Yours in great haste,
John O’Donovan.
The “Young Ireland War” as he calls it, got me into prison a few weeks after he wrote that letter. He wrote it on the 10th of November, 1858. I was arrested on the 5th of December, and kept in Cork Jail until August, 1859; but that did not make John O’Donovan afraid of writing to me. I wrote to him on some subjects from Cork Jail. He was in England at the time, and I got this letter from his son Edmond, who was then fifteen years old.
Dublin, June 20, 1859.
Mr. O’Donovan Rossa, County Jail, Cork.
Sir—My father and my brother John are at present in Oxford, else you would have long since received an answer to your letter. As you would probably wish to write to him again, I send you his address, which is in care of Dr. Bandenel, Bodleian Library, Oxford. We expect them home about the 24th of July.
I remain your, etc.,
E. O’Donovan.
That is the Edmond O’Donovan who became so celebrated as a war correspondent in Asia and Africa, for the London papers, and who was killed in the Soudan in the year 1882. About June the 14th, 1859, his father wrote me this letter: