West Cork to mark life and death of O’Donovan Rossa

The life and death of Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa will be marked in his native West Cork this summer, a century after his Dublin funeral proved a rallying cry for the 1916 Rising.

Among the events planned is a recreation of an 1863 march through Skibbereen organised by O’Donovan Rossa in sympathy with a Polish uprising. The plan is to involve Cork’s Polish community, fulfilling a Government aim to have as much participation as possible by the new Irish in the Decade of Centenaries.

A centenary Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York will mark his death there in late June 1915, after 44 years in effective exile.