International - Event Notice
Thursday January 01 1970
Launch Of 'The Graves At Kilmorna'
international |
history and heritage |
event notice
Tuesday September 24, 2013 15:03
by Jack Lane - Aubane Historical Society
jacklaneaubane at hotmail dot com
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A STORY OF '67
This book is republished to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Canon Sheehan.
Teachers' Club, Parnell Square.
The Grave At Kilmorna, A Story Of '67 by Canon Sheehan. 296pp. ISBN 978-1-903497-78-4. AHS. August 2013. €20, £24
The Graves At Kilmorna is a novel of the Fenian Rising of 1867 and of the subsequent decline of principled political national life in Ireland under the influence of the Home Rule Party. The central figure of the novel, a Fenian veteran, is killed by a Parliamentary mob for raising Fenian principles at an election meeting.
The author, Patrick Augustine Sheehan (1852-1913) completed the novel shortly before his death. It was published the following year, 1914, when the Home Rule Bill was being formally enacted by Parliament but was set aside in fact, the Home Rule leaders were recruiting Irish cannonfodder for the British war on Germany and Turkey, and a new Rising was being planned.
Sheehan, the author of novels of high quality, was the Parish Priest of Doneraile in North Cork. He was actively involved in social and political affairs (land reform and the All-for-Ireland-League). His first posting as a priest was to Exeter in England where, as a prison chaplain at Dartmoor, he became familiar with the conditions in which Fenian prisoners were held.