Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa

author

Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa

1831–1915

A fierce Fenian activist whose life stretched from famine-era Cork to revolutionary politics in Ireland and the United States, he became one of the best-known faces of militant Irish nationalism. His funeral in Dublin in 1915 helped turn him into a lasting symbol of the struggle for Irish independence.

1 Audiobook

Rossa's Recollections, 1838 to 1898 Childhood, boyhood, manhood; customs, habits and manners of the Irish people; Erinach and Sassenach; Catholic and protestant; Englishman and Irishman; English religion; Irish plunder; social life and prison life; the Fenian movement; Travels in Ireland, England, Scotland and America

Rossa's Recollections, 1838 to 1898 Childhood, boyhood, manhood; customs, habits and manners of the Irish people; Erinach and Sassenach; Catholic and protestant; Englishman and Irishman; English religion; Irish plunder; social life and prison life; the Fenian movement; Travels in Ireland, England, Scotland and America

by Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa

About the author

Born in Rosscarbery, County Cork, in 1831, he grew up in the shadow of the Great Famine, an experience that shaped his hard-line politics. He became involved in nationalist organizing early, founded the Phoenix National and Literary Society in Skibbereen, and went on to become a leading member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

British authorities arrested him in the 1860s, and years of imprisonment made him famous among Irish nationalists. After his release, he settled in the United States, where he continued writing, speaking, and raising support for Irish republican causes, keeping his name at the center of transatlantic nationalist politics.

He died in Staten Island, New York, in 1915, but his story did not end there. His body was returned to Dublin for a huge public funeral, where Patrick Pearse delivered the graveside oration that became one of the defining speeches of the revolutionary period.