Egan, James Francis (1847–1909), Fenian, was born in Limerick city, son of the proprietors of a small city hotel, of whom no other details are known. Educated locally, as a young man he worked initially as a commercial traveller for a Dublin ironmongery firm, and subsequently for a similar firm in Birmingham. A close friend of John Daly (qv), Egan probably worked secretly during the 1870s and 1880s as an IRB arms agent. In October 1883 he came under close British surveillance after Daly (who was followed from America) had stayed in his Birmingham lodgings. Ultimately, with the help of an agent provocateur, the police found grounds to arrest both men, Daly first on 9 April 1884 and Egan two days later. A search of Egan's residence unearthed sticks of nitroglycerine (allegedly planted by a government agent) and a number of IRB documents. Charged with treason-felony at Warwick in July that year, Egan was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years’ penal servitude in Chatham prison.
In prison he developed a lifelong friendship with Thomas Clarke (qv), with whom he communicated by smuggling notes and tapping Morse code on cell walls. During 1888, after the former chief of police in Birmingham made a deathbed confession that Daly and Egan were victims of an agent provocateur, John O'Connor (qv) and Joseph Biggar (qv) raised the question in parliament and visited Egan in prison. Meanwhile, in Ireland the IRB formed a handful of amnesty clubs demanding that their case be reopened, the first of these being the Limerick Irish Political Prisoners Committee. Although the government was not willing to reconsider Daly's case, Egan was given a ticket-of-leave on 21 January 1893, partly in response to the demands of the Irish National Amnesty Association (established 25 August 1892). On his release, a public testimonial was collected for him (raising the modest sum of £87) and he was appointed as a travelling lecturer for the small Amnesty Association of Great Britain, led by Mark Ryan (qv).
From 1894 to 1898, together with Maud Gonne (qv), Egan lectured regularly in the UK and the US in favour of the Amnesty Association, ultimately raising £2,300 before the association disbanded in March 1899, not long after the release of Tom Clarke (Daly was released in October 1896). Simultaneously Egan worked with Ryan in promoting a new underground organisation known as the Irish National Brotherhood (INB). On 4 September 1898 Egan was appointed sword-bearer in Dublin city hall, a well paid sinecure that he held until his death. In February 1900 he was persuaded by Arthur Griffith (qv) to issue a protest against the corporation's plan to give a special reception to Queen Victoria on her visit to Dublin that April. In turn he was granted the freedom of Limerick by John Daly, and in October 1900 was appointed a vice-president of the new Cumann na nGaedheal organisation in Dublin. An active promoter of the Wolfe Tone Memorial Committee (established August 1898), he remained a popular figure in Dublin republican circles, and some important IRB meetings were held at his Chapelizod home during the early 1900s. Though not prominent in the Gaelic League, he was nevertheless made a member of its Oireachtas in early 1905. Tom Clarke lived for a time with Egan in his new Swords home after his return to Dublin on 10 December 1907. Egan died suddenly in the Clarence Hotel, Dublin, on 28 September 1909. His wife, whom he married c.1880 and who had promoted the Daughters of Erin (established September 1900), predeceased him in April 1908. They do not appear to have had children.