled to the United States in 1870 as part of the Cuba Five amnesty, Rossa worked with other Irish revolutionary organisations there to oppose British rule in Ireland.
County Tipperary was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, which from 1801 to 1885 returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
The Young Irelander Rebellion was a failed Irish nationalist uprising led by the Young Ireland movement, part of the wider Revolutions of 1848 that affected most of Europe. It took place on 29 July 1848 at Farranrory, a small settlement about 4.3 km north-northeast of the village of Ballingarry, South Tipperary. After being chased by a force of Young Irelanders and their supporters, an Irish Constabulary unit took refuge in a house and held those inside as hostages. A several-hour gunfight followed, but the rebels fled after a large group of police reinforcements arrived.
Bedfordshire was a United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of England from 1295 until 1707, then the House of Commons of Great Britain until 1801 and the House of Commons of the United Kingdom until 1885 when it was divided into two constituencies under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885.
Michael Doheny was an Irish writer, lawyer, member of the Young Ireland movement, and co-founder of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, an Irish secret society which would go on to launch the Fenian Raids on Canada, Fenian Rising of 1867, and the Easter Rising of 1916, each of which was an attempt to bring about Irish Independence from Britain.
James Fintan Lalor was an Irish revolutionary, journalist, and “one of the most powerful writers of his day.” A leading member of the Irish Confederation, he was to play an active part in both the Rebellion in July 1848 and the attempted Rising in September of that same year. Lalor's writings were to exert a seminal influence on later Irish leaders such as Michael Davitt, James Connolly, Pádraig Pearse, and Arthur Griffith.
John Martin was an Irish nationalist activist who shifted from early militant support for Young Ireland and Repeal, to non-violent alternatives such as support for tenant farmers' rights and eventually as the first Home Rule MP, for Meath 1871–1875.
John O'Connor Power was an Irish Fenian and a Home Rule League and Irish Parliamentary Party politician and as MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland represented Mayo from June 1874 to 1885. From 1881, he practised as a barrister specialising in criminal law and campaigning for penal reform.
Charles Joseph Kickham was an Irish revolutionary, novelist, poet, journalist and one of the most prominent members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Thomas Devin Reilly(Tomás Damhán Ó Raghailligh) was an Irish revolutionary, Young Irelander and journalist.
Denis Caulfield Heron LL.D QC was an Irish lawyer and politician, who was Catholic Liberal MP for Tipperary, and a senior legal adviser to the British Crown. He was born in Dublin, the eldest son of William Heron, a merchant, and his wife Mary Maguire of Newry, Co Down. He was educated at Downside School, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, and proceeded to Trinity College Dublin, where he was elected a Scholar.
Patrick James Smyth, also known as Nicaragua Smyth, was an Irish politician and journalist. A Young Irelander in 1848, and subsequently a journalist in American exile, from 1871 he was an Irish Home Rule Member of the United Kingdom Parliament for Westmeath and from 1880 for Tipperary.
Charles Guilfoyle Doran (1835–1909) was a leading figure in the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and the Fenian Brotherhood in Ireland from the middle of the 19th century. He was also Clerk of Works on the construction of St. Colman's Cathedral in Cobh, County Cork.
Stephen Moore (1836–1897), was an Irish Conservative politician in the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Charles William White was an Irish Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
The Fenian Rising of 1867 was a rebellion against British rule in Ireland, organised by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).
The 1875 Kilkenny City by-election was fought on 28 April 1875. This arose due to the death of the incumbent Home Rule MP, John Gray.
The March 1875 Tipperary by-election took place on 11 March 1875. The by-election, to one of two seats in the UK House of Commons constituency of Tipperary, arose due to the disqualification of the recently elected member, John Mitchel, who had won an uncontested by-election the previous month.
