"Romantic Young Irelander, republican revolutionary, political exile and father of the Irish tricolour, Thomas Francis Meagher became a citizen of the United States and a leading ethnic spokesman in his adopted republic. The first commanding general of the famed Irish Brigade during the American Civil War and post-war de-facto governor of Montana Territory until his mysterious death in 1867, Meagher's career remains as controversial today as it was during his own lifetime. One of the finest republican orators of his day, Meagher has recently been honoured by a new heroic statue in the city of his birth, Waterford, Ireland. In this new academic study scholars from three continents fully chronicle the various aspects of Meagher's often colourful and mercurial career.

In tracing his ancestral origins from the sixteenth century Irish midlands to his present day descendants in California, this original study vividly portrays the Irish, Australian and American influences on Meagher's career, a career marked by frustrated hope and unfulfilled ambition. If something of a glorious failure, Meagher helped shape the destiny of his adopted republic and changed forever the perception on the Irish in the New World. This collection is an important addition to nineteenth-century trans-atlantic community studies and Irish studies generally."--Jacket.