The Freeman's Journal

Freeman's Journal, The (1763-1923), a political newspaper founded by Charles Lucas (1713-1771), an apothecary and politician who set out to win privileges for the Protestant guilds of ‘freemen’. Notable contributors to The Freeman's Journal included Henry Grattan. In the time of Daniel O'Connell, the paper broadcast the policies of Irish nationalism under the editorship of Michael Staunton (1788-1870). The Freeman supported John Redmond in the reconstituted Irish Parliamentary Party under William Brayden's editorship (1892-1916). The paper supported the Treaty Party [see Anglo-Irish War] and its premises were destroyed by the IRA in a raid of March 1922.