John Devoy (, ; 3 September 1842 – 29 September 1928) was an Irish republican rebel and journalist who owned and edited The Gaelic American, a New York weekly newspaper, from 1903 to 1928. Devoy dedicated over 60 years of his life to the cause of Irish independence and was one of the few people to have played a role in the Fenian Rising of 1867, the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Irish War of Independence of 1919–1921. Early life Devoy was born in Kill, County Kildare, on 3 September 1842 the son of a farmer and labourer named William Devoy. After the famine, the family moved to Dublin where Devoy's mother obtained a job at Watkins' brewery. Devoy attended night school at the Catholic University before joining the Fenians. In 1861 he travelled to France with an introduction from Timothy Daniel Sullivan to John Mitchel. Devoy joined the French Foreign Legion and served in Algeria for a year before returning to Ireland to become a Fenian organiser in Naas, Co Kildare. Nationalist leader In 1865, when many Fenians were arrested, James Stephens, founder of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), appointed Devoy Chief Organiser of Fenians in the British Army in Ireland. His duty was to enlist Irish soldiers in the British Army into the IRB. In November 1865 Devoy orchestrated Stephens' escape from Richmond Prison in Dublin. In February 1866 an IRB Council of War called for an immediate uprising, but Stephens refused, to Devoy's annoyance, as Devoy calculated the Fenian force in the British Army to number 80,000. The British got wind of the plan through informers and moved the regiments abroad, replacing them with regiments from Britain. Devoy was arrested in February 1866 and interned in Mountjoy Gaol, then tried for treason and sentenced to fifteen years penal servitude. In Portland Prison Devoy organised prison strikes and was moved to Millbank Prison in Pimlico, London. American years In January 1871, he was released and exiled to the United States as one of the Cuba Five. He received an address of welcome from the House of Representatives. Devoy became a journalist for the New York Herald and was active in Clan na Gael. Under Devoy's leadership, Clan na Gael became the central Irish republican organisation in the United States. In 1877, he aligned the organisation with the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Ireland. In 1875, Devoy and John