O'BRIEN, James Francis Xavier, letters, autographs, documents, manuscripts



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O'BRIEN, James Francis Xavier (1828-1905). Irish Nationalist.
Brief Autograph Letter Signed to Basil E.P. Gregg in Sterborough, Torquay, 1 page 8vo, Irish National league of Great Britain, London, 26 September 1899. Complying with a request for his autograph.

O'Brien, by this date the respected member of parliament for Cork City (previously for South Mayo) and secretary of the Irish National League of Great Britain, had been involved in an attack by the Fenians on the Ballynockan police barracks on the night of 3 March 1867. For this crime of treason he had been sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, the last man to be sentenced to this punishment. The sentence was, however, commuted to penal servitude for life, and O'Brien was held initially in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, and later in London, where he was kept in solitary confinement for fourteen months. After a period of hard labour in Portland he was released on 4 March 1869.

£75 [No: 24099]
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