Constituency : Kilkenny City 1865-74 . 1874-5 ( Home Rule League )
Sir John replaced Michael Sullivan at Kilkenny. Although new to Parliament John had already been deeply involved in Irish politics for the past twenty years.
Sir John was born in Mayo and educated at Trinity College , Dublin. He went on to obtain a medical degree at Glasgow University in 1839. He started work at a Dublin hospital. In 1841 he became joint proprietor of the Freeman's Journal , a nationalist paper. Although a Protestant he was a strong supporter of Daniel O Connell's Repeal Association and was indicted with him on sedition charges in 1843. John was sympathetic to the Young Ireland movement but distanced himself from the 1848 rebellion. In 1850 he became sole proprietor of the paper and increased its circulation and influence by reducing the price. He organised the founding conference of the Tenants' League and stood as its candidate in Monaghan in 1852. He became a Dublin councillor that year. His major achievement was the establishment of a fresh water supply to the city for which he was knighted in 1863. In 1864 he put the paper's weight behind Archbishop Cullen's National Association providing a constitutional alternative to Fenianism. The aims were disestablishment of the Irish Church, land reform and free denominational education.
Sir John used his position in Parliament and his paper to push for disestablishment and provided Gladstone with ammunition with an enquiry into the church' wealth. He also pressed successfully for fixity of tenure to be incorporated into the first Land Act. However the government's later resort to coercion and its failure to resolve the university question to nationalist satisfaction led Sir John to desert to the Home Rule League for the 1874 election.
He died the following year aged 60. His son Edmund later became a Dublin MP.
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