Richard Barry O'Brien

Richard Barry O'Brien (7 March 1847 – 17 March 1918) was a lawyer, historian, Irish journalist and prolific writer on Irish subjects.^[1][2]

He was born at Kilrush, County Clare. He studied law at the Catholic University, Dublin, after which he went to London. He was a founder-member there of the Irish Literary Society and also joined the London Gaelic League.^[3]

Politically he was loyal to, but not uncritical of, Charles Stuart Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster.^[4] Parnell wished to make him a MP, but he declined, as he preferred to remain focused on writing. He wrote a much-discussed biography of Parnell in 1898.^[2] O'Brien was a political insider and a committed Home Ruler and the biography throws light on the activities of Home Rule MPs and their links to the Fenian Movement.

Select works

• The Irish Land Question and English Public Opinion (1879)
• Fifty Years of Irish History (2 vols., 1883–85)
• Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland (1883)
• Biography of Parnell (1898)
• Thomas Drummond: life and letters (1899)
• The Life of Lord Russell of Killowen (London, 1902)
• Ireland (1905)
• The autobiography of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763-1798 (Ed., 1910)
• John Bright, a Monograph, with a preface by Augustine Birrell (London, 1910)
• The Home-Ruler's Manual
• A Hundred Years of Irish History (1912)
• Parliamentary History of the Irish Land Question
• Irish Memories (1918)
• Dublin Castle and the Irish People

References

1. Dictionary of Irish Biography
2. "Richard Barry O'Brien". Personal Notes. Otago. Otago Witness. 26 January 1899. p. 58. Retrieved 2013-04-23.
3. "Obituary". Boston College. 18 March 1918. Retrieved 16 December 2014.
4. R. Barry O'Brien at Ricorso

External links

• Works by Richard Barry O'Brien at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Richard Barry O'Brien at Internet Archive
• Works by Richard Barry O'Brien at Google Books