Philip Francis Johnson

Philip Francis Johnson, usually known as P. F. Johnson (1835 – 3 November 1926) was an Irish nationalist political labour activist and Kanturk hotel proprietor. Born at Mallow, County Cork, he co-founded in 1869 the Kanturk Labourers’ Club, where he was lifelong committed to the well-being of labourers in the Munster region. He had close Fenian connections and was active in the Land League. Although an anti-Parnellite he supported the Irish National League with a branch in Kanturk.

Johnson was well educated and widely travelled, as a youth he spent eight years in India, visiting the South Sea Islands. When he returned to Ireland in the late 1850s he worked as a commercial agent and stationmaster. He married Teresa Rourke in September 1857 and they had two daughters. He became proprietor in 1860 of the substantial Egmont Hotel in Kanturk through renting it from the estate of the Earl of Egmont.

Johnson played a prominent role from 1869 in the Amnesty Association established by Isaac Butt, campaigning for the release of Fenian prisoners. The association organised its first open-air rallies in Mallow and Skibbereen where Johnson displayed his fierce gift of oratory. He also addressed further pro-Fenian meetings, which included a commemoration at Kilclooney Wood, the site of the death of Peter O’Neill Crawley. He contributed letters to the weekly pro-Fenian The Irishman, as well as to the Cork Examiner, publicly advocating a republican form of government, but his exact relationship to the Irish Republican Brotherhood are unclear, often denying he was a sworn Fenian member.

When Isaac Butt founded the Home Government Association in 1870, Johnson was active in its formation and campaigned for it in several elections always opposing the Gladstonian candidates. In October 1872 he, together with Butt and John Nolan, leader of the Amnesty Association, went on a speaking tour of Britain.

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