Jimmy C: how do you know that Roddy was a Presbyterian? ATQ Stewart states it in The Summer Soldiers but with no backing evidence. The original ballad (not Carbery) states that he received the last rites from a Father Devlin. It was also a father Devlin (prob the same) who denounced him from the pulpit and convinced the Catholic community that he should be turned in. Also, McCorley is a very Catholic name. I'd be happy to be proved wrong but I'd need evidence.

Fiolar: yea same in my copy of Biog Dict but a mistake, prob a misprint, definitely 1902. "Erin" was pubd postumously in 1904. I think that EC's Roddy is one of the finest ballads in the nationalist canon, just exuding rebel spirit and sentiment, though it's probably based on, let's be charitable, a selective reading of the the historical reality. For Seamus MacManus's 1918 brief biog of EC check: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/carbery/carbery.html. It's headed "A Celebration of Women Writers". Please post if successful.