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ABSTRACT
Patrick Pearse was a leading figure in the 1916 rising, an armed insurrection which aimed to bring about an Irish Republic. He was also an Irish language scholar, a language activist, a modernising creative writer, an innovative educator and educationalist theorist, and a political polemicist. This article revisits Pearse’s famous graveside oration at the August 1915 funeral of the separatist Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa. It considers how the examination of the oration in its Irish language contexts – both historical literary texts and contemporary machinations in the politics of the Gaelic League – can help us to assess the evolution and impact of Pearse’s political thought. In particular, consideration is given to connections with the seventeenth-century texts “An Siogaí Rómhánach” and “Róisín Dubh.” An underlying argument is that texts composed and delivered as declamation need to be considered in their performative contexts. A comparative and contextualising discussion of the oration brings insights into the meaning and import of both the oration and the other texts and contexts alluded to by Pearse.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on the paper “Life springs from death: the funerary motif in Gaelic literature and Pearse’s oration at the O’Donovan Rossa funeral” presented at the Crisis and Commemoration in Modern Ireland 1916–2016 symposium, a Decade of Centenaries event, Mary Immaculate College, 14/10/2016. Earlier and related versions of the paper were presented at Éigse Loch Lao, at the University of Ulster in October 2015 and at Life and Death in Ireland in 1915, Universities Ireland Conference, held in Trinity College in June 2015. I am grateful to Dr Eóin Flannery, to Professor Fiontán de Brún and to Professor Daire Keogh for invitations to speak at these events and for feedback and suggestions from attendees at the events and also to Professor Mícheál Mac Craith, Professor Máirín Nic Eoin, Dr Vincent Morley, Brian Crowley, Cuan Ó Seireadáin, Dr Deirdre Nic Mhathúna and Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh for their feedback or help with queries and to Dr Eugene O’Brien for his assistance. All errors are the author's own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. O’Rahilly, Five Seventeenth Century Political Poems, 17. Pearse’s version has “fios” (“knowledge”) instead of “fís” (vision).
2. Pearse, An Síogaidhe Rómhánach/The Roman Vision..
3. Travers, “Our Fenian Dead: Glasnevin Cemetery and the Genesis of the Republican Funeral.” I am grateful to Professor Máirín Nic Eoin for providing me with a copy of this article.
4. O’Brien, Pearse, “Prosopopoeia and the Remembering of O’Donovan Rossa and Tone..”
5. See, for example, Farrell Moran, Patrick Pearse and the Politics of Redemption, 146–147.
6. O’Donovan Rossa Souvenir Booklet, Dublin 1915.
7. “O’Donovan Rossa’s Funeral, Scenes in Dublin, Speech at Graveside,” Irish Times, 2/8/1915.
8. “Funeral of O’Donovan Rossa, Impressive Procession to Glasnevin,”Freeman’s Journal, 8/2015.
9. ‘O’ Donovan Rossa’s funeral, Spectators’ interest in the Procession, Speech at the Graveside, Irish Times, 2/8/2015.
10. Ryan, Remembering Sion, 193.
11. O’Brien, “Prosopopoeia,” 1.
12. McBride, History and Memory in Modern Ireland, 32.
13. Speech in City Hall by Father O’Flanagan, https://cartlann.org/authors/fr-michael-oflanagan/oration-at-jeremiah-odonovan-rossas-funeral [Accessed 3/8/2022].
14. Ruczaj, “Liturgy of Nation-Formation: Patrick Pearse and the Theological Background of the Easter Rising of 1916.”
15. A Decade of Centenaries series curated by Dr Jane Grogan included lectures which alluded to connections between Pearse and Shakespeare. https://centenaries.ucd.ie/events/shakespeare-lectures-2016/ An exhibition curated by Brian Crowley explored these connections further. https://pearsemuseum.ie/exhibitions-2/ [Accessed 3/08/2022].
16. Figgis, Recollections of the Irish War, 100–101.
17. Ibid., 101–2.
18. Ibid.
19. Witoszek and Sheeran, Prepublicity blurb for Talking to the Dead.
20. Irish Times, 2/8/1915 An article (“Reflection”) in the radical paper The Spark (8/8/1915) drew particular attention to the Irish language aspect also.
21. “Ó Donnabháin Rossa agus an Gheadhlig,” An Claidheamh Soluis, 31/7/2015. The collection was formerly that of Nioclás Ó Cearnaigh and it ended up in Dublin Castle.
22. “Óid an Oireachtais, Saoirse na hÉireann,” Eoin Mac Néill, An Claidheamh Soluis, 31 August 2015.
23. ‘The Oireachtas,’ An Claidheamh Soluis, 31 August 1915.
24. See Ní Ghairbhí, Willie Pearse.
25. The Irish language part of the speech seems to have been composed separately. The manuscript of the speech kept at St. Enda’s has only the English language part; this is the case also in Fergus O’Connor’s contemporary pamphlet. The Irish part features in a report of the funeral in the following week’s Claidheamh Soluis. I am grateful to Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh for this information. The speech in its entirety is also printed in the Collected Works and is available on the digital Celt archive. https://celt.ucc.ie/published/E900007-008/text001.html.
26. “Áilim Aon-Mhac tréan na hÓighe/Go dtigidh an ceart san alt ‘n-ar chóir dó..”
(“I beseech the valiant Son of the Virgin/that Right may come to the pace that is its due,” Pearse’s translation). The attribution of this poem to Piaras Feirtéar, cited by Pearse and repeated by Ua Duinnín, has since been contested. Pearse also included this poem in Dánta Gríosaithe Gael/Songs of the Irish Rebels.
