THOMAS OSBOURNE DAVIS Thomas Davis was born in Fermoy in 1814 and studied law at TCD, where he became an ardent nationalist. With Charles Gavan Duffy he founded the Nation newspaper, in which he published a great deal of patriotic verse by himself and others. He is credited with establishing the Young Ireland movement and exposing the futility of O’Connell’s ‘Repeal’ agitation. He died in an epidemic in 1845.