It was founded during the atmosphere of the revolutions of 1848.The Nation was a nationalist newspaper supportive of Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association.

One of its writers, John Mitchel, resigned in 1847, wanting to engage in a more "vigorous policy against the English government".

For The Irish Tribune, the proprietors were scientist and physician, Thomas Antisell, who had a clinic, a lectureship in botany and was an assistant to the chemist Professor Robert Kane, and two medical students, Kevin O'Doherty and Richard Williams.

After two failed trials, O'Doherty was convicted of the same crime as Mitchel on 30 October and sentenced to transportation to Van Diemen's Land for ten years, as was Martin.

Antisell was sentenced to exile and imprisonment, but escaped arrest as a friend helped to secure a post as a surgeon on a US-bound ship; he and others, including Savage, arrived there in November.