James Jeffrey Roche (31 May 1847, Mountmellick, Queen's County, Ireland – 3 April 1908, Berne, Switzerland) was an Irish-American poet, journalist and diplomat. Roche was taken to the United States as a young child, and grew up in Prince Edward Island. At the end of his life he was the American Consul in Switzerland.[1]
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Through his father, Edward Roche, an able mathematician and scholar, who occupied the office of Provincial Librarian in Prince Edward Island, he inherited the literary quality dominant in his temperament and his art. The family settled in Prince Edward Island in the same year as his birth. The boy was educated by his father, and later in St. Dunstan's College. Here, at the age of fifteen, foreshadowing his career, he turned journalist and proudly edited the college weekly "unto the urn and ashes" of its infant end. His youth had a fair share of spirited adventure, an encountering of odd characters and scenes, a sharp observance of events, and a close, rapid, honest mental life. [2]
In 1866 he went to Boston, became a businessman and prospered there, but later reverted to literature, his early love and first unconscious choice. In print he was noted for an absurd, unique humor. Already married, in 1883 he joined the staff of the Boston Pilot as an assistant editor under John Boyle O'Reilly, and later became editor of the newspaper.[1] At this time he wrote a History of the Filibusters in Spanish America, a novel, and a drama. In 1886 he published Songs and Satires. [2]