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Edmund O'donovan

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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EDMUND O'DONOVAN (1844-1883), British war-correspondent, was born at Dublin on the 13th of September 1844, the son of John O'Donovan (1809-1861), a well-known Irish archaeologist and topographer. In 1866 he began to contribute to the Irish Times and other Dublin papers. After the battle of Sedan he joined the Foreign Legion of the French army, and was wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans. In 1873 the Carlist rising attracted him to Spain, and he wrote many newspaper letters on the campaign. In 1876 he represented the London Daily News during the rising of Bosnia and Herzegovina against the Turks, and in 1879, for the same paper, made his adventurous and famous journey to 1VIerv. On his arrival at Merv, the Turcomans, suspecting him to be a Russian spy, detained him. It was only after several months' captivity that O'Donovan managed to get a message to his principals through to Persia, whence it was telegraphed to England. These adventures he described in The Mer y Oasis (1882). In 1883 O'Donovan accompanied the ill-fated expedition of Hicks Pasha to the Egyptian Sudan, and perished with it.