Mary Jane Irwin O'Donovan Rossa of Clonakilty, West Cork, was an Irish nationalist and activist. She was the wife of Jer | dG1fS1VReGl5THFMaUE
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00:00She's certainly as important to the Fenian movement as anybody else.
00:08I think she fell in love not just with Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, but also with the idea of
00:14revolution.
00:16Rossa was as much a vehicle for her as he was a husband and a lover.
00:23She persevered against huge adversities.
00:29She just kept going.
00:34She spent almost two years touring.
00:36She would talk about her husband being tortured in prison.
00:39She was in all the newspapers.
00:41She was a celebrity.
00:42She was a big celebrity.
00:43So she became a woman of independent means, which was almost unheard of at that period.
00:49She was driven by what can we do for Ireland and for nationalism.
00:54And it was a great propaganda coup for the movement to have this public funeral, and
00:58she was all for it.
01:01History has historically been written not only by the victors, but by the male victors.
01:06Women are really incredibly underrepresented, and they're going to make history the way
01:12women would make history, in a way that's very different than men.
01:15History's full of very strong women.
01:17They've been airbrushed out of it.
01:19It's time they were put back in.
01:21Glory, oh, glory, oh, to the bold female women.