Bio: O'Leary, John and O'Keeffe, D.C.

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Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives
Tipperary Index
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File contributed by: C. Hunt 

O'LEARY, JOHN AND O'KEEFFE, D.C. BIOGRAPHIES

John O'LEARY
Was born in Tipperary, July 23rd, 1830, and lived to the 
fine old age of seventy-seven. On St. Patrick's Day, 1907 
the gallant old Fenian leader passed to his reward. He 
studied medicine, but took no degree, all his energies being 
thrown into the Young Ireland Movement when he was eighteen 
years of age. When the Fenian movement started he took a 
leading part in its organisation, and with LUBY and KICKHAM, 
who predeceased him, he launched the Irish People to advance 
its principles. The boldness of its advocacy of the Fenian 
cause soon attracted the attention of the Government, and on 
the 15th September, 1865--nearly two years after its 
foundation--the paper was seized at his lodgings, brought to 
trial in December, convicted, and, like LUBY, sentenced to 
twenty years penal servitude. Released in 1870, he was 
banned from Ireland, and for fifteen years he lived the 
exile's life in Paris. He returned to Dublin on the 
expiration of his sentence, where he took an interest in the 
Irish Industrial and Literary movements, and was for a time 
president of the Young Ireland Society. A love of books 
characterised him during this period, and he was a foremost 
figure at all the old book shops, for which the city is 
noted. Personally, and especially at his own fireside, he 
was one of the most delightful of men. The death of his 
sister, Ellen, shortly after his settling in Dublin, was a 
sad blow to him. She held, even more intensely than he did, 
the same political views. He alludes to her with tender 
affection in his best known book, "Recollections of Fenians 
and Fenianism." His funeral to Glasnevin, on March 19th, 
1907--inclement though the day was--united men of divergent 
views, who admired the old chief for his staunch adherence 
to the ideals of his early days. Some of his other 
publications are "Young Ireland," "The Old and the New," 
"What Irishmen should know," and "How Irishmen should feel." 
He is interred alongside the cenotaph raised to the memories 
of ALLEN, LARKIN, and O'BRIEN, and the cross over his grave 
bears the following inscription in Irish:-- 
.......................

D.C. O'KEEFFE
Had a love stronger than death for the antiquities of his 
native Cashel. He left an injunction that a memorial typical 
of his country should be place above his grave. "This 
monument, a restored copy of the ancient cross on the Rock 
of Cashel, was, in accordance with his wish, erected to his 
memory by his nephew, Stephen Martin Lanigan O'KEEFFE, of 
Glanagyle, Co. Tipperary." O'KEEFFE, whose residence was 
Richmond House, Templemore, died at the ripe old age of 
eighty-four.

Source:
"Historic Graves in Glasnevin Cemetery" by R.J. O'Duffy. 
Published in 1915.