Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa

1 Aug 1915: West Cork born Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa was finally laid to rest at Glasnevin after passing away peacefully in late June on Staten Island, New York.

Arriving in Dublin Tuesday 27 July, Rossa's remains would be taken to the Pro-Cathedral for a requiem mass to be held the next day. He would then lay in state at Dublin City Hall until the departure of the funeral cortege for Glasnevin around 2:30pm Sunday.

No detail was left to chance, and this the somber occasion, turned rallying cry, would later be referred to as the funeral helped spark the revolution.

Leading the procession was the St. James Band and the mounted unit of Dublin Volunteers. The horse-drawn hearse was accompanied by a hand-picked honour guard including members of the Irish Citizen Army, Irish Volunteers and even Na Fianna Éireann - the Irish nationalist youth organisation founded by Bulmer Hobson & Constance Markievicz.

Next would be Rossa's grieving family and the clergy followed by an estimated 5,000 mourners representing nationalist organisations such as The Irish Volunteers and their predecessors and affiliated groups, plus Cumann na mBan, the GAA and AOH just to name a few. Tens of thousands more lined the route.

The ceremony was punctuated by Pádraig Pearse's graveside eulogy which began in Irish and concluded with his famously defiant words:

"Life springs from death; and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations. The Defenders of this Realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but 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."

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