Fanny Parnell - Watertown, MA
Posted by: 
neoc1
N 42° 22.214 W 071° 08.692
19T E 323396 N 4693112
The grave of Irish poet and patriot Frances "Fanny" Isabelle Parnell is located at the intersection of Walnut Avenue and Sumac Path in Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Waymark Code: WMVW5J
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 06/02/2017
Views: 0
The grave of Irish poet and patriot Frances "Fanny" Isabelle Parnell is marked by a large granite boulder. The boulder is roughly cut except for the upper part of the front which is beveled and polished. The grave marker is inscribed:
FANNY
PARNELL
1848-1882
Irish Poet and Patriot
Frances "Fanny" Isabelle Parnell was born on September 4, 1848 in County Wicklow, Ireland. She together with her brother Charles and sister Anna were important figures in the Irish Revolutionary movement. She was a strong voice for Irish independence through her writings and poems.
In 1864 she began publishing her poetry under the pseudonym Aleria in The Irish People, the newspaper of the Fenian Brotherhood. She published many of her poems and articles The Boston Pilot, the most important Irish newspaper in America during the 19th century. She is most famous for writing The Hovels of Ireland, a pamphlet, and Land League Songs, a collection of poems. Her best known poems are After Death and especially Hold the Harvest, which was a rallying cry for the Irish peasants.
Hold the Harvest:
Now are you men or cattle then, you tillers of the soil?
Would you be free, or evermore in rich men's service toil?
The shadow of the dial hangs dark that points the fatal hour
Now hold your own! Or, branded slaves, forever cringe and cower!
The serpent's curse upon you lies – you writhe within the dust
You fill your mouths with beggars' swill, you grovel for a crust
Your masters set their blood-stained heels upon your shameful heads
Yet they are kind – they leave you still their ditches for your beds!
Oh by the God who made us all, the master and the serf
Rise up and swear to hold this day your own green Irish turf!
Rise up! And plant your feet as men where now you crawl as slaves
And make your harvest fields your camps, or make of them your graves!
But God is on the peasant's side, the God that loves the poor,
His angels stand with flaming swords on every mount and moor,
They guard the poor man's flocks and herds, they guard his ripening grain,
The robber sinks beneath their curse beside his ill-got gain.
In 1865 Fanny Parnell moved from Dublin to Paris where she studied art and wrote poetry. In 1874 she moved to Bordentown, NJ. She died on July 20, 1882 of cardiac failure at the young age of 33.