In connection with the Fenian movement my dear old friend was a strong, active, and generous sympathiser. His purse was always available for every good National object, whether "legal" or "illegal," and I know as a fact that many a good fellow "on the run" found shelter under his roof, and never went away empty-handed.



CHAPTER V.

THE "NO-POPERY" MANIA—THE TENANT LEAGUE—THE CURRAGH CAMP.

The restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy, September 29th, 1850, brought on what appeared to us one of John Bull's periodical fits of lunacy. I witnessed many scenes of mob violence at the time, when, in deference to the prevailing bigotry in opposing what they termed "Papal Aggression" a part of the Penal Laws were revived in Lord John Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles Act. In due course John got over his paroxysm, and the Act was repealed.

But for a time the storm of bigotry raged fiercely, and, as the following incident will show, while the mania lasted even the police were not entirely free from it.

The site of the noble Gothic edifice, Holy Cross Church, Great Crosshall Street, Liverpool, was, at this time, occupied by a ramshackle place made into a temporary chapel out of a number of old houses. It was so constructed that from any part you could see the altar, if you could not always hear Mass.

This was not, however, an unusual thing in Liverpool in the old days, particularly in the Famine years, when our panic-stricken people came into Liverpool like the wreck of a routed army.

The chief feature of the old Holy Cross Chapel was a long narrow flight of stairs, leading from Standish Street, the side street off Great Crosshall Street, up to a higher part of the building which served the purpose of a gallery.

The famous Dr. Cahill came to Holy Cross to preach, and every part of the building was crowded to suffocation. In the middle of the sermon an alarm was raised of a broken beam or something of the kind, and the people commenced to rush down the narrow stairs in a state of panic.

Such of them as could crush their way out, instead of being assisted, were set upon and assaulted with their batons by several policemen, who were in the street outside. So great was the indignation in the town, that a public inquiry was held, and it was proved that the police not only brutally struck men, women and children, but even a blind man who was trying to grope his way out. They also used foul expressions about "Popery" and the "bloody Papists," and it was afterwards proved that these very men had themselves raised the alarm, apparently to get an excuse for breaking the heads of the unfortunate people. An honest police official, whose duty it afterwards became to make a report of what had occurred, came upon the scene, and did what he could to stop the brutality.

When Dowling, the head constable, came to the police office next morning, and saw the official report in the book kept for the purpose, he caused the leaf containing it to be torn out, and another report by one Sergeant Tomlinson to be substituted for it. Mr. Mansfield, the stipendiary magistrate, who conducted the inquiry, denounced Dowling and Tomlinson for what he called "the disgraceful and discreditable suppression of the report which," he added, "was no doubt true. He had never heard of more disgraceful proceedings in his life."

Pending a fuller investigation, the police office books were impounded, and, as a result of the inquiry, several of the police were suspended. Dowling was dismissed from his post as head constable of Liverpool, and lost a retiring pension which, if all had been well with him, he would have come in for a short time afterwards.

An amusing story is told of a Liverpool daily paper in those days. It was struggling with adversity, and the manager, a worthy Scotsman, sat in his office on Monday morning with the weekly statement before him, showing increasing expense and decreasing revenue.

To him entered a Liverpool parson—very determined and very menacing. He had asked for the editor, but that gentleman had not yet come down, and the manager was the only person in authority visible, so he had to make shift with him.

"I am here," the parson said, "as the mouthpiece of a large number of people who are not satisfied with the attitude of the 'Liverpool ——' on the great question of the hour—Whether Popery is to dominate our liberties or are we to crush Popery?"

"Yes," said the manager, wearily, his mind still on the balance sheet. "What do you complain of?"

"I wish to tell you, sir," said the parson, with impressive emphasis, "that only this morning I have heard the belief expressed by merchants on 'Change that the 'Liverpool ——' is actually in the pay of the Pope of Rome!"

In a second a ray of light seemed to irradiate the gloom of the manager's soul, as he contemplated in a flash of thought the untold treasures of the Vatican—

"Man!" he exclaimed fervently, "I wish to Heaven it was!"

But the numerous exhibitions of bigotry stirred up in connection with Lord John Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles Act were of trifling consequence compared with the injury done to the Irish people arising out of the same Act. For it led to the ruin of the Tenant Right agitation in Ireland, in which the Irish people, Protestant as well as Catholic, had been united as they had not been since 1798 and the days of Grattan's Parliament.

For the Tenant League and the Irish Party in Parliament had in their ranks some of the greatest rascals who had ever disgraced Irish politics. These, while posing as the champions of Catholicity in opposing Lord John Russell's bill, were simply working for their own base ends, and were afterwards known and execrated as the Sadlier-Keogh gang.

