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THE IRISH REPUBLICAN BROTHERHOOD

When O’Donovan Rossa was released from Cork Jail in July 1859, the work of organising the Irish Republican Brotherhood had been momentarily suspended. James Stephens, the enigmatic leader of the Fenians, had1 disappeared and for all means and purposes was on the run from the British state. As O’Donovan Rossa was settling into normality after his wife’s death, it seemed that the political side of his life, apart from his personal beliefs and desire to annoy and harass the local authorities, was coming to an end. Being a single father in Victorian Ireland was incredibly difficult, and O’Donovan Rossa now began a relationship with Eileen Buckley, aged 17. Eileen was a native of Gortbrack, Castlehaven, County Cork and was the only daughter of Cornelius Buckley, a butter merchant and wealthy farmer. Eileen was well travelled and had been educated in Europe; she was regarded as a warm, jovial and attractive woman who was much sought after by the bachelors of Castlehaven. Irish was her first language and she regularly embraced the rural Gaelic tradition of dancing at the crossroads and could be seen on Sundays dancing at Crois na Cora Boige (Curraghbeg Cross, Castlehaven). It was here that she met O’Donovan Rossa, and the two developed a relationship. Their relationship, however, got off to a difficult start as the Buckleys wanted nothing to do with O’Donovan Rossa considering his politics, his age and his four children from a previous marriage.

When the couple became engaged, Cornelius Buckley forbade the marriage – he perceived that O’Donovan Rossa was more trouble than he was worth and was only after Eileen’s sizable dowry. Eileen and O’Donovan Rossa realised that they were going to have to elope, which they did in 1861. The couple would have one child to add to O’Donovan Rossa’s already sizable family, whom they named Florence Stephens in honour of the Fenian chief, James Stephens. Having married Eileen, O’Donovan Rossa now looked for a new job – he was determined to do right by Eileen and his family and prove Cornelius wrong. Eventually he secured a position as a temporary relieving officer, through McCarthy Dowling, his solicitor, who sat on the Board of Guardians of the Skibbereen Poor Law Union.

Off the south-west coast of Cork are two islands named Sherkin and Cape Clear. In 1862, just as O’Donovan Rossa had been made a temporary relief officer, the islands had been affected by a near famine, and there was a growing crisis as the people starved due to a shortage of food. The situation was far worse for those living on Cape Clear than Sherkin, considering its distance from the mainland. The Skibbereen Board of Guardians pressed for immediate relief, and O’Donovan Rossa, with his friend and neighbour, Michael O’Driscoll, and the permission of the Board of Guardians, undertook a mission to deliver a ton of meal to the islands to alleviate the hunger of the inhabitants. Seeing the poverty and destitution of the Cape horrified O’Donovan Rossa and brought back memories of the Great Famine. Arriving at Sherkin, O’Donovan Rossa saw a man lying on the grass, almost as if he were basking in the sunshine. Asking for his help unloading sacks, the man looked up but did not make any move to help. O’Donovan Rossa chose to confront him and ask why he would not help the relief effort. As he approached the man lying in the grass, he saw he was starving and in tremendous pain:

I leaped ashore and found the man was unable to stand on his own legs; he was dying of hunger – a man named O’Driscoll, over six feet, and about twenty-six years of age. My wife had thought I would be out on the islands for a few days, and she had sandwiched up as much food for me as would feed me for a week; Michael O’Driscoll’s wife had done the same for him; we took our lunch baskets from the boat, laid them before the hungry man, and left him to help himself while we were landing the meal.2

Arriving back the following day at Sherkin, O’Donovan Rossa found the once hungry man dead. The food that they had left him prior to their departure had been too much.

At Cape Clear, the relief party were met by a local Catholic priest, Fr Collins. The relief team stored the meal at the priest’s home and distributed food to the starving masses. By order of the Board of Guardians, the distribution of the food was under a strict ration of no more than three and a half pounds of meal per person. Distributing the food and having stayed loyal to the Board of Guardians’ ration instruction, the relief effort was left with 100 lbs of meal. This was again stored in Fr Collins’ house, for the next event of food distribution. The priest was determined to show the relief team the horror and destitution of Cape Island. Taking them on a tour of the locality, they were evidently moved by what they saw. Collins took O’Donovan Rossa to one of his parishioners, a young woman who lived inside the cleft of a large rock. To his horror, O’Donovan Rossa, after following Collins inside on his hands and knees, found the woman lying on flagstones and covered in light heather, making a makeshift blanket to keep her warm. This woman was too cold and hungry to move. An equally poor ‘neighbour’ of hers had collected meal for her from the relief team, but she was unable to cook it. Fr Collins pleaded with O’Donovan Rossa to give her some more food, and he was inclined to agree with the priest, issuing her with an unauthorised stock of meal. Leaving the island he recalled:

