1. William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
William O'Brien was particularly associated with the campaigns for land reform in Ireland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as his conciliatory approach to attaining Irish Home Rule.
William O'Brien was born at Bank Place in Mallow, County Cork, as the second son of James O'Brien, a solicitor's clerk, and his wife Kate, the daughter of James Nagle, a local shopkeeper.
William O'Brien was linked through his mother with the statesman Edmund Burke's mother's family, as well as with the poet Edmund Spenser's family.
William O'Brien shared his primary education with a townsman with whom he was later to have a close political connection, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile.
William O'Brien enjoyed his secondary education at the Cloyne diocesan college, which resulted in his being brought up in an environment noted for its religious tolerance.
William O'Brien greatly valued having had this experience from an early age, which strongly influenced his later views on the need for such tolerance in Irish national life.
William O'Brien had begun legal studies at Queen's College, later University College Cork, but although he never graduated, he held a lifelong attachment to the institution, to which he bequeathed his private papers.
William O'Brien subsequently appointed him in 1881 as editor of the Irish National Land League's journal, United Ireland.
From 1883 to 1885 William O'Brien was elected MP for Mallow.
In 1887 William O'Brien helped to organise a rent strike with John Mandeville during the Plan of Campaign at the estate of Lady Kingston near Mitchelstown, County Cork.
William O'Brien occasionally wore this much-publicised suit in the Commons when confronting his incarcerator, Arthur Balfour.
William O'Brien fled to America accompanied by Dillon who was on bail, then to France where both held negotiations with Parnell at Boulogne-sur-Mer over the leadership of the party.
William O'Brien's wife brought considerable wealth into the marriage, enabling him to act with political independence and providing finances to establish his own newspapers.
William O'Brien worked hard in the 1893 negotiations leading to the passage by the Commons of Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill; however, the Bill was rejected by the Lords.
William O'Brien's UIL was by far the largest organisation in the country, comprising 1150 branches and 84,355 members.
William O'Brien next intensified the UIL agitation for land purchase by tenant farmers, pressing for compulsory purchase.
William O'Brien formed an alliance with constructive unionists which resulted in the calling of the December 1902 Land Conference, an initiative by moderate landlords led by Lord Dunraven for a settlement by conciliatory agreement between landlord and tenant.
William O'Brien followed this by campaigning vigorously for the greatest piece of social legislation Ireland had yet seen, orchestrating the Land Purchase Act 1903 through parliament, which effectively ended landlordism, solving the age-old Irish Land Question.
William O'Brien appealed to Redmond to suppress their opposition but his call went unheeded.
William O'Brien had failed in his intention of shocking the party to its senses.
In 1904 William O'Brien then joined forces with Sheehan's ILLA organisation, identifying himself with labourer's grievances and Sheehan's demand for agricultural labourers' housing, who up to then were dependent on limited provision of cottages by local County Councils or landowners at unfavourable terms.
William O'Brien grasped the prime importance of its principles and measures when during 1905 he pressed and negotiated together with support from Sir Anthony MacDonnell for what was carried into law and after the January 1906 general election became the ground-breaking Bryce Labourers Act.
From July 1910 until late 1916 William O'Brien published the League's newspaper, the Cork Free Press.
In June 1918 Griffith asked William O'Brien to have the writ moved for his candidacy in the Cavan-east by-election to which Griffith was elected with a sizeable majority.
On 2 November 1911 William O'Brien proposed full Dominion status similar to that enjoyed by Canada, in an exchange of views with Asquith, as the only viable solution to the "Irish Question".
William O'Brien concluded by turning to 'our fellow countrymen in Ulster' in proposing to secure for them a position of undiminished citizenship in this Empire under some projected scheme of federalism.
William O'Brien was the first Nationalist leader to call on Irish Volunteers for the front.
William O'Brien later wrote: "Whether Home Rule is to have a future will depend upon the extent to which the Nationalists in combination with Ulster Covenanters, do their part in the firing line on the fields of France".
William O'Brien stood on recruiting platforms with the other National leaders and spoke out encouragingly in favour of voluntary enlistment in the Royal Munster Fusiliers and other Irish regiments.
William O'Brien, alarmed at the increased activity of Sinn Fein in 1915, predicted the danger of a potential republican eruption, culminating in the IRB 1916 Rebellion, in which however Sinn Fein were not involved.
William O'Brien was forced to cease publication of his Cork Free Press in 1916 soon after the appointment of Lord Decies as Chief Press Censor for Ireland.
William O'Brien accepted the Rising and the ensuing changed political climate in 1917 as the best way of ridding the country of IPP and AOH stagnation.
William O'Brien refused to participate in the Irish Convention after southern unionist representatives he had proposed were turned down.
The Convention ended in failure as William O'Brien predicted when Britain attempted to link the enactment of Home Rule with conscription.
William O'Brien disagreed with the establishment of a southern Irish Free State under the Treaty, still believing that Partition of Ireland was too high a price to pay for partial independence.
William O'Brien died suddenly on 25 February 1928 while on a visit to London with his wife at the age of 75.
William O'Brien's remains rest in Mallow, and one of the principal streets in the town bears his name to this day, as does Great William O'Brien Street in Cork.