James Fintan Lalor

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James Fintan Lalor (March 10, 1807–December 27, 1849) was an Irish radical journalist and revolutionary.

He was born in Tenakill House, Raheen, County Laois, the eldest of eleven sons. After injuring his spine as infant, he was left with a hump on his back and semi-crippled for the rest of his life. He was short-sighted, deaf and suffered from acute asthma all his life. His father, Pat Lalor, was a landowner and a leading figure in the Tithe Wars of the 1830s. For a time a staunch supporter of Daniel O'Connell who served held a seat in the House of Commons for Queen's County from 1832 to 1835.

James Fintan Lalor received his educated at Carlow Lay College, later becoming a chemist's apprentice in Portlaoise. He only remained eighteen months here, when he left suddenly and embarked for France.

He joined O’Connell’s Repeal Association but was expelled for siding with the militant Young Ireland faction. In the 1840s he began publishing articles in The Nation based on the principle that only those who worked on the land should own it. The Great Irish Famine led him into direct action: he attempted to found tenant-right societies and organise rent strikes

In 1846 Lalor helped found the Irish Confederation and attempted to form a tenant rights association in his native Laois. He wrote extensively for The Nation and The Irish Tribune in which he proclaimed "the land of Ireland for the people of Ireland".

When John Mitchel was arrested in 1848, Lalor joined John Martin in carrying on Mitchel's paper, The United Irishman under the significant title of The Irish Felon. He partook in the June 1848 Rising at Clonakilty near Thurles, County Tipperary, after which he was arrested, tried on a charge of treason felony and imprisoned in Nenagh Jail, and then transferred to Newgate Prison in Dublin.

He was released in August 1848 due to his increasing ill-health and on 16 September 1849, he, together with Thomas Clarke Luby and John O'Leary, lead a Rising in Counties Tipperary and Waterford during which Lalor lead the attack on Cappoquin Royal Irish Constabulary barracks. He was arrested and died of bronchitis in a Dublin prison on December 27, 1849.

He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.