Romantic Young Irelander, republican revolutionary, father of the Irish tricolour and political exile, 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 life time. 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 car