Much has been written about John Boyle O Reilly(1844 1890), Irish-born poet, journalist, fiction-writer, member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood/Fenians, political/civil rights activist, and the accepted voice and leader of the Irish-American exiles. Wherever the Irish diaspora are to be found there too exists a Boyle O Reilly Society, as the name plays host to Gaelic/athletic clubs in areas all over the world. A summary of O Reilly s career and action-packed life is difficult to formulate: at seventeen he was a stenographer in England; at nineteen a private soldier in the 10th Hussars; at...