When he got married, Michael moved from Gortyarrigan to the town of Derry where he owned a hansom cab business and a chain of butcher shops, kept racing horses, traded in cattle, and supplied meat until 1916 for the British Royal Navy fort at Dunree.

He then joined the firm of Lawlor Ltd., of Ormonde Quay, Dublin, one of whose directors was Cathal Brugha, who subsequently became the first chairman and President of Dáil Éireann and the first Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army (the Old IRA).

Shortly after joining the Volunteers, Joseph's elder brother Seamus informed him of the existence of the secret revolutionary party called the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) of which he was a member.

He was asked to join and was initiated into it by a close friend of the O'Doherty family, Seán Mac Diarmada who was the manager of the radical newspaper Irish Freedom.

O'Doherty unloaded the first consignment of around 900 Mausers and 29,000 bullets off the Asgard along with Bulmer Hobson, Douglas Hyde, Darrell Figgis, Peadar Kearney, Thomas MacDonagh and others.

While accompanying the weapons convoy on the road from Howth to Dublin, O'Doherty broke the butt of his gun in a skirmish with the security forces, but successfully evaded them.

As the King's Own Scottish Borderers infantry regiment returned to barracks, they were accosted at Bachelors Walk by civilians who threw stones and exchanged insults with the regulars.

O'Doherty was also involved in the second gun-running the following week, around midnight on 1 August 1914, when the volunteers landed 600 more German-made Mauser 71 single-shot rifles and 20,000 rounds of ammunition off the Chotah at the much more discretely located beach at Kilkoole, County Wicklow, and spirited them away under cover of darkness.

In 1914 O'Doherty was one of a special group of IRB men mobilised under William Conway to frustrate a British Army recruiting meeting that was to be held at the Mansion House in Dublin.

They were mobilised in Parnell Square with about 24 hours' rations and with arms, but the word came that a large group of British soldiers were in Dublin Castle and had taken over control of the area so that it would be impossible to get in, and the operation was called off.

[7] Although the failure of the Rising was a major disappointment for the Volunteers, the Frongoch internment camp became known as the "University of Revolution", where the inmates planned their successful strategy to establish the First Dail in 1919.

Among those interned there, 30 would become TDs (including O'Doherty, Richard Mulcahy, Michael Collins, Seán T. O'Kelly) and Éamon de Valera, two of whom later became Presidents of Ireland.

This was disinformation campaign of black propaganda organised by the Dublin Castle administration to discredit Sinn Féin by falsely accusing it of conspiring with the German Empire to start an armed insurrection and invade in Ireland during World War I.

This alleged conspiracy which would have diverted the British war effort, was used to justify the internment of Sinn Féin leaders, who were actively opposing attempts to introduce conscription in Ireland.

The party contested the 14 December 1918 general election, called following the dissolution of the United Kingdom Parliament, and swept the country winning 73 of the 105 Irish seats.

O'Doherty, now aged 26, was elected as Sinn Féin Member of the UK Parliament for Donegal North, defeating his only opponent (from the Irish Parliamentary Party).

[8] Acting on their pledge not to sit in the Westminster parliament, but instead to set up an Irish legislative assembly, 28 of the newly elected Sinn Féin representatives met and constituted themselves as the first Dáil Éireann, describing themselves not as a MPs but as Teachtaí Dála (TDs).

The Dáil also approved a Democratic Programme, based on the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, and read and adopted a Message to the Free Nations of the World.

Like my co-Deputy from Tír Chonaill I came to this Session of Dáil Éireann with a mind that was open to conviction against these prejudices that I had; no argument that has been produced by those who are for this Treaty has made any influence on me; I see in it the giving away of the whole case of Irish independence; I am prepared to admit that the mandate I got from the constituents of North Donegal was one of self-determination; and it is a terrible thing and a terrible trial to have men in this Dáil interpreting that sacred principle here against the interests of the people.

He crossed the Atlantic aboard a luxury liner, where during a dinner party hosted by the ship's captain, another guest who was a world-famous boxer challenged him to a fight to entertain the passengers, but O'Doherty had to decline in order to avoid drawing attention to himself.

Travelling under a false passport as a Presbyterian minister to Canada, he entered the US by crossing the border with help from Irish whiskey smugglers (this was during the Prohibition era when alcohol was illegal in the USA).

He visited every capitol in all 48 contiguous US states, dropped thousands of fundraising leaflets from a biplane flying between Manhattan skyscrapers in New York, and lived there with his wife Margaret O'Doherty in her flat at Columbus Circle, while she practised medicine at St. Vincent's hospital in Greenwich Village.

His related adventures included descending the Grand Canyon on horseback, being invited to join a police raid on an opium den in San Francisco's Chinatown.