On this day in 1842 – Birth of journalist and leading member of the Fenians, John Devoy in Kill, Co Kildare.

‘The most dangerous enemy of this country [Britain] Ireland has produced since Wolfe Tone’. –The London Times

John Devoy was born in Kill, Co Kildare in 1842 just prior to The Great Hunger (1845-1852) which saw approximately one million Irish starve to death and another million emigrate to America and elsewhere. After Irish defeats by Oliver Cromwell and later by William III of Orange in the 17th century, an Anglo-Irish Protestant ruling class dominated Ireland. The majority of the Catholic Gaelic Irish population lived in dire poverty sustaining themselves on a diet of potatoes. The Great Irish Hunger would convince many, Catholic and Protestant alike, that misrule in Ireland could only be remedied by Irish independence from Britain.