Thomas Devin Reilly (1823-5 March 1854) was a Young Irelander revolutionary during the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848.
Biography[]
Thomas Devin Reilly was born in Monaghan, County Monaghan, Ireland in 1823, and he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He espoused Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet's Irish republican views and wrote for The Irish Felon in support of economic and political improvements for the working class, focusing on the realities of the common man rather than high idealism. He fought in the failed Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848, and he was forced to emigrate to the United States, where he founded The People newspaper in New York City in 1849. He also pioneered American labor journalism, although he was an anti-communist due to its destruction of the independence and dignity of labor. He died in Washington DC in 1854 at the age of 30.