Richard Barry O'Brien (7 March 1847 – 17 March 1918) was a lawyer, historian, Irish journalist and prolific writer on Irish subjects. He was born at

Kilrush Kilrush () is a coastal town in County Clare, Ireland. It is also the name of a civil parish and an ecclesiastical parish in Roman Catholic Diocese of Killaloe. It is located near the mouth of the River Shannon in the south-west of the county. ...

County Clare County Clare () is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster in the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern part of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council ...

. 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 The Irish Literary Society was founded in London in 1892 by William Butler Yeats, T. W. Rolleston, and Charles Gavan Duffy. Members of the Southwark Irish Literary Club met in Clapham Reform Club and changed the name early in the year. On 13 Februa ...

and also joined the London

Gaelic League (; historically known in English as the Gaelic League) is a social and cultural organisation which promotes the Irish language in Ireland and worldwide. The organisation was founded in 1893 with Douglas Hyde as its first president, when it eme ...

. He became political secretary to Patrick McMahon, a role which introduced him to senior British and Irish politicians. He was loyal to, but not uncritical of,

Charles Stuart Parnell Charles Stewart Parnell (27 June 1846 – 6 October 1891) was an Irish nationalist politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom from 1875 to 1891, Leader of the Home Rule League from 1880 to 1882, and then of the ...

, leader of the

Irish Parliamentary Party The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nati ...

at Westminster. Parnell wished to make him an MP, but he declined, as he preferred to remain focused on writing. He wrote a much-discussed biography of Parnell in 1898. 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. He supported involvement in the First World War, where three of his sons fought.Irish Times 13 March 2018; An Irishman's Diary He died in London and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

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) * ''A Hundred Years of Irish History'' (1902) * ''England's Claim to Ireland'' (1905) * ''Fontenoy'' (1907) * ''Dublin Castle and the Irish People'' (1909) * ''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'' * ''Parliamentary History of the Irish Land Question'' * ''Irish Memories'' (1918)

References

External links

* * * *
Works by Richard Barry O'Brien
at

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:OBrien, Richard Barry 1847 births 1918 deaths People from County Clare Irish journalists People from Kilrush 19th-century Irish historians 20th-century Irish historians