Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa

Newspapers. We have plenty of them but did you know that the Fenian, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa whose funeral took place in Dublin on this day 110 years ago, was also an influential newspaper manager?  In 1865, the newspaper The Irish People was a key publication associated with the Irish nationalist Fenian movement. It was founded in 1863 by James Stephens, and editors included John O'Leary, Charles Kickham, and Thomas Clarke Luby. The newspaper was suppressed by the British government in September 1865, and several of its leaders, including Luby and Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, were arrested.

In 1971 the Irish Press recalled the exploits of O’Donovan Rossa and the Irish People newspaper:

JEREMIAH O'Donovan Rossa, at the time of his arrest in 1865, was manager of the "Irish People." That was an official Fenian appointment and Rossa was the very man for the job, for of all the Fenian Leaders he had more contacts throughout the country than anyone else.

He travelled all over Ireland, England, and Scotland, swearing men into the Irish Republican Brotherhood. John Devoy, in his "Recollections of an Irish Rebel" has testified that Rossa "got more members for the Fenian Organisation than any man alive."

But Rossa's work for Ireland had begun many years before he was appointed manager of the "Irish People" and it continued for many years afterwards, right up till the day he died in his 84th year at Staten Island, in U.S.A.

That was 1915, and a few months later Padraig Pearse stood at the Fenian Plot at Glasnevin, and over Rossa's mortal remains spoke those wonderful words in the oration which has now become part of the National Revolutionary literature.

Rossa suffered untold torture in prison. He was chained; he was kept in solitary confinement and he broke every prison rule. He sang rebel songs in his cell and in his "Prison Life" he remarks: "They thought I was going mad, I was only trying to keep myself sane."

The story of Rossa's time in prison got out. Questions were raised in the British House of Commons, and it came out that Rossa had been hand-cuffed for 35 days in succession. The case of Rossa aroused world-wide attention and forced Gladstone to release the Fenian prisoners.

Upon his release Rossa went o the United States. Politicians of all parties tried to woo him, but he was determined from the beginning not to be made the cats paw of American politicians.

For a time he worked with John Devoy in Clann na Gael but the two men fell out and Rossa started his own personal newspaper called "The United Irishman," in which he advocated "the skirmish tactics" or "dynamite policy ….

For more information search the pages of the Irish Newspaper Archive (www.irishnewsarchive.com )