Easy it was to see that when the government
placed John O'Leary in the dock they had caged a proud spirit, and an
able and resolute enemy. He had come of a patriot stock, and from a part
of Ireland where rebels to English rule were never either few or
faint-hearted. He was born in the town of Tipperary, of parents whose
circumstances were comfortable, and who, at the time of their decease,
left him in possession of property worth a couple of hundred pounds per
annum. He was educated for the medical profession in the Queen's
College, Cork, spent some time in France, and subsequently visited
America, where he made the acquaintance of the chief organisers of the
Fenian movement, by whom he was regarded as a most valuable acquisition
to the ranks of the brotherhood. After his return to Ireland he
continued to render the Fenian cause such services as lay in his power,
and when James Stephens, who knew his courage and ability, invited him
to take the post of chief editor of the Fenian organ which he was about
to establish in Dublin, O'Leary readily obeyed the call, and accepted
the dangerous position. In the columns of the _Irish People_ he laboured
hard to defend and extend the principles of the Fenian organization
until the date of his arrest and the suppression of the paper.
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