Their infamous betrayal of the Irish tenantry dashed the hopes and destroyed the union of North and South from which so much was expected, besides creating a distrust in constitutional agitation which lasted for nearly a generation.

The after fate of the Sadlier-Keogh gang—including the suicide of John Sadlier and the scarcely less wretched end of Keogh—have ever since been terrible object-lessons to the Irish people.

In his later years I enjoyed the friendship of one of the most distinguished of the Tenant Right leaders, who had also played a prominent and honourable part in the Repeal and Young Ireland movements. This was Charles Gavan Duffy, whom I met after his return from Australia.

It was the Sadlier-Keogh treason, their selling themselves to the Government after the most solemn promises to the contrary, and the way in which their conduct had been condoned by so many of the hierarchy, clergy and people of Ireland, that caused Gavan Duffy to lose heart for the time, and to declare, as he left the country, in memorable words—"that there was no more hope for Ireland than for a corpse on the dissecting table."

But, as I learned from his own lips on his return to this country, he never lost sight of the National movement while in Australia, where he became first Minister of the Crown in a self-governing colony; and, on his return, his old hope for the success of our Cause had, he assured me, revived.

Charles Gavan Duffy having sailed for Australia on the 6th of November, 1855, John Cashel Hoey succeeded him as editor of the "Nation," he having, as one of his colleagues, Alexander Martin Sullivan, who afterwards became sole proprietor and responsible editor.

"A.M." Sullivan, as he was always called, was an upright man, who had a very clear conception of his own policy in Irish matters. He frankly accepted the British constitution, and worked inside those lines. To me, when my country was concerned, the British constitution (with the making of which neither I nor my people had ever had anything to do) was a matter of very little moment. Any work for Ireland that commended itself to my conscience and was practicable was good enough. Nevertheless, it will ever be to me a source of pride that, from the moment when we first knew each other to the hour of his death, we were the closest friends.

In connexion with the "Papal aggression" mania, Cardinal Wiseman was the central figure against whom the storm of bigotry was chiefly directed. I remember with pleasure that I took part in the reception given to him in Liverpool by Father Nugent and the students of the Liverpool Catholic Institute, by whom the Cardinal's fine play of "The Hidden Gem" was performed in the Hall of the Institute during his stay in town. The bringing of the Cardinal to Liverpool was only one of the many occasions when the good Father was the medium through whom, from time to time, a number of distinguished Catholics and Irishmen were brought into intimate contact with their co-religionists and fellow-countrymen in the town for the advancement of some worthy object connected with creed or nationality—most frequently with both.

I have described the St. Patrick's Day annual processions in Liverpool. Notwithstanding some grand features in connection with them, they were, unfortunately, sometimes the occasion of rioting and intemperance. Father Nugent was of Irish parentage and sympathies, and possessed of great zeal, capacity, energy and eloquence. He determined to make a new departure in celebrating the national anniversary, for though the processions were magnificent displays, and it was not the fault of their promoters if ever there was any scandal arising out of them, still there was much that was inconsistent with a worthy celebration of the feast of the national saint of Ireland. Calling a number of young Irishmen together, of whom I was one, he, with their help, organised on a grand scale a festival which was held in one of the large public halls of the town. So successful was the first of these that they became an annual institution, which superseded the previous out-door celebrations.

On these occasions there were selections of Irish music and song, and oratory from some distinguished Irishman, with an eloquent and stirring panegyric on St. Patrick from Father Nugent himself, making a more creditable and enjoyable celebration of the national festival than had ever been held in the town before.

Such celebrations as these (which have for many years past been held under the auspices of the Irish national political organisation of the day), have become common in the Irish centres of Great Britain. Indeed, it has become one of the recognised duties of the members of the Irish Parliamentary Party to hold themselves in readiness to be drafted off to one or another of these gatherings, which are the means of keeping steadily burning the fire of patriotism in the breasts of our people. And what is of consequence from a financial point of view, the proceeds of these gatherings help to provide the sinews of war for carrying on the Home Rule campaign in Great Britain. For over half a century, from the time when I assisted Father Nugent with his first celebration, I took an active part in organising these gatherings in many places.

I said at the commencement that I knew little of Ireland from personal contact with it. Born there, I was too young to remember being brought to England. For some months I was there again, as I have already mentioned, as a boy of twelve, under the care of my uncle, the Rev. Michael O'Loughlin. I had often desired to see more of Ireland, and, singularly enough, it was the Crimean War that gave me the opportunity of spending another three months there in the summer of 1855.

A large firm in Liverpool had part of the contract for erecting the wooden houses and other buildings at the camp being erected on the Curragh of Kildare at the time of the war. I made application, and, with my brother Bernard, was employed to go there. Reaching the Curragh, we found that many of the men slept in the huts they were erecting, being supplied by the contractors with the requisite bed and bedding. The contractors also erected a large "canteen," to be used afterwards by the military where the workmen could be supplied with food and drink—too much drink sometimes. These arrangements for food and sleeping were somewhat necessary, as the nearest towns, Kildare, Kilcullen, and Newbridge were each some three miles off.

