Brian Dillon

Brian Dillon (also spelled Bryan Dillon) (1830 – 17 August 1872) was an Irish republican leader and a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

His family moved to a house near the corner of Old Youghal Road and Ballyhooly Road.

Arrest and imprisonment In September 1865, police arrested Fenian leaders James Stephens and O'Donovan Rossa in Dublin, and Brian Dillon in Cork. The police searched Dillon's home and found a pair of field glasses, some drawings, and some incriminating letters sewn into the mattress of his bed. Isaac Butt and Mr Waters represented the defendants. The charges were "in one indictment with having conspired to depose the Queen, &c., and with illegally drilling and being drilled in furtherance of that design". although John Warner's account was very weak and unsatisfactory under cross examination. The defendants were sentenced to ten years' penal servitude.

Today his name is inscribed in the National Monument on the Grand Parade and in street names like Dillon's Cross, Brian Dillon Park and Brian Dillon Crescent. The Brian Dillons G.A.A. club in the same area of Cork city is also named after him.