New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-06-30
O'D0N0VAN ROSA,
OLD FENIAN, dies
Love of Irish Freedom
Still Strong Within
Him at IS.
"DECLARED WAR" ON
ENGLAND IN 1850
Patriot, Whose Platform Was
Gold Steel and Dynamite"
Was EXiled to America.

jeremiah O'Donovan Rosa, Fenian
leader and for ffty-fve years the i'm
placable foe Of England, died yesterday
afternoon at ST. yincents Hospital,
West New Brighton, Staten Island, in
his eighty-fourth year. For more than
five years he had been incapacitated
by illness and for the last two years
he had not left the hospital.
His vow, taken years ago. that his
body should be buried in ireland. may
not be fulfilled at once, as his family
fear to carry out his wishes because of
the war. The remains OF Dynamite
Rosa. exiled as an meter of rebellion,
will rest in vault in St. Peters Gene
terry until more peaceful times permit
their transportation to ireland.
The ironic fate that has always
tainted the apostles of Irish liberty
seems still to jeer the shade of O'Don-
ovan Rosa.
England has declared war against
me-" he declared, "and. so help me
| God, | will wage war against her until
she is stricken to her knees or am
stricken TO my grave"
| O'Donovan Rosa is stricken 10 his
grave after five and a half years of
| invalidsm, and the very foes who
seek to administer the death blow to
his enemy, England, hinder the carry
ing out of his vow to be buried in Ire
land.
jeremiah O'Donovan, better known
as ODonovan Rosa, was born on Sep
TENDER 10. 1881, at Ross Carberry,
County Cork. When he was thirteen
years old his family was evicted. Soon
afterward the boys father died. and
his mother took the younger children
to Philadelphia, leaving jeremiah in
charge of a relative, who was a shop
keeper in Skibbereen.
Working in the shop and attending
school at odd times, jeremiah attained
young manhood in casual fashion, and
acquired shop of his own. Then came
the year of the famine, and the sights
viewed by the young shopkeeper Of
SkiObereen turned him into the zealot
who later carried the freband through
Ireland and England in behalf of his
countryLaen. He became Fenian and
leader of Fenians.
at was Jillen Andy's funeral" he
said in later and more peaceful days
chat started me to thinking. We laid
the poor woman in her grave without a
coffin and with a stone for a pillow"
In 1859 O'Donovan. already a leader
Of local repute under the name OF
O'Donovan Rosa, which he adopted
from the name of the ancient barony
in which was his birthplace, was
arrested as member of the Irish
Revolutionary Brotherhood. He spent
three months in a Dublin jail for
parading with arms and melting re-
bellion.
He came to the United States i,
1853, consulted with his brother
Fenians in this country, raised money
did some more thinking and went back
to Ireland, where he established the
newspaper, "The Irish People" and
began to organize bands of armed men
who drilled in the dark of the moon.
Inside of two years the Office of THE
Irish People" was raided and its editor
, thrown into jail He was sentenced
to life Imprisonment and for six years
was shifted from one English Jail to
another, in an effort, he afterward as
| serted, TO break his spirit. Not jail
or in all England could do that. He
saw the inside of the darkest cells; for
days he was shackled so that he could
not move hand or foot, and when they
/ lrought him out TO apologize to the
/ Governor for failing TO salute him,
ODonovan Rosa flung bucket in the
! Governors face.
They gave him up. O'Donovan Rosa
in an English Jail was making rebels
| in Ireland He was exiled for twenty
years, and came TO New York. His bit
terness against all things English was
deepened by his sufferings. More fire.
quently than ever the words of John
Mitchell, the grandfather of Mayor
Mitchell were on his lips and in his
heart:
"If | could grasp the fires of hell
I'd hurl them into the face of my coun-
try's enemy"
To the day of his death O'Donovan
Rossa's country was Ireland, and, to
him. her foe was England.
He founded another newspaper. 1t
was called United Irishmen." The
subscribers 0'Donovan Rosa called
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