Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa (10 September 1831 – 29 June 1915) was an Irish Fenian leader and prominent member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. His life as an Irish Fenian is well documented but he is perhaps known best in death for the graveside oration given at his funeral by Patrick Pearse.
Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa was born Jeremiah O'Donovan at Reenascreena, Rosscarbery, County Cork, to Denis O'Donovan and Nellie O'Driscoll, a family of tenant farmers. According to the eminent scholar John O'Donovan, with whom Rossa corresponded, Rossa's ancestors belonged to the obscure but ancient sliocht of the MacEnesles or Clan Aneslis O'Donovans. His ancestors had held letters patent in Kilmeen parish in the 17th century before the confiscations, with his agnomen "Rossa" coming from the townland of Rossmore in Kilmeen. So Jeremiah adopted the surname, Rossa.
Rossa became a shopkeeper in Skibbereen, where, in 1856, he established the Phoenix National and Literary Society, the aim of which was "the liberation of Ireland by force of arms". This organisation would later merge with the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), founded two years later in Dublin.
In December 1858, he was arrested and jailed without trial until July 1859. He was charged with plotting a Fenian rising in 1865, put on trial for high treason and sentenced to penal servitude for life due to his previous convictions. He served his time in Pentonville, Portland and Chatham prisons in England.
Rossa was a defiant prisoner, manacled for 35 straight days for throwing a chamber pot at the prison's warden and thrown into solitary confinement on a bread-and-water diet for three days for refusing to take off his cap in front of the prison's doctor. For most of his time in prison Rossa was denied the right of correspondence with his associates in the outside world for his violation of prison rules.
In an 1869 by-election, he was returned to the British House of Commons for the Tipperary constituency, in which he defeated the Liberal Catholic Denis Caulfield Heron by 1054 to 898 votes. The election was declared invalid because Rossa was an imprisoned felon.
After giving an understanding that he would not return to Ireland, in effect his exile, O'Donovan Rossa was released as part of the Fenian Amnesty of 1870. Boarding the S.S. Cuba, he left for the United States with his friend John Devoy and three other exiles. Together they were dubbed "The Cuba Five".
O'Donovan Rossa took up residence in New York City, where he joined Clan na Gael and the Fenian Brotherhood. Rossa additionally established his own newspaper dedicated to the cause of Irish national liberation from British rule, The United Irishman. In it Rossa advocated the terroristic use of dynamite bombs as a means of overthrowing the British occupation. His paper was used to raise a so-called "resources for civilisation fund," presumably for the purchase of dynamite and other armaments for the Irish struggle.
Rossa organised the first ever bombings by Irish republicans of English cities in what was called the "dynamite campaign". The campaign lasted through the 1880s and made him infamous in Britain. The British government demanded his extradition from America, but without success.
In 1885, Rossa was shot outside his office near Broadway by an Englishwoman, Yseult Dudley, but his wounds were not life-threatening. The British government claimed she was mentally unstable, and not acting on its behalf, although Rossa's supporters and even many of his detractors found this hard to believe. More likely, she was incensed at the fund he organised (the so-called "Skirmishing Fund") which was intended to support the arming of those who would fight the British.
Rossa was allowed to visit Ireland in 1894, and again in 1904. On the latter visit, he was made a "Freeman of the City of Cork."
O'Donovan Rossa was married three times and had eighteen children. On 6 June 1853, he married Nora (Nanno) Eager of Skibbereen, who bore him four sons. She died in 1860. In 1861 he married Ellen Buckley of Castlehaven. They had one son (Timothy Francis). She died in July 1863. In November 1864 he married, for the third time, to Mary Jane (Molly) Irwin of Clonakilty. They had thirteen children.
Rossa was seriously ill in his later years, and was finally confined to a hospital bed in St. Vincent's Hospital, Staten Island, where he died at the age of 83.
The new republican movement in Ireland was quick to realise the propaganda value of the old Fenian's death, and Tom Clarke cabled to John Devoy the message: "Send his body home at once".
His body was returned to Ireland for burial and a hero's welcome. The funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery on 1 August 1915 was a huge affair, garnering substantial publicity for the Irish Volunteers and the IRB at time when a rebellion (later to emerge as the Easter Rising) was being actively planned. The graveside oration, given by Patrick Pearse, remains one of the most famous speeches of the Irish independence movement stirring his audience to a call to arms. It ended with the lines:
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, 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.
His grave was renovated in 1990 by the National Graves Association.
A memorial to O'Donovan Rossa stands in St. Stephen's Green, and a bridge over the River Liffey was renamed in his honour. A street in Cork City bears his name, as does a street in Thurles, Co. Tipperary – the constituency where he was elected. A park in Skibbereen is also named after him as is the local gaelic football team.
A memorial to O'Donovan Rossa stands in the village of Reenascreena, Rosscarbery Co Cork where his descendants run the local village pub.
Other GAA teams throughout Ireland have also been named after him including Ard Bó Uí Dhonnabhain Rossa in the Tyrone GAA, O'Donovan Rossa GAC in Belfast, Ó Donnabháin Rosa Machaire Fíolta in the Derry GAA and Uí Donnabháin Rosa Mullach Breac in Armagh GAA.
The descendants of Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa made their homes in Staten Island; they include writer William Rossa Cole and New York City Councillor Jerome X. O'Donovan.