1. Charles Joseph Kickham was an Irish revolutionary, novelist, poet, journalist and one of the most prominent members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
20 Facts About Charles Kickham
1. 2.
Charles Kickham was born at Mullinahone, County Tipperary, on 9 May 1828.
3.
Charles Kickham grew up largely deaf and almost blind, the result of an explosion with a powder flask when he was 13.
4.
Charles Kickham was educated locally, where it was intended he study for the medical profession.
5.
Charles Kickham often heard the issues discussed in his father's shop and at home amongst all his friends and acquaintances.
6.
Charles Kickham became acquainted with the teaching of the Young Irelanders through their newspaper The Nation from its foundation in October 1842.
7.
Charles Kickham contributed when he was 22 years old, The Harvest Moon sung to the air of "The Young May Moon", to The Nation on 17 August 1850.
8.
Charles Kickham began to write for a number of papers, including The Nation, but the Celt, the Irishman, the Shamrock, and would become one of the leader writers of the Irish People, the Fenian organ, in which many of his poems appeared.
9.
Charles Kickham was the leading member of the Confederation Club in Mullinahone, which he was instrumental in founding, and when the revolutionary spirit began to grip the people in 1848 turned out with a freshly made pike to join William Smith O'Brien and John Blake Dillon when they arrived in Mullinahone in July 1848.
10.
On hearing of the progress of O'Brien through the country, Charles Kickham had set to work manufacturing pikes, and was in the forge when news reached him that the leaders were looking for him.
11.
The staff of the paper along with Charles Kickham were Luby and Denis Dowling Mulcahy as the editorial staff.
12.
Charles Kickham articulated the attitude held by the IRB in relation to priests, or more particularly in politics:.
13.
Charles Kickham supplied Ryan with an "action this year" message on its way to the IRB unit in Tipperary.
14.
On 11 November 1865, Charles Kickham was convicted of treason and sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude.
15.
Charles Kickham spent time from 1866 until his release in the Invalid Prison at Woking.
16.
Charles Kickham wore an ear trumpet, and could only read when he held books or papers within a few inches of his eyes.
17.
The lives of the characters illustrate the iniquities of the land system but Charles Kickham provides a positive portrait of the virtues of Irish life.
18.
Charles Kickham was the author of three well-known stories, dealing sympathetically with Irish life and manners and the simple faith, the joys and sorrows, the quaint customs and the insuppressible humour of the peasantry.
19.
Charles Kickham knew the Irish people thoroughly, but especially the middle and so-called lower classes, and from thoroughness of knowledge came thoroughness of sympathy.
20.
Charles Kickham died on 22 August 1882, in his 54th year.