Is ní cheilim, deirim, déarfad: the O’Donovan Rossa funeral, Pearse’s graveside oration and the Irish language context

Abstract

ABSTRACT Patrick Pearse was a leading figure in the 1916 rising, an armed insurrection which aimed to bring about an Irish Republic. He was also an Irish language scholar, a language activist, a modernising creative writer, an innovative educator and educationalist theorist, and a political polemicist. This article revisits Pearse’s famous graveside oration at the August 1915 funeral of the separatist Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa. It considers how the examination of the oration in its Irish language contexts – both historical literary texts and contemporary machinations in the politics of the Gaelic League – can help us to assess the evolution and impact of Pearse’s political thought. In particular, consideration is given to connections with the seventeenth-century texts “An Siogaí Rómhánach” and “Róisín Dubh.” An underlying argument is that texts composed and delivered as declamation need to be considered in their performative contexts. A comparative and contextualising discussion of the oration brings insights into the meaning and import of both the oration and the other texts and contexts alluded to by Pearse.