Father Collins accompanied us to the other end of the island to take the boat for Sherkin. The walk was about three miles. We entered many houses on the way. Some of them had flags for doors – the wooden doors having been burnt for firing. In one house were five or six children; one of them was dead – evidently died from starvation. I reported that case of death to the first coroner I could communicate with when I reached the mainland; and inquest was held and the coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of: ‘Death from starvation.’3

Returning to Skibbereen, O’Donovan Rossa found himself in trouble with the Board of Guardians. The largest owner of land on Cape Clear, John Wrixon Beecher, had complained that in giving extra meal to the starving, O’Donovan Rossa had exceeded his brief, had violated the trust of the Poor Law System and had been in breach of its rules and regulations. Beecher insisted that O’Donovan Rossa was not fit to be a temporary relief officer, that he should be discharged from his position and should not be paid for the weeks of service he provided. Beecher also proposed that O’Donovan Rossa should pay for the extra meal, which he had distributed beyond the ration set, from his own pocket. Without O’Donovan Rossa’s consent or knowledge, he was relieved of his duties and replaced. Furious with his treatment, he defended his actions to the Board of Guardians and the Poor Law Commissioners in Dublin, citing how he was not prepared to allow the people to starve. He further suggested that the real reason why he lost his job was not because he distributed greater levels of food than he was allowed to do, but because he reported the death of a child due to starvation rather than keeping it a secret.

At the end of 1860, John O’Mahony, the founder of the Fenian Brotherhood, arrived in Ireland. O’Mahony’s visit was organised clandestinely for fear of arrest. O’Mahony was born near Mitchelstown, County Cork and was eager to revisit the province of his birth. It was decided by what remained of the local organisation of the Phoenix Society/IRB in Skibbereen that O’Mahony would be welcomed to the community. It had been arranged that the Fenian leader would be picked up at Roscarbery and then taken to Skibbereen where he would meet the local IRB and discuss the state of West Cork and Fenianism in the aftermath of the crushing Phoenix arrests. Before arriving in Ireland in 1860, O’Mahony had called upon Stephens in Paris, where the IRB chief was hiding since the Phoenix arrests in 1858, and it was on his initiative that Stephens returned home to Dublin to begin to reorganise the revolutionary movement in the spring of 1861. There was an understanding between Stephens and O’Mahony that the Fenians would supply the IRB with 5,000 soldiers and 50,000 rifles and muskets. Stephens agreed to this on an understanding that no insurrection would be attempted against the British Administration without this Irish-American support. Touring the country and visiting his sister in County Tipperary, O’Mahony eventually arrived in Rosscarbery. The Fenian leader entered the town on an early form of public transport, known as Bianconi’s Long Car. Greeted by O’Donovan Rossa, Dan McCarthy and Morty Moynahan, he was then taken to Skibbereen where he was received as a returning hero by the local IRB. Listening to O’Mahony speak of the idea of a republican government, O’Donovan Rossa was greatly impressed by his style, virtue and principles. He regarded O’Mahony as one of the finest Irishmen that he had the pleasure of meeting, and describing the Fenian leader he claimed that: ‘He made the impression on me that he was a man proud of his name and of his race. And I liked him for that.’4

