1. John Devoy was born in Kill, County Kildare, on 3 September 1842 the son of a farmer and labourer named William John Devoy.
19 Facts About John Devoy
1. 2.
John Devoy attended night school at the Catholic University before joining the Fenians.
3.
John Devoy joined the French Foreign Legion and served in Algeria for a year before returning to Ireland to become a Fenian organiser in Naas, County Kildare.
4.
John Devoy's duty was to enlist Irish soldiers in the British Army into the IRB.
5.
In November 1865 John Devoy orchestrated Stephens' escape from Richmond Prison in Dublin.
6.
John Devoy was arrested in February 1866 and interned in Mountjoy Gaol, then tried for treason and sentenced to fifteen years penal servitude.
7.
In Portland Prison John Devoy organised prison strikes and was moved to Millbank Prison in Pimlico, London.
8.
John Devoy received an address of welcome from the House of Representatives.
9.
John Devoy became a journalist for the New York Herald and was active in Clan na Gael.
10.
John Devoy then travelled to Dublin where he told Tom Clarke and other members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood of the arrangement, and carried back to Devoy the IRB's wishlist for guns, money, and military leaders.
11.
Nervous of Casement's companion Adler Christensen, whom he discovered was a fraudster, and of Casement's decision to put the Irish Brigade at the Germans' disposal in Turkey, John Devoy advised Casement to return to the US, advice which was ignored.
12.
In 1916, John Devoy played an important role in the formation of the Clan-dominated Friends of Irish Freedom at the third Irish Race Convention, a propaganda organisation whose membership totalled at one point 275,000.
13.
John Devoy, who was suspicious of de Valera, had enormous admiration for Michael Collins, whom John Devoy referred to as "Ireland's Fighting Chief".
14.
When John Devoy returned to Ireland in 1924, Kenny, who was then an elderly widow, contacted John Devoy's relatives in Dublin.
15.
John Devoy had been under the assumption that Kenny had died, but that was actually Kenny's sister.
16.
John Devoy was editor of The Gaelic American from 1903 until his death.
17.
John Devoy supported the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and the formation of the Irish Free State during the Irish Civil War.
18.
In 1924, Devoy triumphantly returned to Ireland as an honoured guest of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government of W T Cosgrave.
19.
John Devoy's body was returned to Ireland where a state funeral was held.