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Tag Archives: Young Ireland Rebellion


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Birth of Irish Revolutionary Maud Gonne

maud-gonne

Maud Gonne, Irish revolutionary, romantic muse for William Butler Yeats, and mother to Nobel Peace Prize-winner Seán MacBride, is born at Tongham, England on December 21, 1866.

Gonne is born into a distinguished and wealthy family, and her father serves as an army captain. Her mother dies of tuberculosis when she is a child, and she and her sister are raised and educated by a French nanny. This cosmopolitan upbringing is furthered by travels throughout Europe with her father, then a military attaché.

In 1884, Gonne’s father dies of typhoid fever, and she receives a considerable inheritance. After moving to France to be with her aunt, she meets and falls in love with right wing politician Lucien Millevoye. Though he is already married, he instills Gonne with his political passions. She begins a nearly lifelong fight for Irish freedom from England and the release of political prisoners. She and Millevoye have two children, one of whom survives, before their relationship ends.

Moved by the plight of those evicted in the Land Wars, Gonne continues to campaign for the Irish nationalist cause. While living in Paris, she is introduced to Fenianism by John O’Leary, a veteran of the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848. In 1889, O’Leary introduces her to a man whose infatuation with her would last most of his life, poet William Butler Yeats. She begins a relationship with Yeats, though she refuses his many marriage proposals. She is the inspiration for many of Yeats’s poems. In 1900, she founds the Daughters of Ireland, which provides a home for Irish nationalist women.

In 1918, Gonne is arrested for being a political agitator. She becomes severely ill in prison and after her release, she begins a crusade for improved conditions for Ireland’s political prisoners. In 1903, she marries Major John MacBride, who had led the Irish Transvaal Brigade against the British in the Second Boer War, in Paris in 1903. After the birth of their son, Seán, Gonne and her husband agree to end their marriage. She demands sole custody of their son but MacBride refuses, and a divorce case begins in Paris on February 28, 1905. The only charge against MacBride substantiated in court is that he was drunk on one occasion during the marriage. A divorce is not granted, and MacBride is given the right to visit his son twice weekly.

The couple’s son, Seán MacBride, is active in politics in Ireland and in the United Nations. He is a founding member and Chairman of Amnesty International and is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974.

Gonne dies in Clonskeagh on April 27, 1953, at the age of 86 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. Maud Gonne’s autobiography, A Servant of the Queen, is published in 1938.


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Death of Terence Bellew MacManus in San Francisco

terrence-bellew-macmanus

Terence Bellew MacManus, an Irish rebel and Young Irelander, dies in San Francisco, California, on January 15, 1861.

MacManus is born in 1811 in Tempo, County Fermanagh, Ireland, and was educated in parochial schools. As a young man he moves to the major port of Liverpool, where he becomes a successful shipping agent. In 1848 he returns to Ireland, where he becomes active in the Repeal Association, which seeks to overturn the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. After joining the Irish Confederation, he is among those who take part with William Smith O’Brien and John Blake Dillon in the July 1848 Young Ireland Rebellion in Ballingarry, County Tipperary, where the only substantial armed action occurs. MacManus and the other leaders are charged and convicted of treason and sentenced to death for their actions.

Due to public outcry for clemency, the men’s sentences are commuted to deportation for life. MacManus, along with O’Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, and Patrick O’Donoghue, is transported to Van Diemen’s Land in Tasmania, Australia in 1849. They are assigned to different settlements to reduce their collaboration in the new land; however, the Irish men continue to meet secretly.

In 1852 MacManus and Meagher escape from Australia and make their way to San Francisco, California, where MacManus settles. Meagher goes on to New York City. Like other immigrants, the Irish revolutionaries carry their issues to the United States. A Captain Ellis, of a ship that is supposed to carry O’Brien to freedom, also emigrates to San Francisco. MacManus holds a lynch court of Ellis among Irish emigrants for his betrayal of O’Brien in his escape attempt from Van Diemen’s Land. The court-martial acquits Ellis for lack of evidence.

Failing to re-establish his career as a shipping agent, MacManus lives in San Francisco and dies in poverty in 1861. It is after his death, however, that he performs his most valuable service to the cause of Irish freedom. On learning of his death, American Fenian leaders decide to return his body to Ireland for burial. This foreshadows the treatment given to Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa at his famous funeral in 1915. Crowds of Irish gather in New York as Archbishop John Hughes, like MacManus born in Ulster, blesses MacManus’ body. Thousands greet his body when it arrives in Cork and crowds gather at rail stations all the way to Dublin.

The church, in the person of Archbishop of Dublin Paul Cullen, refuses permission for his body to lie-in-state at any church in Dublin. Thus, for a week MacManus’ body lies in the Mechanics’ Institute, while thousands pass by paying their respects. But Father Patrick Lavelle, a Fenian supporter, defies Cullen and performs the funeral ceremony on November 10, 1861. A crowd estimated at 50,000 follow the casket to Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery, and hundreds of thousands line the streets. The MacManus funeral is a seminal moment for the Fenian movement. It invigorates the nationalist movement in Ireland, just as Rossa’s funeral does 54 years later.

MacManus is notable for his statement in court in 1848 where he explains his actions by saying, “It was not because I loved England less, but because I loved Ireland more.”