Sir Charles Gavan Duffy

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy 1816-1903, Irish-Australian statesman. He founded (1842) the Nation, a patriotic Irish literary journal. Duffy agitated for the repeal of the union of Ireland and England, first working with Daniel O'Connell and then with the more radical Young Ireland movement. In 1848 he was arrested for advocating rebellion but later was acquitted. Entering Parliament in 1852, he helped to found the Independent Irish party. Disconsolate over the failure of Catholics and Protestants to unite for land reform, he went (1855) to Australia. He entered (1856) the assembly of the Victoria colony, and as minister of land and works (1857-59, 1862-65) he formulated a land act to aid immigrant farmers and check the dominance of squatters. He served (1871-72) as prime minister of Victoria. Duffy was knighted in 1873.

Duffy, Sir Charles Gavan (1816–1903). Duffy had a strange career. The son of a shopkeeper from Monaghan, he moved to Dublin as a journalist in 1836 and in 1842 launched the Nation as the mouthpiece of Young Ireland. He broke with O'Connell in 1846 over the issue of moral force and in 1848 was implicated in the rising. Though put on trial, he was not convicted, and resumed his editorship of the Nation, but placing the emphasis on land reform. In 1852 he was elected to Parliament but, despairing of making progress, left for Australia in 1855. There he pursued his second career in Victoria, serving as legislator, minister, and 1871–2 as prime minister. He was knighted in 1873 and acted as Speaker 1876–80. Leaving Australia in that year, he spent most of the remainder of his life in southern Europe.

J. A. Cannon

Duffy, Charles Gavan (1816–1903), Young Irelander. Born in Monaghan of a middle‐class Catholic family, Duffy became a journalist with the Dublin Morning Register in 1836, and editor of the Belfast Vindicator in 1839. He was proprietor and editor of the Nation from 1842, and produced the Library of Ireland series. He was imprisoned for sedition in 1844, and in 1846 joined Young Ireland's secession from the Repeal Association. Despite his initial caution, the Paris revolution and the threat of coercion led him to support a rising in 1848. He was imprisoned until April 1849, after which he revived the Nation and devoted his attention to land reform and the Tenant League. He was MP for New Ross 1852–5. Disillusioned with Irish politics following the collapse of the Independent Irish Party (see independent opposition party), Duffy emigrated to Victoria in 1855 and rose to be prime minister in 1871–2 and speaker of the Assembly in 1876–80, receiving a knighthood in 1873. He subsequently retired to Nice to write his extremely influential memoirs and historical accounts of the 1840s and 1850s.

Peter Gray