Patrick Egan (land reformer and diplomat)

Patrick Egan (August 31, 1841 – 1919) was an Irish and American political leader.

Egan was born in Ballymahon, Co. Longford, Ireland. His family later moved to Dublin and at the age of fourteen he entered the office of an extensive grain and milling firm, the North City Milling Company, in Dublin, and before he was twenty had been promoted to the post of chief bookkeeper and confidential man. Later he was elected managing director of this, as a stock company, it being the most extensive one in Ireland. He was, at the same time, senior partner in the most extensive bakery establishment in the county. He had been an industrious learner before going into business, and all this time took evening lessons of various instructors, and particularly of a brilliant young Episcopal minister of Dublin named Porte."

Egan became involved with the Irish Republican Brotherhood soon after its establishment. He and others (including John O'Connor Power, Joseph Biggar and John Barry) resigned from the Irish Republican Brotherhood in August 1877 over the condemnation by its leaders of the use of politics within a revolutionary organisation.

In 1873, Egan was treasurer of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and with the IRB's supported, participated in the establishment of the Home Rule League with fellow IRB Supreme Council members John O'Connor Power, Joseph Biggar and John Barry.

At its foundation in 1879, he was elected treasurer of the Irish Land League. He was a close associate of Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell. At the end of 1880, he, with twelve others, including Parnell, Dillon, Bigger, Sexton, Sullivan, Sheridan, and Matt Harris, were singled out by the government for prosecution for alleged conspiracy. After a costly trial of sixteen days the jury stood ten for acquittal and two for conviction. The government did not dare arraign them again, but brought in a bill to suspend the habeas corpus act, and to permit the arrest of any one obnoxious to the government, intending to proscribe all members of the league.

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