The New International Encyclopædia/Young Ireland

YOUNG IRELAND. A party which had its rise during the agitation for the repeal of the Act of Union carried on by O'Connell (q.v.) after 1841, and differing from that great leader in their advocacy of forcible means for the attainment of their demands. The break between the Young Ireland Party and the conservative section became definite about the year 1844. Those who took a prominent part in the movement were Thomas Osborne Davis (q.v.), Gavan Duffy (q.v.), John Mitchel, Thomas Francis Meagher (q.v.), John Blake Dillon, and William Smith O'Brien (q.v.). In the Nation, the organ of the party, the people of Ireland were repeatedly called upon to revolt, and in the stormy year 1848 the British Government grew alarmed, Mitchel was arrested and deported to Tasmania, whereupon the other leaders of the Young Irelanders set to work with renewed activity to bring about an uprising. The attempted insurrection, however, failed miserably, and the leaders were all speedily arrested. Meagher and O'Brien were sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to transportation. The movement therewith quickly collapsed. See Ireland.