John Martin (Young Irelander)

He received an Arts degree at Trinity College, Dublin in 1832 and proceeded to study medicine, but had to abandon this in 1835 when his uncle died and he had to return to manage the family landholding.

She shared her husband's politics, and after his death campaigned for home rule believing this to be a continuation of the Young Ireland mandate.

While in Tasmania, Martin continued to meet in secret with his fellow exiles Kevin Izod O'Doherty, Thomas Francis Meagher, William Smith O'Brien, and John Mitchel.

Martin opposed the Fenians' support of armed violence, yet, together with A M Sullivan, in December 1867 he headed the symbolic funeral march honouring the Manchester Martyrs as it followed the MacManus route to Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

Hence a secular Protestant land-owning non-violent elite reformist nationalist who desired Home Rule like Martin, could find himself both sympathetic to and at odds with a militant organisation like the Fenians with their Jacobin- and American-influenced ideas of revolutionary republicanism and different social roots.

He died in Newry, County Down, in March 1875, homeless and in relative poverty, having forgiven tenant fees during preceding years of inflation and low farm prices.

[3] "Then, my lords, permit me to say, that admitting the narrow and confined constitutional doctrines, which I have heard preached in this court, to be right, I am not guilty of the charge according to this Act!

In the article of mine, on which the jury framed their verdict, which was written in prison, and published in the last number of my paper, what I desired to do was this, to advise and encourage my countrymen to keep their arms; because that is their inalienable right, which no Act of Parliament, no proclamation can take away from them.

And secondly, I admit, that being a man who loves retirement, I never would have engaged in politics did I not think it necessary to do all in my power to make an end of the horrible scenes the country presents – the pauperism, and starvation, and crime, and vice, and the hatred of all classes against each other.

John Martin's address to the crowd at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin in honour of the Manchester Martyrs 8 December 1867:[4]- ... "The three bodies that we would tenderly bear to the churchyard, and would bury in consecrated ground with all the solemn rites of religion, are not here.

It was as Irish patriots that these men were doomed to death (cheers)... ... "You will join with me now in repeating the prayer of the three martyrs whom we mourn – 'God Save Ireland!'