Thomas Davis
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Thomas Osborne Davis (October 14, 1814 - September 16, 1845) was Irish writer and politician who was the chief organizer and poet of the Young Ireland movement.
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Thomas Davis was born in the town of Mallow in the rebel county of Cork. He studied in Trinity College, Dublin, and received an Arts degree, precursory to his being called to the Irish Bar in 1838. He established The Nation newspaper with Charles Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon. He dedicated his life to the Irish Nation and so was against the English domination of Ireland.
He wrote some stirring patriotic ballads, originally contributed to The Nation, and afterwards republished as Spirit of the Nation, also a memoir of Curran the great Irish lawyer and orator, prefixed to an edition of his speeches; and he had formed many literary plans which were brought to naught by his untimely death.
He himself was a Protestant, yet inspired by the holy ideas of Nationalism, he preached peace between Catholics and Protestants. To Davis, it was not blood that made you Irish, but the willingness to be part of the Irish nation. Although the Saxon and Dane were hated, their descendants would be Irish if they simply allowed themselves to be, and rallied round the flag of Ireland. He was to the fore of Irish nationalist thinking and it has been noted by later Nationalist heroes, such as Padraig Pearse, that while Wolfe Tone laid out the basic fact that Ireland as a nation must be free, Davis was the one who built this idea up promoting the Irish identity.
Template:A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature
One of the secondary schools in Davis' home town of Mallow, Davis College, is named after this Irish patriot.