“Oration of P.H. Pearse over Rossa’s Grave.”

Padraig Pearse

“Oration of P.H. Pearse over Rossa’s Grave.”

Dublin & London

Fergus O'Connor

1915

O’Donovan Rossa was a prominent Fenian living in the United States. When he died in 1915, the Irish Republican Brotherhood brought his body to Ireland for a hero’s burial and the opportunity to stir nationalist sentiment. Pearse’s oration over the grave is considered an oratorical masterpiece, his words distributed on the streets of Dublin in the days after the Rossa funeral. “The fools, the fools, the fools. They have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”