Lalor takes his place in pantheon of heroes

In the pantheon of Irish patriots, a higher place might, under different circumstances, have been reserved for James Fintan Lalor.

Born in Tinnakill House, in Co Laois, in 1807, Lalor was a precursor to the agrarian agitation of Michael Davitt and the Land League.

But Lalor formed his ideas during the Great Famine, and that catastrophe ruled out any meaningful organisation, even as it proved that he was right about an inequitable system.