Rossa’s Recollections. 1838 to 1898. Childhood, Boyhood, Manhood. Customs, Habits and Manners of the Irish People: Erinach and Sassenach – Catholic and Protestant – Englishman and Irishman – English Religion – Irish Plunder. Social Life and Prison Life. The Fenian Movement. Travels in Ireland, England, Scotland and America. Mariner’s Harbor, New York: O’Donovan Rossa, 1898. First Edition. Pp 402. Blue cloth boards, title in gilt to spiine. A nice bright copy. . Very good to fine copy.

Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa was born Jerry Donovan in Rosscarbery, County Cork in 1831. In 1856 he founded the Phoenix National and Literary Society ‘for the liberation of Ireland by force of arms.’ He was jailed in 1858 and accused of plotting the Fenian Rising in 1865, tried for High-Treason and sentenced to penal servitude for life, released in 1871; he was exiled to America.

In New York he edited the United Irishman. He raised £40,000 for the Fenian movement and funded the Holland Submarine Project. He died in NYC in 1915 and was returned to Ireland for a hero’s burial with Padraig Pearse reciting his famous oration at his graveside.