Other People of Interes

Thomas Davis
Davis was born at Mallow on 14th October 1814 shortly after the death of his father, an army surgeon. In 1818 his mother and her four children moved to Dublin, settling eventually at 61 (now 67) Lower Baggot Street, where they remained affectionately together until Davis's death.
He graduated from Trinity College in 1836 and was called to the Irish Bar a year later. He also spent some time in England and on the Continent, studying languages and building up his library. He published an anonymous pamphlet on Reform of the Lords in 1837, joined the National Repeal Association founded by Daniel O'Connell and in 1840 made a notable speech at Trinity's Historical Society, pleading for studies of Irish history. Davis's few productive years lay ahead. He began writing for 'The Citizen', a monthly established by leading members of the Historical Society and for the Dublin Morning Register.
In 1841 he and his college friend, John Blake Dillon, a barrister, met a young journalist called Charles Gavin Duffy. Duffy shared their burgeoning allegiance to Irish nationhood and independence and while walking in the Phoenix Park they conceived the idea of producing a newspaper. Davis was a Protestant, the others were Roman Catholics and with Duffy as editor they published 'The Nation', whose first weekly issue appeared on 15th October 1842. Its slogan was 'Educate that you may be Free'.
Readership soon reached 250,000, outstripping every other Dublin journal and fulfilling its aim 'to direct the popular mind and the sympathies of educated men of all parties to the great end of Nationality'. Davis was the principal contributor and he found he could write stirring patriotic ballads such as 'A Nation Once Again' and 'The West's Asleep'. 'The Nation' also published John Kells Ingram's 'Who fears to speak of '98?' and in 1843 the best songs were reprinted as 'The Spirit of the Nation'. Davis also planned a monthly series of shilling volumes forming 'The Library of Ireland' (1845 - 1847), in which his own 'Literary and Historical Essays and Poems' were to influence subsequent patriots.
Although on the committee of the Repeal Association, Davis felt its approach was too sectarian. He and his associates became known as 'The Young Irelanders' and ultimately they became impatient with O'Connell's rather limited aims, particularly after he accepted a ban on his Clontarf meeting in 1843. Davis and O'Connell quarrelled publicly over the 1845 Colleges Bill, which proposed undenominational university colleges. Davis approved of non-sectarian education while O'Connell spoke of 'godless education'. What is unknown is whether or not Davis would have supported John Mitchel and the other Young Irelanders as they moved towards rebellion in 1848, for he died at home of a fever on 16th September 1845.
Plaques mark his birthplace at what is now 72 Thomas Davis Street, Mallow, and his Dublin home. A statue by John Hogan marks his grave at Mount Jerome cemetery, Dublin. A memorial by Edward Delaney is in College Green, Dublin.