While O’Mahony was in Ireland, back in America, Terence Bellew MacManus a veteran of the 1848 Rebellion, originally from County Fermanagh, had died in San Francisco. Buried in Calvary Cemetery, San Francisco, it was decided by the Fenian Brotherhood that he should be exhumed and buried in Ireland. This decision was based on a calculation that the MacManus funeral could galvanise the Fenian base in Ireland and prove a means to radicalise and educate the people as to the concept of republicanism as an alternative to British administration of Ireland. It also provided an opportunity to establish a cult of the Dead Rebel, which in turn would provide an opportunity to recruit thousands of Irishmen to the cause of Fenianism, thus revitalising the movement. Arriving in New York City, prior to his departure to Ireland, Bellew MacManus’ remains were greeted by huge crowds of Irish-Americans, and his was one of the largest funeral cortege’s seen in that city’s history. As part of the planning of the Bellew MacManus funeral it had been decided that his remains were to be buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. James Stephens, in his capacity as Chief Organiser of the Irish Republic, had personally written to O’Donovan Rossa, asking him to meet the body at Cork. Stephens also wanted O’Donovan Rossa to accompany MacManus’s remains to Dublin, and the Cork Fenian eagerly accepted. O’Donovan Rossa took his place in the delegation accompanying MacManus’ remains, and when the body arrived in Cork there were crowds of onlookers to witness the arrival. As the body came in quite a stir was caused when a little boy had been seen climbing up a nearby ships flagpole to remove an overlooking British Union flag. Briefly staying in Cork O’Donovan Rossa helped to put the MacManus’ coffin on a train for Dublin and like the other delegates accompanying the remains, he was armed with a pistol. Each delegate had been given a pistol due to a rumour that some people within the IRB organisation would attempt to commandeer the body and use the seizure as a means to rally the people to a premature insurrection.

With the train moving apace from Cork en route to Dublin, there was a stop of seven minutes at Limerick Junction. Here, the anxiety was palpable for O’Donovan Rossa and the delegates accompanying the body. Knowing that the train was carrying Bellew MacManus, hundreds of onlookers had arrived on the platform and thronged fields surrounding the train station. In anticipation of this stop at Limerick Junction, Stephens had ordered local IRB men to be at the station to protect the body and the delegates in the event of an IRB mutiny. With anxiety growing, and the train due to depart Limerick Junction, Stephens shouted out of the window, calling on those assembled to kneel and pray out of respect to Bellew MacManus. The assembled crowd began to recite the Catholic pater and ave for the dead enmasse. As it was in Cork and Limerick Junction, in Dublin, hundreds of onlookers had turned out to see the remains of Bellew MacManus. O’Donovan Rossa was amazed by a city ‘ablaze with torchlights’, in the Young Irelander’s honour.5

A numerous body of persons, admirers of the deceased were present at the Knightsbridge [sic – Kingsbridge] terminus, and when the train moved toward the platform, the entire assemblage, with uncovered heads, awaited the opening of the van containing the deceased… The van containing the body was then opened, and the coffin, which was encased in a heavy square wooden box, was removed on the shoulders of a number of men to the hearse prepared for it.6

All of this was in defiance to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, who, led by Archbishop of Dublin Paul Cullen, had condemned the funeral and forbid Catholic clergy from taking part in any funeral service for the Young Irelander. Archbishop Cullen even went so far as to deny the use of Dublin’s main Catholic church, the Pro-Cathedral, and was immovable in his opposition. Archbishop Cullen’s opposition to the funeral was no surprise: he had earlier been a vehement opponent of the ecumenical Young Irelanders and as a member of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, he was bound to oppose secret societies such as the Fenians. Considering that the archbishop would not allow MacManus’ remains into any Catholic church in Dublin, the funeral committee had secured the lecture theatre of the Mechanics Institute on Lower Abbey Street, the present site of the Abbey Theatre, to house the body before burial. With the remains of Bellew MacManus now in Dublin City, O’Donovan Rossa took his place as one of the Cork delegates accompanying the body to Abbey Street:

The hearse, preceded by six torch bearers, was immediately followed by Captain M.C. Smith and other members of the Cork and American committees. Then followed about 300 persons, on either side of whom torch bearers walked. The melancholy cortege proceeded along the Quays with a slow and solemn pace. The appearance of torches and the orderly bearing of those who followed the hearse was very impressive and imposing.7

In contravention to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, the Fenians had arranged for people to come and pay their respects to MacManus while he lay in rest in the Mechanics Institute, and despite religious opposition, thousands of people visited the coffin.8 Inside the Mechanics Institute, the room had been decked in black and the coffin had been placed on a table in the centre of the room, surrounded by a guard of honour, a standing crucifix at the top of the casket and two candles, providing a ‘sombre and peculiar effect’.9 At one o’clock on the 11 November, MacManus was brought from the Mechanics Institute on Abbey Street in a slow procession to Glasnevin Cemetery. Taking a meandering route, the procession passed by several sites associated with Irish republicans, including St Catherine’s Church, Thomas Street, opposite where Robert Emmet had been executed in 1803. Taking over four hours, the funeral procession, followed by thousands of people, eventually arrived at Glasnevin Cemetery. Defying Archbishop Cullen’s dictate that no Catholic priest was to preside over the funeral of Bellew MacManus, Fr Patrick Lavelle, a radical nationalist and respected priest from County Mayo, known as the Patriot Priest of Partry, delivered the funeral service. Fr Lavelle eulogised all who had attended the procession and had been involved with its organisation. He commented how the procession and the show of support for Bellew MacManus had ‘told more forcibly on our hereditary foes and oppressors than any language which that any Irish Priest or patriot could pronounce’. Lavelle went further, and in a remarkable outburst from a Catholic priest, exclaimed: ‘Yesterday, that sarcophagus was the symbol of Erin’s grave. Tomorrow it will be her resurrection.’10 Attending the funeral in Glasnevin, and listening attentively to Lavelle, O’Donovan Rossa could only agree, and left knowing that the funeral was laying the ground for the emergence of a serious challenge to British rule in Ireland: ‘The MacManus funeral tended very much to increase the strength of the Fenian movement. Men from Leinster, Ulster, Munster, and Connaught met in Dublin who never met each other before. They talked of the old cause, and of the national spirit in their respective provinces, and each went back to his home, strengthened for more vigorous work.’11

In January 1863 there had been a rebellion in Poland against the Russian monarchy, and by March of that year, O’Donovan Rossa, with Morty Moynahan and Jerry Crowley, had set his mind to organising a sympathy rally with Polish insurgents in Skibbereen. Once again, O’Donovan Rossa was at odds with the local police, and alongside comrades within the IRB, he actively prepared republican banners and torchlights.12 Becoming a key organiser of this rally through Skibbereen town centre that would involve marching bands and public speaking, O’Donovan Rossa believed that if a large number of people came out it could be perceived as ‘a meeting of organised hostility against England’, bringing the community together in a display of strength.13 In preparation for the rally it had been decided that the marchers were to be properly stewarded, and handbills were produced calling on the people to show no grievance to any police officer observing the parade on the basis that they were Irishmen in uniform who were forced by circumstance to serve the Crown. While O’Donovan Rossa did not agree with this sentiment, the local IRB had produced the flyers for police dissemination so as to avoid potential problems. Learning of the plan to have a rally through the town, police numbers were consolidated and the marchers were confronted by a large body of police led by Charles O’Connell.

O’Connell immediately instructed the marchers to disperse and met with O’Donovan Rossa and the organising committee, demanding that they call upon their followers to disperse as they were disturbing the peace. Explaining to O’Connell that they were peaceful citizens in support of the Polish struggle against tyranny and had a right to peaceful protest, O’Connell read the Riot Act and declared their gathering to be illegal. O’Connell forced the marchers to remove their flags and torchlights but the gathering refused to leave, pointing out that they were now simply walking through the town centre. Allowing a boys band to play ‘Garryowen’ and march on, the police moved aside and allowed the marchers to hear an address by O’Donovan Rossa. Alongside Morty Moynahan, O’Donovan Rossa was later approached by O’Connell, who warned both men that they needed to readdress their conduct in Skibbereen and that on account of their earlier guilty plea, if they continued to act as they were doing they would be returned to jail. O’Donovan Rossa, as ever, remained unmoved, and noted to O’Connell that if he were arrested again on this occasion: ‘They should first prove me guilty of the practices of drilling and of other things sworn against me at my trial; and that while in their eyes I was acting unlawfully, I did not care about their threats.’14 Returning to his home, with the assistance of his friends, O’Donovan Rossa unfurled several republican flags from his chimney and windows.

Soon afterwards, O’Donovan Rossa made his way to Union Hall, a small fishing village in Cork. At Union Hall, O’Donovan Rossa continued to be a vocal republican, and engaging in republican songs and speeches, he came to the attention of the Local Resident Magistrate, John Limerick, who had let it be known that if he or anyone associated with radical politics returned to Union Hall they would be arrested. Never one to back down from danger, O’Donovan Rossa responded to Limerick’s threat by gathering some twenty colleagues and inviting them to Union Hall the following Sunday:

The rumour spread through the country that we would go to Union Hall next Sunday again, and that rumour was met by another one from the English side of the house that if we went we would never come back alive; that we would be shot down like dogs. It would never do for us to be intimidated; our cause would lose prestige. Sunday morning came, and after mass and breakfast some twenty or thirty of us from Skibbereen were on the road toward Union Hall. Limerick, the magistrate, had sent out requisitions to all the surrounding police barracks, calling the police to Union Hall that day, and on Sunday morning the police were marching in from Ross, Drinagh, Leap, Drimoleage, Ceharagh, Skibbereen, Glendore and Castletownsend. War and rumours of war were in the air, and the people the country around, seeing the armed police marching on the several roads toward Union Hall, followed them into the little city. The Men from Ross brought a band of music with them. They crossed the bay from Glendore in boats, and as the boats approached the quay at Union Hall Limerick, the magistrate, stood there and forbade them to land. I stood alongside of Limerick and told the men not to be driven back by such petty tyranny as this. That this was Irish soil and they had as good a right to tread it as Limerick had. Patrick and James Donovan, who are now in New York, steered their boat into shallow water and leaped ashore; the other men in the boat leaped after them. The bandsmen went to the house of Father Kingston and remained there for a short time.15

Limerick ordered that all the pubs in Union Hall were to be immediately shut by police. This was undertaken with a marked perception that Fenians in the locality would have made for local pubs. One local pub they went to was owned by O’Donovan Rossa’s aunt, Mrs Collins. Learning that the Fenian gathering was in her pub, Limerick directed police to meet with Mrs Collins. She refused to remove her nephew, however, but fearing Limerick would withhold her licence to sell alcohol, and thus ruin her business, O’Donovan Rossa and his gathering left the pub. Limerick read the Riot Act and the police, with fixed bayonets, engaged in a scuffle with the Fenians. While there were no arrests, some of O’Donovan Rossa’s friends were fined or lost their jobs when news of the Union Hall scuffle became known.

Life was getting increasingly hot for O’Donovan Rossa in Skibbereen and even if he were arrested the government did not need to prove any accusations against him because of his earlier guilty plea. With his business destroyed because of his politics as the more affluent customers stopped shopping with him, while landlords put pressure on their tenants not to do any business with him, O’Donovan Rossa decided to make for America, and in 1863, left with friends Dan Hallahan, William McCarthy, Simon Donovan, John O’Gorman and Jerrie O’Meara aboard the trans-Atlantic steamer The City of Edinburgh. Leaving on Fenian business, he left Eileen in Ireland to take care of their son, Stephens; he had intended for his family to join him later.

Arriving in America on 13 May, O’Donovan Rossa appreciated America. He had arrived at New York Harbour and taking in a view of the bustling metropolis, he contrasted its urbanity with its rural hinterland. Looking at the Staten Island Hills, which at this point could still be seen, he commented how they reminded him of his beloved Cork.16 Despite the beauty of America, however, he had entered a society in the midst of a brutal civil war. Within a month of his arrival, New York City had erupted into violent race riots as white immigrants, a good many of whom were Irish, attacked African-Americans as part of a movement which sought to protest President Lincoln’s Draft Bill, conscripting men between the ages of 20 to 45 into the Union Army. Many poorer Irish resented conscription and increasingly turned their anger on Lincoln’s Republican Party and African-Americans, both of whom they blamed for the Civil War. Beginning on 13 July 1863, many Irish looted the New York homes of wealthy republicans, burned down a home for African-American orphan children and killed a number of African-Americans, a good many of whom were found lynched from lampposts. Lasting for four days, the draft riots resulted in the death of 1,000 people and left New York economically weakened. An eyewitness to the fighting on the streets, O’Donovan Rossa was appalled by the rioting and was horrified by the behaviour of the Irish community. O’Donovan Rossa witnessed looting and unbridled violence, recalling: An old man remonstrated with one of the wreckers, and was struck and thrown down. I went to take up the fallen man, and the man who struck him pulled a pistol out of his pocket and put it to my face. ‘Oh’ said I. ‘I’m only doing what you yourself would do if you saw a poor man struck down by a young, hearty man such as you are.’ My comrades came around me, and the fellow did not pull the trigger of his pistol.17

Settling in Brooklyn, at No. 226 Schermerhorn Street, he lived with a relative, Timothy Donovan, who had emigrated to America in 1836. He now witnessed the spectacle of the Union soldiers parading and drilling or relaxing in tents. Meeting with John O’Mahony, he found the majority of the Fenian Brotherhood had enlisted as soldiers in the Union Army and took solace in a perspective that as the Irish in America were training as soldiers, ‘they might be better able to fight the battles of Ireland against England’.18 With O’Mahony, he visited armouries, drill rooms and meeting places of the Fenian Brotherhood. Aside from his political duties, O’Donovan Rossa also went into business with his cousin, Denis Donovan, and ran a saloon selling imported Irish whiskey and stout to the thriving Irish-American community in New York. Establishing their business at the corner of Madison Street, it was noted that his name was proudly displayed over the door. Around the same time he had also applied for naturalised American citizenship, and coming before the Court of Common Pleas in New York, he declared his intention for American citizenship.

O’Donovan Rossa also used the opportunity of his move to America to visit his mother Nellie, who he had not seen since she had emigrated to America in the late 1840s. Nellie had been living in Philadelphia with O’Donovan Rossa’s brother and when he had visited her, arriving at ten o’clock in the evening, she did not know who he was. Identifying himself, she still disbelieved her son. Rossa then directed her to a scar on his head, which he received in his youth, and feeling the scar, Nellie broke down crying and embraced her child. Reminiscing about the past and learning of the present, Nellie and Rossa stayed up all night talking and crying; he recalled that in the years since he had last seen his mother she had become a tragically changed woman who looked as old as his grandmother: ‘She was nothing more than a sorry caricature of the tall, straight, handsome woman with the hooded cloak, that was photographed, and is still photographed, in my mind as my mother.’19

O’Donovan Rossa moved back to Brooklyn after staying with his mother for a week and resumed his duties with the Fenian Brotherhood. He also had the occasion of meeting with Thomas Francis Meagher at New Jersey in the company of O’Mahony, who he claimed had introduced Meagher into the Fenian Brotherhood. Meagher left a favourable impression upon O’Donovan Rossa, and the young Irishman found him to hold a deep interest in Irish affairs. That evening he had travelled with O’Mahony to New York City where he was introduced to Colonel Michael Corcoran, a Sligo-born commander of the 69th New York Regiment, who was hosting a gathering for senior officers within the Fenian Brotherhood. O’Donovan Rossa recalled how all gathered had toasted Ireland and the Irish Republic.20 Later on, O’Donovan Rossa made the company of William O’Shea, a friend of his from Bantry who had been charged during the Phoenix Trials in 1859. O’Donovan Rossa lamented that he did not have enough time with O’Shea, who was killed shortly afterwards in the American Civil War. Another friend that he had met in America was Michael O’Brien. Originally from Cork, they had been friends while living in Ireland and met again in America. O’Brien told O’Donovan Rossa that he intended to join the Union Army, and O’Donovan Rossa tried to dissuade him, O’Brien argued that he needed military training, and fighting for the United States was the best way to achieve this. Unable to dissuade O’Brien from joining the Union Army, Rossa accompanied him to enlist and watched as he was measured, recorded and sworn in. While waiting on his friend, Rossa was continually asked whether he would consider enlistment within the army, on each occasion, he refused. Waving O’Brien off after his initial enlistment, O’Donovan Rossa would never see his friend again: while surviving the Civil War, Michael O’Brien would be executed in 1867 as a Manchester Martyr with William Allen and Michael Larkin, in the first political executions since Robert Emmet. He took his place within the great pantheon of Irish Nationalist Heroes. Michael O’Brien was not the only friend O’Donovan Rossa lost while in America. In the course of his visit he had learned that Eileen, his wife, had died in Ireland on 9 July 1863. The fact that she had died while he was in America left O’Donovan Rossa distraught. His grievance was compounded by the fact that he could not be with his son Stephens, who had been given to the temporary care of the Buckley’s. Returning to Ireland immediately he gave up all plans of settling in America. Throughout the remainder of his life, O’Donovan Rossa did not like to talk about Eileen. Her death, like that of Nora, continued to greatly affect him. Eileen was buried at Castlehaven; Stephens was taken into the care of his maternal grandmother. For a second time he was a widower.