Jeremiah O’Donovan [Rossa] (1831-1915)

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Works
Autobiography, Irish Rebels in English Prisons [Six Years in English Prisons] : A Record of Prison Life (NY: Kenedy 1882); S. Ua Cearnaigh, ed., [Do., abridged as] My Years in English Jails (Tralee 1967); rep. as Irish Rebels in English Prisons (Dingle: Brandon Press 1991), 314pp.; Rossa’s Recollections 1838 to 1898 (NY: Mariner Harbour: O’Donovan Rossa 1898).

Fiction, Edward O’Donnell: A Story of Ireland of Our Day (NY: S. W. Green’s 1884), 300pp., 8o. [prev. publ. by Downey].

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Criticism
P. H. Pearse, ‘A Character Study: Diarmuid Ó Donnabhain Rosa, 1831-1915’, in Souvenir of Public Funeral to Glasnevin Cemetary (Dublin 1 Aug. 1915); ‘O’Donovan Rossa’ [graveside oration, 1 Aug. 1915], in Political Writings and Speeches (Dublin: Phoenix Publishing Co. Ltd. 1924), pp.125-37, as infra.

See also brief account of election victory of 1871 in D. G. Boyce, ‘Separatism and the Irish National Tradition’, in Colin H. Williams, ed., National Separatism (Cardiff: Wales UP 1982), p.89.

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Commentary

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Pádraic Piarais, Graveside Oration: ‘Do hiarradh orm-sa labhairt indiu ar son a bhfuil cruinnighthe ar an láthair so agus ar son a bhfuil beo de Chlannaibh Gaedheal, ag moladh an leomhain do leagamar i gcré annso agus ag gríosadh meanman na gcarad atá go brónach ina dhiaidh. A cháirde, ná bíodh brón ar éinne atá ina sheasamh ag an uaigh so, acht bíodh buidheachas againn inar gcroidhthibh do Dhia na ngrás do chruthuigh anam uasal áluinn Dhiarmuda Uí Dhonnabháin Rosa agus thug sé fhada dhó ar an saoghal so. Ba chalma an fear thu, a Dhiarmuid. Is thréan d’fhearais cath ar son cirt do chine, is ní beag ar fhuilingis; agus ní dhéanfaidh Gaedhil dearmad ort go bráth na breithe. Acht, a cháirde, ná bíodh brón orainn, acht bíodh misneach inar gcroidhthibh agus bíodh neart inar gcuirleannaibh, óir cuimhnighimís nach mbíonn aon bhás ann nach mbíonn aiséirghe ina dhiaidh, agus gurab as an uaigh so agus as na huaghannaibh atá inar dtimcheall éireochas saoirse Gheadheal.’ (See full-text version on CELT website [online; extant 15.11.2010], and English trans. as infra.)

Patrick Pearse, ‘O’Donovan Rossa’, in Political Writings and Speeches (Dublin: Phoenix Publishing Co. Ltd. 1924), pp.125-37: ‘O’Donovan Rossa was not the greatest man of the Fenian generation, but he was its most typical man. He was the man that to the masses of his countrymen then and since stood most starkly and plainly for the Fenian idea. More lovable and understandable than the cold and enigmatic Stephens, better known than the shy and sensitive Kickham, more human than the scholarly and chivalrous O’Leary, more picturesque than the able and urbane Luby, older and more prominent than the man who, when the time comes to write his biography, will be recognised as the greatest of the Fenians - John Devoy - Rossa held a unique place in the hearts of Irish men and Irish women. They made songs about him, his very name passed into a proverb. To avow oneself a friend of O’Donovan Rossa meant in the days of our fathers to avow oneself a friend of Ireland [128] it meant more: it meant to avow oneself a “mere” Irishman, an “Irish enemy”, an “Irish savage”, if you will, naked and unashamed. Rossa was not only “extreme”, but he represented the left wing of the “extremists”. Not only would he have Ireland free, but he would have Ireland Gaelic. / And here we have the secret of Rossa’s magic, of Rossa’s power: he came out of the Gaelic tradition. He was of the Gael; he thought in a Gaelic way; he spoke in Gaelic accents. He was the spiritual and intellectual descendant of Colm Cille and of Seán an Díomais. With Colm Cille he might have said, “If I die it shall be from the love I bear the Gael”; with Shane O’Neill he held it debasing to “twist his mouth with English”. To him the Gael and the Gaelic ways were splendid and holy, worthy of all homage and all service; for the English he had a hatred that was tinctured with contempt. He looked upon them as an inferior race, morally and intellectually; he despised their civilisation; he mocked at their institutions and made them look ridiculous. / And this again explains why the English [129] hated him above all the Fenians. […] (pp.128-30.) [See full text under Pearse, Quotations, infra - or direct.]

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Jenny Marx, ‘Articles […] on the Irish Question’, in Marx / Engels on Ireland and the Irish Question, ed. L. I. Golman (Moscow: Progress Books 1986 [edn.]. [Article] III (16 March 1870), gives full account of O’Donovan Rossa’s letter to The Times and the Marseillaise on the treatment of Fenian prisoners in England, and documents the English press response before proceeding to the case of [Col.] Richard Burke at Woking Prison and the lying information of Mr Bruce, the Home Secretary, to enquiries made by relatives and others about his reduction to insanity by the treatment he received (p.483-85); in the next article, she reports George Moore’s question to the Govt. in the House of Commons demanding an enquiry from Mr Gladstone, PM. The ensuing articles are concerned with the Coercion Bill, rounding again on Gladstone in connection with the secret service now established in Ireland: ‘Not even Nicholas of russia ever publihsed a crueller ukase against the unfortunate Poles than this Bill of Mr Gladstone’s against the Irish.’ (p.492.) She continues: ‘We state without hesitation that Mr Gladstone has proved to be the most savage enemy and the most implacable master to have crushed Ireland since the days of the notorious [Robert Stewart] Castlereagh. / As if the cup of ministerial shame were not already full to overflowing, it was announced in the House of Commons on Thursday evening, the same evening as the Coercion Bill was introduced, that Burke and other Fenian prisoners had been tortured to the point of insanity in the English prisons, and in the very dace of this appalling evidence Gladstone and his jackal Bruce were protesting that the political prisoners were treated with all possible care. When Mr. Moore made this sad announcement to the House he was constantly interrupted by hoots of bestial laughter’ (P.492.) Note however that Marx writes in a different vein of O’Donovan Rossa, when he tells Friedrich Adolfe Sorge, writing of The Irishman in connection with charges against Joseph Patrick McDonnell: ‘[the] editor, Pigott, is a mere speculator, and whose manager, [William Martin] Murphy, is a ruffian. […] As to O’Donovan Rossa, I wonder that you quote him still as an authority after what you have written me about him. If any man was obliged, personally, to the Internal and the French Communards, it was he, and you have seen what thanks we have received at his hands.’ (ibid. p.999; ftn. explains that, in America, O’Donovan abused the Communards and accused them of murders.)

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Douglas Hyde addressed a ‘toast in verse’ to O’Donovan Rossa the Fenian: ‘I drink to the health of O’Donovan Rossa / Where will I find his like at home or abroad, / Who would drive the people without arms or uniforms / Into the midst of the soldiers, the swords and the bayonets. / Who bought and kept the powder and guns / Which he could not send to the poor defenceless people, / Who nevertheless urged our poor unarmed peasantry / To drive the Saxon soldiers away across the sea.’ (See Dominic Daly, The Young Douglas Hyde, 1974, p.47.)

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References
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: University of America 1904); selects ‘Edward Duffy’ and ‘My Prison Chamber’.

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2; selects O’Donovan Rossa’s Prison Life [160-63], Rossa’s Recollections 1838 to 1898 [293-65]; with remarks and notes at 211 [funeral], 243n [Pheonix Societies], also 250n, 260, 274-75. 281, 292, 293-94, 708n, 781; 368 [Works, as supra].

Corpus of Electronic Texts: ‘O’Donovan Rossa’, in Political Writings and Speeches (Dublin: Phoenix Publishing Co. Ltd. 1910-1919), at CELT, Univ. College, Cork [link.]

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Notes
Donald Torchiana cites P. H. Pearse, ‘A Character Study: Diarmuid Ó Donnabhain Rosa, 1831-1915’, Souvenir of Public Funeral to Glasnevin Cemetary (Dublin 1 Aug. 1915) in Backgrounds to Joyce’s Dubliners (1986).

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