I am surprised that somebody has not remembered that Saturday last, November 17th, was the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Joseph Brenan, the youngest of the Young Irelanders, and not the least of them. It has been claimed that Cork was Brenan's birthplace; but his brother-in-law, John Savage, whom Fordham University made an LL.D., was most emphatic that he was an Ulsterman. He was certainly reared in Cork, and it was there he became a journalist instead of entering the Church, as his people intended he should do. Some time in 1848 he met John Mitchel in Cork, and was so impressed by the revolutionary leader that he sold his rifle and betook himself, as many natives of Cork have done since, to Dublin just at the moment when Mitchel's paper, The United Irishman, was being suppressed. He contributed to the Felon, and became editor of The Irishman. In 1849 he assisted Fintan Lalor in an abortive insurrection, which included an attack on Cappoquin police barracks. After that he had to fly to America, where he wrote for some years for the New Orleans Delta, Dolman's Magazine, and, occasionally, Mitchel's Citizen. But yellow fever, contracted in 1853, almost completely blinded him, and forced him to resign the editorship of the New Orleans Times, and he died a few years later.
Brenan was a forcible young fellow, wrote vigorous prose, and made good use of a copious vocabulary. He wrote verse of some merit even when he was spending nine months in Kilmainham Jail, but neither his essays nor his poems have been collected.
The Irish Times
November 20th, 1928.