Remembering John Mitchel: A Voice of Defiance

20th March 1875 - The Passing of John Mitchel

Born the son of a Non-subscribing Presbyterian minister, John Mitchel turned from comfort and convention to stand with a nation in distress.

In the years of the Great Hunger, he refused the easy lie of inevitability and he spoke plainly of a people starved under foreign rule. Where others capitulated, he openly called for resistance. Where others sought favour, he chose defiance.

Through his writings and his actions, he exposed the true nature of British policy in Ireland and paid the price for it, sent into exile for daring to tell the truth.

Elected by the people of Tipperary, he stood on an abstentionist principle, recognising no legitimacy in the institutions imposed upon Ireland. Following his election, days before his passing, he wrote an open letter to the people of Tipperary to thank them for helping him to expose that democracy under British rule is a fabrication.

Uncompromising in his convictions, formidable in intellect, as well as being a man of real complexity, Mitchel helped shape the Republican tradition that would follow him.

His words endure not only for their resonance, clarity and importance, but also because they were forged in a time of immense suffering and because they spoke for Ireland.

“Mitchel's is the last of the four gospels of the new testament of Irish nationality, the last and the fieriest and the most sublime.”

- Pádraig Mac Piarais

An Phoblacht Abú!