Irish journalist and statesman, born in County Monaghan in 1816. He was for a time a journalist in Dublin and Belfast. He founded the Nation in Dublin, in connection with which he published the Ballad Poetry of Ireland, of which over forty editions have been sold. In 1844 he was tried and convicted for sedition at the same time as O’Connell, but the House of Lords quashed the conviction. He next helped to found the Irish Confederation. Again, in 1848, he was tried for treason-felony and acquitted. In 1856 he went to Australia, where he practiced law, at Melbourne. He entered politics there, and in 1857 became minister of public works for Victoria, in 1858 minister of lands, and again in 1862. In 1871 he was made prime minister, and in 1873 was knighted. In 1880 he returned to Europe, and published Young Ireland: A Fragment of Irish History (1850); Four Years of Irish History (1869); and numerous contributions to periodicals. See also “A Dispute with Carlyle” and “The Irish Rapparees.”
