Easter Rising them. They agreed that they would launch a rising together at Easter and made Connolly the sixth member of the Military Council. Thomas MacDonagh would later become the seventh and final member. The death of the old Fenian leader Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa in New York in August 1915 was an opportunity to mount a spectacular demonstration. His body was sent to Ireland for burial in Glasnevin Cemetery, with the Volunteers in charge of arrangements. Huge crowds lined the route and gathered at the graveside. Pearse made a dramatic funeral oration, a rallying call to republicans, which ended with the words
The Boys of the Old Brigade The Boys of the Old Brigade "For the English slow march, see The Old Brigade" The Boys of the Old Brigade is an Irish rebel song written by Paddy McGuigan about the Irish Republican Army of the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), and the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. The song describes a veteran of the Easter Rising telling a young man about his old comrades in the Irish Republican Army. Each chorus ends with the Irish language phrase ""a ghrá mo chroí" (love of my heart), I long to see, the Boys of the Old Brigade". Oh, father