John O'Leary
O'Leary, John (1830-1907), revolutionary and man of letters. Born in Co. Tipperary, he had enough private means to study desultorily at TCD, Cork, and Galway. O'Leary belonged to the left wing of the Young Ireland movement with James Fintan Lalor, and was released from prison after 1848 on condition that he leave the country. During 1863-5 he edited The Irish People. Charged with treason-felony, he endured brutal treatment in English prisons. In 1885 he returned to Ireland, and became the centre of a literary circle that included W. B. Yeats, Maud Gonne, and Arthur Griffith. O'Leary called his memoirs Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism (1896).





