Thomas Davis

Thomas Davis (1814–1845) was an Irish writer and political organizer, the leading spirit of the Young Ireland movement. Born in Mallow, County Cork, and educated at Trinity College Dublin, he trained as a barrister but in 1842 founded the weekly newspaper The Nation with Charles Gavan Duffy and John Blake Dillon. Through its essays and ballads he urged Irish people of every religion to take pride in their history, language and music. His songs, among them A Nation Once Again, The West's Asleep and the Lament for Owen Roe O'Neill, became national anthems in all but name. He died of scarlet fever at the age of thirty.