From the Earth, a Cry: The Story of John Boyle O'Reilly

By Ian Kenneally

A biography of one of Ireland's most remarkable historical figures; a compelling account of an extraordinary life. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1848891318
• ISBN13: 9781848891319
• Release Date: February 2012
• Publisher: Collins Press
• Length: 374 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book, reads like a novel. Deeply researched.

John Boyle O'Reilly was very well known in Boston from the 1880s through to the 1890s when he was editor of the Boston Pilot newspaper to his death from overwork and exhaustion not helped by a possible accidental over-dose of a sleeping medicine to help him sleep as he suffered from sleepless nights at the time. He was married and had 3 to 4 daughters. One of whom followed her father (and her mother who was a young reporter in the Boston Pilot when she married O'Reilly) into the journalism profession and became a reporter and died in the 1930s. His life journey was exciting and unexpected. He was born in County Meath, Ireland and joined a cavalry regiment of the British army as a young man. Next he became a Fenian wanting independence for Ireland, was convicted for this, and deported to Australia from where he escaped on the American 'Catalpa' ship or schooner which was sailed from the US to Australia to help Boyle O'Reilly and 5 other Fenian prisoners to escape. He came to Boston and got a job working for the then owner and editor of the Boston Pilot and began to move away from the violence of Fenian beliefs in achieving independence for Ireland. He believed however that a person had a right to defend themselves if subjected to violence in any form. A few years after his arrival in Boston he was editor and continued as editor and journalist for the Boston Pilot for about 19 years to his death. The book reads like a novel, but is a deeply researched and readable work of non-fiction with real depth on this remarkable man and on the social climate in Boston at the time. He received a large and respectful funeral, when the great and the good and all sectors of Boston society mourned his sudden death.