“I now bid farewell to the country of my birth – of my passions – of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies – whose factions I sought to quell – whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim – whose freedom has been my fatal dream.” –Thomas Francis Meagher
Born in Co Waterford, Thomas Francis Meagher, Fenian, Nationalist and leader of the Young Irelanders in the Rebellion of 1848, with his fierce Irish nationalism, managed to get himself into difficulties on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1848, Meagher and William Smith O’Brien went to France to study revolutionary events there, and returned to Ireland with the new Flag of Ireland, a tricolour of green, white and orange made by and given to them by French women sympathetic to the Irish cause. The acquisition of the flag is commemorated at the 1848 Flag Monument in the…
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Irish history, folklore and all that 