27. Souvenir of Public Funeral to Glasnevin cemetery.
28. The style of the article is not that of Pearse.
29. See Mac Craith, 202, 207–8; Morley, The Popular Mind in Eighteenth Century Ireland.
31. Ibid.
32. Pearse, “O’Donovan Rossa, Graveside Panegyric,” https://celt.ucc.ie/published/E900007-008/text001.html.
33. O’Brien, “Prosopopoia,” 5.
34. The popular literary cycle featuring Fionn Mac Cumhaill and his band of warriors.
35. These were “The Fianna of Fionn” performed at Jones Road, now Croke Park, in 1913 and “Fionn” performed in the ground of Pearse’s school St Enda’s in 1914. See Ní Ghairbhí and McNulty, Drámaí an Phiarsaigh/Patrick Pearse, Collected Plays.
36. “From a Hermitage,” published initially in serial form in Irish Freedom, June 1913–June 1914.
37. Pearse, “An Síogaidhe Rómhánach,” 576–581.
38. “An Síogaí Rómhánach” was published in the second volume of Irish Minstrelsy edited by James Hardiman in the year 1831 with a loose translation by Henry Grattan Curran alongside the original Irish and notes. Part of the poem was published in “Our Gaelic Department,” in The Nation on Saturday August 13th 1859. This was signed ‘Eironnach’ (probably a young George Sigerson) and was followed by a translation. In 1880 another translation by Sir John Thomas Gilbert, “The Irish Vision at Rome” in A Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland from 1641 to 1652, was published for the Irish Archaeological and Celtic Society (Volume 3, p. 190–196). Douglas Hyde’s edition of the poem was published in the fourth edition of Lia Fáil in 1932 (p195–211). Hardiman’s edition was the basis for Hyde’s work although he cited other manuscripts also. Cecile O’Rahily’s well known edition of the poem was published as Five Seventeenth-Century Political Poems in 1952 and she provides a useful summary of manuscript copies of the poem and the scribes associated with it. It would seem that neither O’Rahily or, more surprisingly, Hyde were aware of/wished to mention Pearse’s translation and abridged edition and neither mention Gilbert’s 1880 version and nor do they allude to the sections published in The Nation. A quick survey shows Pearse to have drawn on Hardiman’s edition. Meanwhile, Hyde’s discussion of the poem diverges from the overt discussion of radical separatism in both Hardiman’s and Pearse’s editions: Hyde dwells chiefly on the poem as a reflection on the reduced circumstances of the Gael.
39. Pearse, Dánta Gríosuighthe Gaedhal, Sliocht Duanaire Gaedhilge/ Songs of the Irish Rebels.
40. O’Riordan, Poetics and Polemics, 2021, 277.
41. O’ Riordan, 2021, 1–6, 7–44, 45–93, 235–319.
42. Ibid.
43. Ruczaj, “Liturgy of Nation-Formation,” 424.
44. Pearse, “An Síogaidhe Rómhánach/The Roman Vision..”
45. Pearse, “O’Donovan Rossa Graveside Panegyric..”
46. O’Rahily, Five Seventeenth-century Political Poems. Trans is by RNG.
47. Ó Briain and Beaslaí, “Sean T agus an Ardfheis Dún Dealgain, 1915..”
48. Ibid.
49. Pearse, “Ghosts.”
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 5.
55. Pearse, “O’Donovan Rossa Graveside Panegyric.”
56. “Litir chun Sean Réamoinn, Beart Litreacha a Chuaigh amú,” An Barr Buadh, Earrach 1912. Trans RNG.
57. “Mionn,” Scríbhinní Phádraig Mhic Phiarais, 268.
58. See ‘In my garden’ published in An Claidheamh Soluis special edition 4/8/1906 and reprinted in Eugene Mc Nulty and Róisín Ní Ghairbhí, Patrick Pearse, Collected Plays, Drámaí an Phiarsaigh, Irish Academic Press, 2013.
59. Pearse, “The Psychology of a Volunteer,” January 1914 and also Pearse’s (Citation1916) pamphlet The Sovereign People.
60. For an appraisal of the Gaelic literature context for Pearse’s politics see Ní Ghairbhí, “A People That Did not Exist?,” 161–187.
61. Figgis, Recollections of the Irish War, 103.
62. Ryan, Remembering Sion, 193.
63. Schechner, Performance Studies, An Introduction, 36.
64. For a discussion of Tuireamh na hÉireann see Vincent Morley, “Views of the past in Irish vernacular literature, 1650–1850.”
65. Eamon Ó Ciardha, review of James Kelly’s Gallows speeches from Eighteenth Century Ireland.
66. Ibid.
67. For a discussion of the Wolfe Tone and United Irishmen Memorial Committee, see Ní Ghairbhí, Willie Pearse, Chapter 7.
68. “An Irish Day,’” Irish Independent, 21/9/1908.
69. Schechner, Performance Studies, An Introduction, 35–37.
70. Ibid., 32.
71. Figgis, Recollections of the Irish War, 102.
72. Witoszek and F. Sheeran, Talking to the Dead, 8.
73. See Travers and also Nina Ranalli, “The Dust of Some: The politics of burial in Glasnevin Cemetery.” PhD Thesis. https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1591&context=isp_collection [Accessed 1/2/2021].
74. Liam Ó Briain, “An ardfheis, Dún Dealgan,” 10.
75. Vincent Morley, Ó Chéitinn go Raiftearaí; The Popular Mind in Eighteenth Century Ireland.
76. Pearse, “The Psychology of a Volunteer.”
77. “An Síogaí Rómhánach,” as edited and translated by Pearse. P.H. Pearse, Dánta Gríosuighthe Gaedhal, Sliocht Duanaire Gaedhilge/Songs of the Irish Rebels, The Irish Review, 1914, Vol. 3, No. 35 (Jan., 1914): 576-581.
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