Edmund O'Donovan

Edmund O'Donovan was born in Dublin in 1844, the son of a Kilkenny scholar, and he turned that privileged start into a reckless life of wars, prisons and desert roads. He joined the French Foreign Legion after Sedan, wrote from the Carlist rising in Spain, watched Russian guns break the Turcoman fortress at Geok Tepe, and still kept secrets that might have destroyed a British spy. His joy in danger and his gift for languages made him unforgettable, but the Kordofan campaigns took him in 1883, leaving behind a young man who refused to stand still while the world bled.