Juverna or Iuverna is a Latin name for Ireland, a less common variant of Hibernia; both derive from the earlier Iverna.[1] Juverna occurs in the works of Juvenal and Pomponius Mela, although James Watson in 1883 argued these refer to Scotland rather than Ireland.[2]
The name has been used as a poetic synonym for Ireland by Irish nationalists. In 1805 the Irish High Court judge Robert Johnson published letters in William Cobbett's Political Register under the pen-name "Juverna", which criticised the Dublin Castle administration and sympathised with Robert Emmet;[3] Johnson and Cobbett were convicted of seditious libel, and Johnson was forced to resign from the Bench in disgrace.[4] In Benjamin Ward Richardson's 1888 novel The Son of a Star: A Romance of the Second Century, includes the character "gentle Erine, the Maiden of Love" from "Juverna, the island of eternal youth" to the west of Roman Britain.[5] Juverna was a monthly magazine produced by the Christian Brothers in 1902–1903, and its fundraising Juverna Bazaar of May 1903 had a Gaelic revival theme.[6][7] Juverna gaelic football club won the 1911 Cork Junior Championship. Juverna Press, established by Andrew O'Shaughnessy in 1927, published mainly religious works,[8] including Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus for the 1932 Eucharistic Congress.[9]
Ships
Several ships were named Juverna, including:[10]
- The schooner Juverna, registered in Portaferry in 1804, which was a slave ship in the triangular trade in enslaved people.[11]
- A barque launched in Waterford in 1838[12]
- A brigantine built 1843 in Red Head, New Brunswick
- A paddle steamer launched in 1847 by the Bristol General Steam Navigation Company for the Cork–Bristol route,[13] on which Michael Doheny fled after the failure of the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848.[14] It was sold in 1864 for the Union blockade and presumed lost.[15]
- A brig built 1850 in Pictou, Nova Scotia for Robert Hatton (Gorey 1810 – Liverpool 1852)[16]
- A barque based in Sydney from 1859.[17]
- A cargo ship lost in the Irish Sea in 1904.[18]