On This Day: Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Fenian leader, dies in the U.S.

Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, Irish Fenian leader and prominent member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, died in this US on this day, June 29, 1915.

O’Donovan Rossa's funeral in Dublin marked of future 1916 Rising leader Padraig Pearse's stepping into the spotlight.

The body of the Irish Fenian leader lay in state in Dublin City Hall before being removed to Glasnevin Cemetery on August 1, 1915, where Padraig Pearse delivered his famous graveside oration, which ends with the lines:

“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.”

Along with Pearse, James Connolly, Eamonn Ceannt, as well as the wife and daughter of Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, were in attendance at the funeral in Dublin. British Pathe has shared historic newsreel of O'Donovan Rossa's lying in state.

Just a few months after O'Donovan Rossa's funeral, the 1916 Easter Rising began.