Sullivan Brothers

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Sullivan Brothers

(A. M. and T. D.)

Nation editors and MPs Alexander Martin (A. M.) Sullivan (1829–1884) and Timothy Daniel (T. D.) Sullivan (1827–1914) were born and educated in Bantry, Co. Cork. After contributing to various newspapers, A. M. purchased part of the Nation in July 1855. When A. M. assumed complete control of this famed nationalist weekly in 1857, the poetic T. D. became his co-editor. The devoutly Catholic brothers gave the previously nonsectarian paper a decidedly Catholic tone. In 1859 A. M. established the Evening News and the Morning News, Dublin's first penny morning paper. Though popular, both papers folded in 1864 because of legal problems.

During the early 1860s the Sullivans, who were constitutional nationalists, feuded with the physicalforce Fenians, but after the 1867 Fenian rising failed, the Sullivans capitalized on Fenian-inspired political excitement. The Weekly News, a cheap paper founded by A. M. in 1860, became the most popular Irish newspaper by running political cartoons sympathetic to the Fenians. In addition to their newspapers, the Sullivans published Speeches from the Dock, a collection of courtroom orations by earlier Irish nationalists and the recently convicted Fenians; the book was an instant best-seller and remained so for years. When three of the Fenian prisoners were hanged in November 1867, T. D. responded by writing "God Save Ireland," which served as the unofficial national anthem for over fifty years. The Weekly News's criticism of the hangings resulted in A. M. serving three months in prison for seditious libel in 1868.

A. M. helped to found the Home Rule movement in 1870 and was elected MP for Louth in 1874. Two years later he became a lawyer and sold the Nation and Weekly News to T. D., who in 1875 had founded the literary magazine Young Ireland. After moving to London, A. M. won acclaim as a parliamentary speaker and lawyer before ill health forced him to retire in 1881. Meanwhile T. D.'s newspapers promoted Charles Stewart Parnell's leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party and supported the Land League. In 1880 T. D. joined Parnell's party as MP for Westmeath. In the next year the launch of Parnell's new weekly, United Ireland, severely hurt the circulation of T. D.'s papers, so in 1888 T. D. turned the floundering Weekly News into the Irish Catholic, a weekly organ of Catholic opinion. Finally, in 1890 T. D. sold all his publications. During the Parnell split in 1890 and 1891, the moralistic T. D. opposed Parnell's continued leadership of the party, and he served as an anti-Parnellite MP until 1905. The Sullivans and their papers kept constitutional nationalism alive, turned their Fenian opponents into folk heroes, and laid the basis for an explicitly Catholic Irish nationalism.

SEE ALSO Fenian Movement and the Irish Republican Brotherhood; Home Rule Movement and the Irish Parliamentary Party: 1870 to 1891; Literacy and Popular Culture; Newspapers; Primary Documents: "God Save Ireland" (1867)