"Too much talk and too little action have been the characteristics of Irish patriotism during a large portion of the last half century; and as we are supposed to learn from experience, it is believed that less of the former and a corresponding increase of the latter will, in the future, serve our country’s cause best and our enemy’s cause least."
"Irishmen should have a country; they have a right to the country of their birth. By the use and aid of one steel—the pen—our committee have taken possession of that right, and as their title one day may be disputed, I trust they will be able and willing to prove it by the aid of another steel—the sword."
"Thus was this Irishman reminded of the loss of his country; he had no country; we Irishmen are slaves and outcasts in the land of our birth."
"Thus may foreign nations believe this country is not ours, and I am sure you will not be surprised that England is particularly positive on this point. She has made all possible efforts to convince us of it. She has broken the heads of many Irishmen trying to hammer this opinion into them. For seven long and dreary centuries has she been trying to force it on us; and against her during all this time have the majority of Irishmen protested. Yet has she disregarded every protestation, every claim, and every petition, and instead of treating us as human beings or subjects, she has made every effort that pen, fire and sword could make to extirpate our race.
She has stained almost every hearthstone in the land with the heart’s blood of a victim; and the other day, in savage exultation at the idea of her work being accomplished, she cried out, ‘The Irish are gone, and gone with a vengeance’. But the mercenary Thunderer lies. I read it in your countenances. The Irish are not gone; but part of them are gone, and in whatever clime their pulses beat to night, that ‘vengeance’ which banished them is inscribed on their hearts, impregnates their blood, and may yet operate against that oppressor who, by his exterminating and extirpating laws, deprived them of a means of living in the land of their fathers."
She has stained almost every hearthstone in the land with the heart’s blood of a victim; and the other day, in savage exultation at the idea of her work being accomplished, she cried out, ‘The Irish are gone, and gone with a vengeance’. But the mercenary Thunderer lies. I read it in your countenances. The Irish are not gone; but part of them are gone, and in whatever clime their pulses beat to night, that ‘vengeance’ which banished them is inscribed on their hearts, impregnates their blood, and may yet operate against that oppressor who, by his exterminating and extirpating laws, deprived them of a means of living in the land of their fathers."
"We have no foe—no enemy amongst any class or creed of our countrymen; politically speaking, the man who looks upon us, and men of our political profession, as his enemy, is our enemy. He must be a man who would have his country forever under the yoke of the foreigner; or, he must be a man who has profited by the plunder, or who is supported by the plunderer."
Extracts from a speech delivered by O'Donovan Rossa to the Phœnix National Society, Skibbereen, in the beginning of 1858.
The full transcription can found here (last half of the chapter).
The full transcription can found here (last half of the chapter).
Cartlann
Doctor Jerrie Crowley, Doctor Anthony O’Ryan, Charles Kickham, The Phoenix Society
After my marriage, my late employer moved into a new house he had built. I rented the house in which I had lived with him the previous four or five years, [...]
" 'God’s wrath upon the Saxon' that wrought the wreck and ruin of the millions of the men, women, and children of my land
and race. "
and race. "
"England’s head was on the coins I had in my pocket, but I knew those coins did not belong to her, as well as I knew that the lands of my people all around me that England’s land-robbers held, did not belong to them."
" I like to see an Irishman proud of his people. It is seldom you will find such a man doing anything that would disgrace any one belonging to him. In my work of organizing in Ireland, I felt myself perfectly safe in dealing with men who were proud—no matter how poor they were—of belonging to the “Old Stock.” I trusted them, and would trust them again. "
"...we have many such patriots among us to-day; not alone in Ireland, but in America, and in every other land to which the Irish race is driven—patriots who will do anything to free Ireland but the one thing that must be done before she is freed. And to say that she cannot be freed by force is something that no manly Irishman should say—something he should not allow a thought of to enter his mind, while he has it in his power to grasp all these resources of war, or “resources of civilization” that England has at her command for the subjugation of Ireland and other nations. England knows well that Irishmen have it in their power to bring her to her knees, if they fight her with her own weapons, and that is why she labors so insidiously to put the brand of illegality, infamy, and barbarity upon such instruments of war in their hands as in her hands she calls “resources of civilization.” “England,” said Gladstone to Parnell, “has yet in reserve for Ireland the resources of civilization.” Ireland has such “resources” too; and, when it comes to a fight—as come it must—the Parnells must be sure to use them in England as the Gladstones will be sure to use them in Ireland. Then, may there be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and blood for blood"
"Many another Irish exile,” did I say?—did I call myself an “exile”?—an Irishman in New York, an “exile”! Yes; and the word, and all the meanings of the word, come naturally to me, and run freely from my mind into this paper. My mother buried in America, all my brothers and sisters buried in America; twelve of my children born in America—and yet I cannot feel that America is my country; I am made to feel that I am a stranger here, and I am made to see that the English power, and the English influence and the English hate, and the English boycott against the Irish-Irishmen is to-day as active in America as it is in Ireland. I am also made to see England engaged in her old game of employing dirty Irishmen to do some of the dirty work that she finds it necessary to have done, to hold Ireland in thrall. "
"With the history Irishmen have, or ought to have, by heart, it is surprising how easy it is to lead them to expect redress for their grievances from the Parliament of England — from that Parliament that has so often cajoled and deceived them, that Parliament whose proper function is to rivet the chains by which they are held in bondage. I don't know is it innate slavery, the slavery engen- dered in the Irish blood during seven hundred years of subjection — I don't know what it is ; but there it is again at the very present day — the people "agitating" for their rights, and sending good men to the London Parliament to get them. It is, to my mind, the evading and avoiding of what alone will ever get Irish rights from England — that is, fight and preparation for it."
- O'Donovan Rossa
- O'Donovan Rossa
"...if the indignation and retaliation of the Irish peo- ple would set London and other English cities ablaze, not alone would the whole Irish race all over the world rejoice, but the world itself and the victim spirits of the English-oppressed na- tions of the earth would shout " Halleluiah ! " from the heavens.
This may look like tall talk, but it is no taller than I have been trying to act during my "banishment from Ireland. England has proclaimed war against me ; she makes me an outcast on the world, and forbids me to tread my native land, and I have made no peace with England. I am at war with her, and, so help me God ! I will wage that war against her till she is stricken to her knees or till I am stricken to my grave."
- O'Donovan Rossa
This may look like tall talk, but it is no taller than I have been trying to act during my "banishment from Ireland. England has proclaimed war against me ; she makes me an outcast on the world, and forbids me to tread my native land, and I have made no peace with England. I am at war with her, and, so help me God ! I will wage that war against her till she is stricken to her knees or till I am stricken to my grave."
- O'Donovan Rossa