John Kearney was an Irish activist and a member of Clann na Gael, captured during what was called the Fenian dynamite campaign (1881 to 1885).
After the failure of the rebellion of 1867 and of the raids on Canada in 1866 and 1870, many American Fenians were disillusioned about any campaign to counter the British presence in Ireland.
[citation needed] A dynamite school in Brooklyn, America trained men in the do-it-yourself use of explosives, and then dispatched them to Britain to undertake attacks in cities there.
[citation needed] By the early 1880s at least four of students of the school were in operation in Ireland, Scotland and England, the most remarkable being Timothy Featherstone, John Francis Kearney, Henry Dalton and Thomas J.
[citation needed] Kearney, a student of Mezzeroff, was a key element of the Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa backed group that exploded three bombs in Glasgow in January 1883, at a gasworks, a railway station and a canal bridge.