Fanny Parnell

Fanny Parnell (4 September 1848 – 20 July 1882) was an Irish poet. She was a sister of Charles Stewart Parnell.

Born in Avondale, County Wicklow, Ireland, Fanny was the eighth child of John Henry Parnell and his wife Delia Tudor Stewart. In 1859, following the death of her father, the family moved to Dalkey and in 1860 to Dublin. In 1865 she moved with her mother to Paris and then in 1874 to Bordentown, New Jersey USA, where she lived until her death in 1882.

In 1864 she began contributing poetry to the Fenian newspaper "The Irish People" under the pen name Aleria. In 1880 she founded the Ladies' Land League to raise money in America for the Land League. A pamphlet, "The Hovels of Ireland" (1880), and a collection of poems, "Land League Songs" (1882), were widely published. Her best known poem was "Hold the harvest", described by Michael Davitt as the "Marseillaise" of the Irish peasant".

She died suddenly of heart failure and was buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts.