Ellen O’ Leary was born in Tipperary Town on this day in 1831. She was deeply involved in revolutionary nationalist circles in 1860s and 1870s. In the 1880s Ellen and her brother John played a key role in the development of the Irish literary revival.
Ellen spent most of her adult life in a cottage in Tipperary town. Intelligent, sensitive and bookish, she spent much of her time working with local catholic charities and, from her early twenties, producing poetry, which often reflected her commitment to the nationalist cause. She drew on the folklore and mythology of Ireland’s past to affirm national pride and create a fresh strand in Irish culture.
In time she became a contributor to a variety of journals, among them the Nation, Commercial Journal, Irishman, Shamrock, Irish Fireside, the Irish-American Boston Pilot, and in later years the Irish Monthly. She also went on to become closely associated with the Fenian journal the Irish People (1863–5), co-edited by her brother John, her poetic contributions appearing under the pseudonyms ‘Eily’ and ‘Lenel’.
After the arrests of prominent Fenians, including her brother John, in September 1865, she was employed by the IRB leader James Stephens to carry messages in Dublin and also to Paris. When Stephens escaped from Richmond prison (24 November 1865), she facilitated his flight by mortgaging her property for £200 to charter a ship to take him to France. After Stephens's flight Edward Duffy assumed effective leadership of the IRB and Ellen began working for him. They fell in love and became engaged but Duffy died in Millbank prison in 1868 before they married, and Ellen moved back to Tipperary.
In the 1880s she renewed her political activities, attending the inaugural meeting of the Ladies Land League in January 1881, at which she was elected treasurer. In 1885, she left Tipperary and set up house with her brother John in Dublin. Their home at 40 Leinster Road, Rathmines, became a meeting place for leading Irish writers, nationalists and intellectuals, notably W. B. Yeats, whose poetry appeared alongside Ellen's in the Celtic revival's seminal publication ‘Poems and ballads of Young Ireland’ (1888).
She suffered from poor health in the 1880s and passed away from breast cancer on 16 October 1889. Ellen was buried in the O'Leary family plot in Tipperary. Her brother John was particularly distraught at her death, recalling that ‘She was everything to me, as I was everything to her’. A collection of her verse, which Maud Gonne had helped prepare before her death, was published with an introduction by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy in 1891, and established her reputation as a leading Fenian poet.
Sources:
https://www.open.edu/.../three-irish-poets-ellen-oleary
https://www.dib.ie/biography/oleary-ellen-a6860
