In fact Francis Higgins is mentioned in the Secret Service Money Book as having betrayed Lord Edward FitzGerald.

Contemporary sources record it being read to the largely illiterate population by priests and local teachers gathering in homes.

On the nationalist side some preferred The Nation founded by Thomas Davis while others, including radical supporters of Parnell, read the United Irishman.

Just prior to the outbreak of the Irish Civil War in March 1922, the Freeman's Journal printing machinery was destroyed by Anti-Treaty IRA men under Rory O'Connor for its support of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

After its destruction, the newspaper refurbished buildings at 6-8 Townsend Street incorporating the former Dublin Coffee Palace however these were ultimately ransacked by anti-treaty forces in March 1922.

Its decline is reflected in "the anxious question posed in Aeolus about the Freeman’s editor, WH Brayden: 'But can he save the circulation?