Leinster Leader

The paper was founded 1880 in Naas, County Kildare as the Leinster Leader and Central Counties Commercial and Agricultural Adviser by Patrick Cahill, LLB, who was its first editor in August 1880. Patrick Cahill was an Irish Nationalist, Land League Activist and supporter of Home Rule, he was jailed under the Coercion Act of 1881.

One of the early majority shareholders of The Leader in its early days was the MP for North Kildare James Laurence Carew.

John Wyse Power, a supporter of nationalist causes and a founding member of the GAA, succeeded Cahill as the second editor of the paper for a year and a half.

Another editor of the paper were Seumus and his brother Michael O'Kelly, both prominent Nationalists, Michael succeeded Seamus as Editor of the Leader, in 1912, but upon his arrest in 1916, Seamus resumed the editorship briefly.

This paper was one of the first of the new breed of nationalist papers which was set up in Naas, Co. Kildare, in August, 1880. Unfortunately, during its first 6 years of circulation it was badly managed and accumulated heavy debts which threatened to sink the newspaper. A Mr. James Carew, MP for North Kildare, in 1886 bought out the paper for the sum of £1,100. He later went on to setup the Irish Daily Independent, forerunner of the present Irish Independent. The year that the Leinster Leader first appeared, there were seventeen daily newspapers in Ireland".

In the graveyard behind The Sacred Heart Church of Arles is the grave of the prominent Tenant-leader and the first editor of the 'Leinster Leader' newspaper, Mr Patrick Cahill.

FINNS LEINSTER JOURNAL

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