Thomas Clarke Luby (16 January 1822 – 29 November 1901) was an Irish revolutionary, author, journalist and one of the founding members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Early life
Luby was born in Dublin, the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman from Templemore in County Tipperary, his mother being a Catholic. His uncle was Dr. Thomas Luby, mathematician, Professor of Greek and a Fellow and Dean of Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Luby according to Desmond Ryan was a true Tory, who was much distracted by his nephew's political wildness. He was educated at Trinity where he studied Law and put in the necessary number of terms in London and Dublin where he acquired a reputation as a scholar and took his degree, and would go on to teach at the college for a time.
Politics
Luby supported the Repeal Association, and contributed to The Nation newspaper. After the breach with Daniel O'Connell he joined the Young Irelanders in the Irish Confederation. Luby was deeply influenced by James Fintan Lalor at this time. Following the suppression of the 1848 rebellion he with Lalor and Philip Gray attempted to revive the fighting in 1849 as members of the secret Irish Democratic Association, this too, was to end in failure. In 1851 Luby travelled to France, where he hoped to join the French Foreign Legion to learn infantry tactics but found the recruiting temporarily suspended. From France he went to Australia for a year before returning to Ireland. From the end of 1855 he edited the Tribune newspaper founded by John E. Pigot who had been a member of the Nation group. The spirit of the paper was that of the Nation, which had converted him to a revolutionary nationalist, with a leaning towards both Mitchel and Lalor. During this time he had remained in touch with the small group of '49 men including Philip Gray and attempting to start a new revolutionary movement. Luby's views on social issues had grown more conservative after '48 which he made clear to James Stephens whom he had met in 1856. However, on several journeys through the country with Stephens he was thoroughly won over by his colleague's ability and success as an organiser. In January 1857 both Stephens and Luby attended the funeral of Philip Gray in County Meath. At the service, Stephens insisted that Luby give the oration, which later Luby regarded as a poor and halting attempt.
Irish Republican Brotherhood
In the autumn of 1857 Owen Considine arrived with a message signed by four Irish exiles in the United States, two of whom were John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny. The message conveyed the confidence they had in Stephens and asking him to establish an organisation in Ireland to win national independence. Considine also carried a private letter from O'Mahony to Stephens which was a warning, and which was overlooked by Luby and Stephens at the time. Both believed that there was a strong organisation behind the letter, only later to find it was rather a number of loosely linked groups. On 23 December Stephens dispatched Joseph Denieffe to America with his reply which was disguised as a business letter, and dated and addressed from Paris. In his reply Stephens outlined his conditions and his requirements from the organisation in America.
On 17 March 1858, Denieffe arrived in Dublin with the acceptance of Stephens' terms by the New York Committee and the eighty pounds. Denieffe's report that there was no actual organised body of sympathizers in New York but merely a loose knot of associates. Disturbed, Stephens went ahead regardless, and that very evening the Irish Republican Brotherhood was established, in Peter Langan's timber-yard in Lombard Street. Luby's description of the event in a letter to John O'Leary in 1890 was that immediately after the return of Denieffe, "at once Stephens began organizing. I had already made some provisional trips into Meath county; but 'twas on Patrick's Day 1858, that the I.R.B. movement was formally commenced. I drew up the form of oath, under Stephens' correction, in his room at Dennelly's, in the street behind and parallel to Lombard Street. The first text had clauses of secrecy and of obedience to all commands of superior officers not immoral. I swore Stephens in and he swore me." The original I.R.B. oath, as quoted by Luby and O'Leary, and which is among several versions in Stephens's own papers, ran: