Life
1860-1891 [occas. pseud., ‘Ruby’]; b. 23 June, Killadroy, Co
Tyrone, 24 June; ed. Omagh Loreto Convent, Dublin Art School; long-term
friend of Charles Kickham whom she nursed in his last illness; friend
also of Alice Milligan, Anna Johnston (Ethna Carbery); Katharine Tynan,
and Hester and Dora Sigerson; contributed to Dublin University Review,
Nation, Shamrock, Young Ireland, and American-Irish
paperset al.; wrote children’s section for The Irish Fireside,
then head of children’s dept. of Weekly Freeman [pseud. Uncle
Remus II]; remembered for her children’s ‘Uncle Remus’
series; much beloved; suffered from tuberculosis and died after a cold
incurred visiting her mother at Christmas, d. 26 Feb.; deeply regretted
by Fr. Matthew Russell in columns of the Irish Monthly; Rose
Kavanagh and Her Verses, ed. Rev. Matthew Russell (Dublin 1909); Yeats
wrote an obituary appreciation in the Boston Pilot (11 Apr. 1891);
there is a notice of her death among the cuttings of the Linen Hall Library
(Belfast) and . PI DBIV JMC DUB OCIL
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Works
Rose Kavanagh, ‘Gerald Griffin’s Life and Poetry,’ Irish
Monthly 28 (1900), pp.15-27.
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Criticism
W. B. Yeats, ‘Death of a Promising Poet’ in the Boston
Pilot (11 April 1891) [infra]; see also a chapter
devoted to her in Katherine Tynan’s Memoiries. And see Irish
Book Lover 1.
W. P. Ryan, The Irish Literary Revival (London 1894; rep. Lemma Publishing Corp. (NY 1970), pp.45-46.
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Notes
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington:
Catholic Univ. of America 1904), gives the ‘Northern Blackwater’
and ‘Lough Bray’.
John Cooke, The Dublin Book of Irish Verse (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1909), gives bio-dates, 1859-1891; ‘Lough Bray’; ‘St. Michan’s Churchyard’ ("Inside the city’s throbbing heart/One spot I know set well apart/From Life’s hard highway, Life’s loud mart" - but no specific burials mentioned. JMC (Irish Literature, 1904) [biog as above], selects ‘The Northern Blackwater’ [‘Many a ruin, both abbey and cot/Sees in your mirror a desolate lotwith a footnote to Dr. William Drennan’s poem ‘The Ford, Beal-an-atha-Buidhe’]; and Lough Bray [‘A little lonely moorland lake/Its waters brown and cool and deep/The cliff, the hills behind it make/A picture for my heart to keep’.
Ulster Libraries: Univ. of Ulster (Morris Collection) holds [Fr.] Matthew Russell, Rose Kavanagh and Her Verses (1909).
Charles Joseph Kickham: Rose Kavanagh is cited as a source of memoirs
of Kickham in Matthew Russell, intro. to Knocknagow (Duffy n.d.
[?3rd ed. 1879]).
Ellen O’Leary: Rose Kavanagh’s last poem, “Ellen O’Leary”, returned a tribute that Ellen had previously paid her; Katharine Tynan wrote two memorial poems for her; Yeats obituary, in Boston Pilot 11 Apr. 1891; Fr. Russell persistently lamented her during two years in Irish Monthly; she is anthologised in Brooke/Rolleston, Cooke, Graves, Sparling, and Yeats.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)