Political Outlook
O'Leary was a separatist, believing in complete Irish independence from Britain. However, he was not a republican but a constitutional monarchist. He believed in physical force, but was opposed to individual acts of violence such as those promoted by O'Donovan Rossa with his Skirmishing Fund, believing that revolutionary action should be thoroughly prepared. He was strongly opposed to the land agitation promoted by Michael Davitt and Parnell. For most of his life, he was opposed to any form of parliamentary action, being particularly hostile to the former Fenian M.P. John O'Connor Power. However, he supported Parnell during the early days of the Split of 1890-91. He was a secularist, believing that the Church should stay out of politics, and in an article published in the Dublin University Review in 1886 showed some awareness that Protestants would require guarantees of their liberties within an independent Ireland. Like most intellectuals of his generation, he was not interested in the Irish language, although sympathetic to organizations of the Gaelic revival of the 1880s onwards.
Read more about this topic: John O'Leary (Fenian)
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