Thomas Brennan (Irish Land League)

Thomas was the second child of Patrick Brennan and Catherine Rourke of Yellow Furze, Beauparc, County Meath. Although not much is known of his schooling and early years, he evidently received a high degree of formal education, as illustrated by his knowledge of history and oratory skills which he displayed at a young age. By the age of 18 he was working as a clerk alongside his uncle James Rourke for the Murtagh Bros baking company in Castlebar, County Mayo. He and his uncle both joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in the early 1870s. Brennan, alongside other Fenians based in Connacht, successfully campaigned for John O'Connor Power in the 1874 general election, despite strong opposition to Power's candidacy from the Irish Catholic Church.[1]

Brennan moved to Dublin in 1876 to work at the head office of Murtagh Bros, which had been renamed the North City Milling Company and was one of the largest stock companies in Ireland. The company was led by fellow IRB member Patrick Egan, who appointed Brennan as his secretary. During this time Brennan also became secretary of the Leinster IRB, and honorary secretary of the Dublin Mechanics Institute. In January 1878, Brennan organised a homecoming reception for several recently released IRB members, including Michael Davitt, who had been imprisoned at Dartmoor for seven and a half years. Following this, a close friendship developed between Brennan, Egan and Davitt.[1]

Portrait of Brennan from The Graphic,
20 November 1880

The three men fervently advocated for widespread agitation in the west of Ireland, where the conditions of tenant farmers were especially poor, igniting a period of civil-unrest and sporadic violence known as the Land Wars. They organised a large-scale protest at Irishtown, County Mayo, attended by 15,000-20,000 people, on 20 April 1879 during which Brennan was a principal speaker. The protest yielded a reversal of potential evictions and a 20% reduction in rent in the area.[2]

This success spurred Brennan, Davitt and Egan to establish the Land League of Mayo in June 1879. They convened a meeting of Irish nationalists at the Imperial Hotel in Castlebar on 21 October 1879 during which the Irish National Land League was founded. Brennan was appointed a secretary alongside Davitt and Andrew Kettle. Prominent Home Rule League MP Charles Stewart Parnell was chosen as the Land League's first President. From 1879 to 1881 Brennan worked tirelessly within the League's executive and became a familiar face at Land League rallies, where he garnered national attention as an eloquent public speaker. As Parnell attempted to attract more moderate members to the land league, Brennan used his speeches to link the demand for tenant rights with the ultimate demand for complete Irish independence, while also demonstrating radical egalitarian and socialist views.[1]

Due to their advocacy of non-payment of rent, all senior land league officials were arrested between December 1880 and October 1881 under the Coercion Act. Brennan was convicted under the Protection of Persons and Property Act on 23 May 1881 and imprisoned at Kilmainham Gaol. He was a signatory of the No Rent Manifesto which was issued from Kilmainham on 18 October 1881, calling for a national tenant farmer rent strike. The Land League was suppressed even further as a result.[3]

In May 1882, Parnell agreed to the Kilmainham Treaty, in which he withdrew the manifesto and pledged to bring violence to an end in exchange for government leniency on rent owed by over 100,000 Irish tenant farmers. Under this agreement, Parnell and the Land League would return to the parameters of parliamentary and constitutional politics. This approach was strongly opposed by Brennan, who immediately sided with Davitt in continuing to promote land nationalisation upon his release from prison in June 1882. In order to prevent further fragmentation amongst Irish nationalists, Parnell invited Brennan and Davitt to draft a programme for a new national political organisation to replace the Land League during the summer and autumn of 1882. Whilst the constitution of the new Irish National League was being debated, the more radical Irish nationalists continued to propose vigorous actions against the British government and land nationalisation; however, they were overruled by Parnell. By September, Davitt had relented and agreed to substitute land nationalisation for peasant proprietorship. Brennan, ideologically opposed to the new party, effectively retired from politics and left Ireland for the United States.[4]

He emigrated to New York in late 1882 to work for Patrick Ford's Irish World newspaper, which had been the largest fund-collector for the Land League and promoted radical views in opposition to Parnell. In March 1883, Brennan moved to Omaha, Nebraska where he led a career as an attorney. He became a well-known lecturer for the Irish National League of America, and he traveled across the US continuing to criticise Parnell and the wider Home Rule movement as being too centered on Westminster, and instead advocated educating the Irish populace in non-violent republicanism.[5] Despite his close contacts with Clan na Gael, Brennan opposed the Fenian dynamite campaign of the 1880s on the grounds that it harmed the reputation of the Irish republican movement.

Brennan's former colleague, Patrick Egan, had also emigrated to Nebraska and was running a successful real-estate and insurance brokerage in the nearby city of Lincoln. When Egan was appointed as United States Ambassador to Chile in 1889, Brennan took over his business and managed the company for the remainder of his life.

He never married, and died in Omaha, Nebraska on 19 December 1912. He is buried in an unmarked grave at Holy Sepulchre Roman Catholic Cemetery, 4912 Leavenworth Street, Omaha, Nebraska.[6]