Remembering the funeral of an Irish patriot

ON August 1 1915, 99 years ago this month, the great Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa was laid to rest in Glasnevin Cemetery. His funeral was a massive show of strength by Irish republicans and a key event in the lead up to the 1916 Rising.

O’Donovan Rossa, a founding member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, died in exile in America on June 29, 1915.

Originally from Cork, he was 83 years old and had dedicated his long life to winning Ireland’s freedom. Despite being imprisoned and exiled, he continued to play a prominent role in support of the cause at home, including the establishment of his

‘Skirmishing fund’ that helped to finance the Fenians’ Dynamite Campaign in England in the 1880s. Following his death his wife, who herself was a dedicated republican, was determined to ensure that he would be buried in Ireland.

John Devoy, the American based republican leader, sent news of Rossa’s death to Tom Clarke in Dublin. Both men immediately saw the opportunity for the funeral to act as a rallying point for republicanism at a time of growing nationalist sentiment.

Clarke sent a telegram in response to Devoy which read:

‘SEND HIS BODY HOME AT ONCE’.

Clarke now set about organising the funeral under the auspices of the Wolfe Tone Memorial Association, a name sometimes used by the IRB for its public work. The large committee was a who’s who of Irish republicanism at the time and included well known names such as James Connolly, Ã?amonn Ceannt, Bulmer Hobson, Diarmuid Lynch, Countess Markievicz, Jenny Wyse Power, Cathal Brugha, Con Colbert, Thomas Mac Donagh, Joseph Plunkett, Ned Daly and Patrick Pearse.

Seán Mac Diarmada was imprisoned in Mounjoy at the time under the

‘Defence of the Realm Act’, and despite being named on the committee he played little part in the preparations. Interestingly, all those named above would go on to play a leading role in the 1916 Rising and the events that followed.

Tom Clarke sent his wife Kathleen and Seán McGarry to meet Mrs O’Donavan Rossa, her daughter Eileen and Rossa’s remains when they arrived in Liverpool. O’Dononvan Rossa was then brought back to Dublin, were his body lay in state in City Hall on Dame Street, just a stone’s throw from Dublin Castle, then the symbolic seat of British rule in Ireland.

On the day of the funeral special trains came to Dublin from all over the country. The funeral mass was presided over by the republican priest, Father Michael O’Flannagan, and the massive procession was lead by the Chief Marshall, Thomas MacDonagh. He was followed by pipe bands and armed detachments of the Irish Citizen Army, the Irish Volunteers and members of Cumann na mBan. Thousands lined the streets to pay their respects to the old Fenian and upwards of 70,000 people made their way to Glasnevin to take part in the event.

Tom Clarke bestowed the honour of making the graveside oration on the young IRB and Irish Volunteer leader, Patrick Pearse.

In delivering one of the most famous speeches in Irish history, Pearse began by explaining why he, rather then one of Rossa’s old comrades, had been given the honour of making the address,

‘If there is anything that makes it fitting that I rather than some other–I, rather than one of the grey-haired men who were young with him, and shared in his labour and in his suffering, should speak here, it is, perhaps, that I may be taken as speaking on behalf of a new generation that has been re-baptised in the Fenian faith, and that has accepted the responsibility of carrying out the Fenian programme.’

Pearse finished with the now immortalised lines, in which the thunder of the coming battle of the 1916 Rising can be clearly heard,

‘Life springs from death, and from the graves of patriot men and women spring live nations.

The defenders of this realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us, and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything. They think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! They have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.’

?¢Daithi Ã?’Riain is a Dublin based historian, with a specific interest in social history and the Irish revolutionary period.