sentences:  From early on he espoused the republican beliefs of Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet  and wrote for The Nation and John Martin's "The Irish Felon" in support of economic and political improvements for the working class.He was more interested in the realities of the common man than high idealism.As a member of the Irish Confederation during the Potato Famine, Reilly together with John Mitchel and James Fintan Lalor advocated the refusal to pay rents, retention of crops by small tenant farmers and labourers to feed their own families, and the breaking-up of bridges and tearing-up of railway lines to prevent the removal of food from the country.