John Pius Boland

John Mary Pius Boland (16 September 1870 – 17 March 1958) was an Irish Nationalist politician, and Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party for South Kerry from 1900 to 1918. He was also noteworthy as a gold medallist tennis player at the first modern Olympics.

Early life Boland was born at 135 Capel Street, Dublin, to Patrick Boland (1840–1877), businessman, and Mary Donnelly. Following the death of his mother in 1882, he was placed with his six siblings under the guardianship of his uncle Nicholas Donnelly, auxiliary bishop of Dublin.

Boland was educated at two private Catholic schools, one Irish, the second English, and both of whose existence and evolution were influenced by John Henry (later Cardinal) Newman – the Catholic University School, Dublin, and The Oratory School, Birmingham (since re-located to near Reading) where he became head boy. His secondary education in the two schools either side of the Irish Sea helped give him the foundation and understanding to play an influential role in the politics of Great Britain and Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century, when he was a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party which pursued constitutional Home Rule.

In 1892 he graduated with a BA from London University. He had studied for a semester in Bonn, Germany, where he was a member of Bavaria Bonn, a student fraternity that is member of the Cartellverband. Boland studied law at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating with a BA in 1896 and MA in 1901; although called to the Bar in 1897, he never practised.

His patriotic stand was well received in nationalist circles in Ireland. This and a lifelong friendship with John Redmond gained for him an invitation to stand as a candidate for the Irish Parliamentary Party in the safe seat of South Kerry, which he held from 1900 to 1918. He was unopposed in the general elections of 1900 and 1906, and the first of 1910; in the second election of 1910 he was challenged by a local man, T. B. Cronin, who stood as an independent nationalist in the interest of William O'Brien. Boland stood down at the 1918 general election.

They had one son and five daughters; his daughter Honor Crowley succeeded her husband Frederick Crowley upon his death sitting as Fianna Fáil TD for South Kerry from 1945 until 1966, when she died. His daughter Bridget Boland was a playwright who notably wrote The Prisoner and co-wrote the script for Gaslight, and, among other books, co-authored Old Wives' Lore for Gardeners with her sister, Maureen Boland.

Death He died at his home in London on St. Patrick's Day 1958.