period, the vital contribution of Rooney to the emergence of Sinn Féin was regularly acknowledged by many of those involved, including Brian O'Higgins, veteran of the 1916 Rising and President of Sinn Féin in the 1930s, who referred to him as "the real founder of Sinn Féin". His poems include "The Men of the West", "Ninety Eight", and "An tSean Bhean Bhocht". A book of his poems was posthumously published in 1902, Poems and Ballads of William Rooney. The writer James Joyce gave Rooney's poems an unfavourable review in the Daily Express. Griffith responded by publishing Joyce's review in the United Irishman as an advertisement for Rooney's book of poems. His only emendation was the addition of a single word. Joyce had written that Rooney 'might have written well if he had not suffered from one of those big words which make us so unhappy.' Griffith merely inserted the word: patriotism. References 1873 births 1901 deaths Writers from Dublin (city)