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Showing posts from February, 2015

Maud Gonne, Ireland's Joan of Arc, Toured Massachusetts in February 1900 to Protest British in Boer War

Maud Gonne , rebel, activist and poetic muse, came to the United States in February 1900, to tell Americans about the atrocities of the British in South Africa's Boer War.  She spoke forcefully about the conditions of the refugee camps where women and children suffered, and spoke of the Irish who were fighting alongside the Boers against the British, including her husband, Major John McBride, who formed the Irish Transvaal Brigade. Already renowned for her beauty and fiery disposition, she was described by The Boston Globe as "pictuesque in a black velvet gown with a silver girdle at the waist...her splendid voice extremely musical." Gonne spoke in Lowell on Sunday, February 11, 1900 in Associate Hall , and later met with a group of German-Americans from Lawrence. Then on Monday, February 12, she addressed 2,500 in Fall River, during which eight Irish societies of 500 men and women preceded her speech with a parade that included two brass bands and a drum cor