Eileen, described him as ‘a gentleman in every sense of the word’,10 who possessed ‘a great love for Ireland, his religion and his family… In the opinion of all his many sons and daughters he was just perfect and we adored him.’11 This persona of O’Donovan Rossa, as a kind-hearted and warm individual, is often lost in the study of his character, with most historians focusing strictly on the revolutionary rather than the man.
This book marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa and is the first biography of the Irish rebel to be written in the English language. The intention of this book is to commemorate O’Donovan Rossa as the man he was – a greatly complicated individual who was both a family and political man. This book will tell his story from his earliest years to his death and funeral, bringing to life a man whose entire life’s work was dedicated to the establishment of an Irish Republic.
1
THE O’DONOVANS OF WEST CORK
Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa was born Jeremiah O’Donovan, in Reenascreena, in the idyllic setting of West Cork on 10 September 1831. As will be seen, he adopted the appellation of ‘Rossa’ later in life.1 He was the second of four children. His parents, Denis O’Donovan and Nellie O’Driscoll, were reasonably well to do, and they owned a Linen bleaching business, a linen shop, which included four working looms and employed a team of weavers, and they also rented a sizable plot of land for £18 a year. From the age of 3 the young Jeremiah was sent to live with his maternal grandparents, Cornelius and Anna O’Driscoll (nee O’Leary), near the village of Reenascreena. His mother had given him over to her parents as she was pregnant with her third child and it was decided that they could provide better for him until he was prepared for his First Holy Communion at the age of 7. Here he lived with his four aunts: Nance, Johanna, Bridget and Anna, and his three maternal uncles: Denis, Conn and Michael. Life at his grandparents’ home was tranquil, sublime, and at times, utopian. Their home was one of music, song, poetry and history and the young O’Donovan Rossa was enchanted by ghost stories and tales of the fairies roaming mischievously throughout the rural countryside; indeed, for much of his life he believed in fairies and superstition. The nostalgic fireside talks about rebellions and his families’ revolutionary antecedents also served to inspire him and shape his beliefs. The family were well-off tenant farmers and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa recalled that there were always servants about the house. They had a large proportion of livestock consisting of over twenty cows, as well as a number of horses, goats, pigs and sheep. The family was brought up entirely in the Irish language, and despite learning English at school, it was understood that Irish was the family tongue and ‘the language of the table, the language of the milking [woman], the language of the sowing and the reaping’.2
It was from these fond experiences that O’Donovan Rossa developed a life-long love of the Irish language and an image of an idealised Ireland that was rural and Gaelic. As a boy he adored the wild and verdant surroundings of the farm and was regarded as a wanderer. He was a gentle and polite boy who was slow to anger. He was inspired by the ideas of Gaelic mythology and the existence of fairies roaming throughout the land, the nostalgic fireside talks about rebellions and his families’ revolutionary antecedents. At 7- years-of-age O’Donovan Rossa left his grandparents’ home and returned to his father and mother in Roscarbery. He had returned to his parents to prepare for the sacrament of Communion in their home, which was constantly visited by neighbours, he was embraced by a culture that enjoyed a Gaelic tradition called scoruíocht, where friends would sit by the fireside and tell stories of fairies, history, gossip and familial news, similar to the fireside stories he so enjoyed in his grandparents’ homestead. Surrounded by a strong circle of friends in school, he excelled as a pupil and despite being nurtured in the Irish language; he was commended in his use of English. The initial adoption of English was not easy for O’Donovan Rossa; he had grown up using the Irish language and recalling a youthful struggle to learn English, found that all he could say was A, B, C. He was a quick learner, however, and was recognised as a great pupil by his teachers, to such an extent that he ran ahead of his class.3 In his recollections Rossa recalled joyful schooldays where he would memorise all his lessons, and thoroughly read his schoolbooks, many of which enflamed his burgeoning nationalism in future years. Of these, he recalled textbooks which nursed ‘the Irish youth into a love of country, or a love of freedom’.4 At the time of his childhood, however, rebellions and revolutionary antecedents were confined to the fringe of nationalist politics, where advanced nationalist thought was dominated by the charismatic and eloquent Daniel O’Connell.
O’Connell was one of the most revered and respected politicians of his generation. He had become known as ‘the Liberator’ for his role in securing Catholic Emancipation in 1829, following his election as the first Roman Catholic to the British Parliament the previous year. He also represented a rising Irish-catholic middle-class that was not prepared to be treated with condescension within politics. O’Connell had instilled Irish catholics with a real sense of purpose and made them feel part of an important movement for social change. Inspired by his victory for Catholic Emancipation, O’Connell next sought to achieve a peaceful repeal of the Act of Union, which had abolished the Irish Parliament and united the Kingdom of Ireland with Great Britain. Establishing the Repeal Association to build a viable campaign to rescind the Act of Union, the O’Connell name continued to command respect amongst nationalist families. The O’Donovans were equally inspired by O’Connell and actively supported the Liberator; the young Jeremiah’s uncle, Patrick O’Donovan, become a campaigning activist within the Repeal Association. Through his uncle, he had been introduced to a world of political demonstration, oration and activism. He recalled seeing his Uncle Patrick out canvassing for O’Connell and pinning badges onto supporters who eagerly approached him to show their support for the Liberator. He was mesmerised by the great spectacle of monster meetings as thousands of O’Connell’s supporters descended en-masse to hear about the Repeal Campaign and learn of how Ireland could function with its own parliament. Each monster meeting represented a great spectacle for the young Jeremiah; he gazed at the green banners and flags proudly unfurled by the nationalist supporters, enjoyed the almost military processions of O’Connell’s uniformed police and were enthralled by atmospheres that resembled carnivals rather than political rallies. As a child he had even met the great man and recalled that on a visit from Skibbereen, O’Connell had passed through Roscarbery in 1843, and the young Rossa was picked up over a crowd of people to glance at the arrival of the Liberator in the town. Making his way through the crowd, ‘between the legs of some of them, I made my way up to the carriage that the Liberator was in. I was raised up, and had a hearty handshake with him’.5 He was also introduced to repeal songs and ballads by an apprentice weaver, Peter Crowley, who was employed by his father. The young Rossa was by now introduced to a political culture that disapproved of the Union and saw the great potential of an independent Ireland. The name of O’Connell seemed to magically promise a bright, new future.
While O’Connell enjoyed popular adulation amongst the ordinary people of Ireland, and while his Repeal Association was in the ascendency within Irish politics, privately, he was challenged by younger members of the association who became known as ‘Young Ireland’. This grouping was an intellectual gathering, the progenitor of which was the radical newspaper, The Nation. Amongst its luminaries were Charles Gavin Duffy, Thomas Francis Meagher, John Mitchel and Thomas Davis. Young Ireland rejected what they saw as O’Connell’s increasing sectarianism, his pandering toward the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, his willingness to advance his children within the movement through patronage and his use of the Repeal Association as his personal fiefdom. The Young Irelanders sought to re-define Ireland on a principle of nationality and unity of people, irrespective of religious and cultural difference. The Nation newspaper would become one of the most important and influential nationalist newspapers of the 1840s, and O’Donovan Rossa, already being reared within a political family, was increasingly exposed to its ideas, soon becoming a regular reader, often visiting the workshop of Mick Hurley in Pound Square to listen to a reading of The Nation. O’Donovan Rossa had developed a marked respect for Thomas Davis. He enjoyed his poetry and poetic style and found a great resonance in his political thought, for Davis had reaffirmed the inclusive republicanism of the United Ireland and their concept of an all-inclusive nation. Exposed to the ideas of The Nation, O’Donovan Rossa recalled how the newspaper