McDonnell, Thomas (d. 1809), printer and bookseller, was known as a young Dublin printer in 1763; nothing else is known of his early life. He was one of the master printers contracted to produce the Hibernian Journal in 1771, the year of its inception, and took part (August 1773) in a protest against a protectionist campaign by Dublin weavers. In early 1777 he brought out the short-lived Hibernian Sheet Almanack in the city. Probably under economic strain during the recession of the late 1770s, he announced in April 1778 that he would give up his printing shop. Later that year he took the test oath under the catholic relief act of August 1778, becoming entitled to the small leasehold and inheritance benefits for which the legislation provided. He manifested his liberal Patriot leanings during the 1780s by publishing works critical of the penal laws. In January 1788 he became proprietor of the Hibernian Journal, a Patriot organ, of which he had long been the editor. Having made an abortive attempt to introduce the Dublin Weekly Journal to the city market in September 1782, he issued the Dublin Packet or Weekly Advertiser in May 1788. Reverting to the earlier title, this paper survived until 1794. Editorial politics in both papers was firmly anti-government.
In about 1792 McDonnell was admitted to membership of the Society of United Irishmen of Dublin (one of a significant minority of Dublin printers), fostering the project of republican reform in the Hibernian Journal. Wolfe Tone (qv) enjoyed a dinner on 16 October at ‘McDonnel [sic], the Printers. A choice set, all United Irishmen. Sundry good toasts’ (Tone, i, 383). McDonnell belonged to the General Committee of Catholics of Ireland in the early 1790s and represented Dublin (St Nicholas Without) at the Catholic Convention of December 1792. Choosing to call him to account for publication of a resolution (signed by the city sheriff and others) critical of oligarchic corruption in parliament, the attorney general, Arthur Wolfe (qv), ordered him for interview by the commons on 28 January 1793. Admonished and taken into custody by majority vote, he was released after two days.
Under threat of prosecution for publication of United Irish propaganda, he resigned from the society on 26 April 1793, one of a large group of original members inclined to reform but hesitant under duress. It seems that in late summer 1793 he was admitted to the Dublin guild of printers, which until that date was exclusively protestant. The privileges of membership probably helped put his finances on a sounder footing. In June 1794 he was a minor witness for the crown in the failed prosecution of William Drennan (qv). From 1793 the political independence of the Hibernian Journal was, by and large, neutered. Though it was never recruited to the stable of Castle papers in his lifetime, it maintained a steady circulation and political near-invisibility. It did, however, oppose the act of union in 1800; it became a daily in 1801. McDonnell died 7 March 1809, after some years of ill health. His first wife (née Mahon; m. August 1763) died in 1776. He married secondly (August 1776) Elizabeth Baron. She survived him and succeeded him as proprietor of the Hibernian Journal, selling it c.1811.