But we were anxious to see as much of the country and of the people as we could, and, besides, did not care for the mixed company sleeping in the huts. We therefore managed to secure lodgings with the Widow Walsh, on the road leading from the Curragh to Suncroft. The widow's husband had but recently died, leaving her a pretty good farm, and, with the aid of her family—one of them a fine, grown-up young man—she was able to hold on to the land. But the ready cash she got from the Curragh men who came to lodge with her was useful too. It was a good big house of the kind, and the widow made use of every available inch of it, so that she had about a dozen of us in all. Mrs. Walsh, though an easy-going soul herself, had a fine bouncing girl to help her, but, with a dozen hungry men coming with a rush at night, it used to be a scramble for the cooking utensils, as we were largely left to our own devices. We used to leave early in the morning for our work on the Curragh, taking with us the materials for our breakfasts and dinners. As to the cooking, some went to the canteen, while others got their meals wherever they happened to be working. As there were plenty of chips and small cuttings of wood, only fit for that purpose, we used to make of these big fires on the short grass, and we boiled our water for tea or coffee and our eggs, and frizzled our chops or bacon at the end of a long stick.

I have mentioned before that whenever one finds work particularly laborious he is fairly certain to find Irishmen at it. It was so at the Curragh. When a carpenter or joiner lays down the boarding of a floor, if there is only a small quantity of it he planes it down himself to make an even surface. But if there is a large quantity this does not pay, and the contractor brings in another artist called a "flogger," who, in nine cases out of ten, in my time, was an Irishman. It was generally given out as "piece work" to one man, the "master-flogger," as you might term him, who employed the others. One of these, a very decent Irishman, Tom Cassidy, whom I had known in Liverpool, had the contract for the work at the Curragh Camp, and he had about a score of his fellow-countrymen working for him.

Going back to Liverpool for a holiday, while my brother and I were still at the Curragh, honest Tom called on my father and mother, who knew him well. They were glad to hear that he was lodging at the Widow Walsh's, and could tell them all about their boys. This he could do most truthfully without letting his imagination run away with him. "Aye, indeed," he said, "Barney and John are lodging in the one house with me, with a decent widow woman, and many a glass we had together at Igoe's." Tom had put in this bit of "local colouring" about Igoe's to show the good fellowship between us, but as their sons were both teetotalers, the old people knew that this could not be true, and the rest of his story was somewhat discredited in consequence.

Igoe's was a public house just on the corner of the road leading from the Curragh to Suncroft. What between the workmen at the Camp and the soldiers and the militia, Igoe's must have been doing a roaring trade at this time. Which reminds me that I one day saw John O'Connell (son of the Liberator), then a captain in the Dublin militia, trying to get a lot of his men, who were the worse for liquor, out of Igoe's. It could not be said that he did not give an edifying example to his men, for I saw him, on another occasion, going to Holy Communion, at the Soldiers' Mass, where the altar was fixed up under a verandah in the officers' quarter, the men being assembled in the open square in front. He was a well-meaning man, and tried to carry on the Repeal Association after his father's death, but it soon collapsed, for the mantle of Dan was altogether too big for John.

Although he generally showed himself bitterly opposed to the Young Irelanders, he was a poetical contributor to the "Nation," where I find him represented by two very fine pieces—"Was it a Dream?" and "What's my Thought Like?" In the latter piece he pictures Ireland—

No longer slave to England! but her sister if she will— Prompt to give friendly aid at need, and to forget all ill! But holding high her head, and, with serenest brow, Claiming, amid earth's nations all, her fitting station now.

I never met his brother Maurice, but I could imagine his a more congenial spirit with the "Young Irelanders" than any other of the O'Connell family. He, too, is represented in "The Spirit of the Nation" by his rousing "Recruiting Song of the Irish Brigade" which, sung to the air of "The White Cockade," has always been a favourite of mine.

A fine, genial old priest, full of gossip and old-time stories, was Father MacMahon, of Suncroft. If he met one of us on the road he would stop to have a gossip, and was always delighted when he found, as he often did, along with an English tongue an Irish heart. From him it was I heard the legend of St. Brigid's miraculous mantle and the origin of the Curragh—how the saint, to get "as much land as would graze a poor man's cow" made the very modest request from the king for as much ground as her mantle would cover; how he agreed, and she laid her mantle down on the "short grass;" how, to the king's astonishment, it spread and spread, until it covered the whole of the ground of what is now the Curragh; and how it would have spread over all Ireland but that it met with a red-haired woman, and that, as everybody knows, is unlucky. Whenever, in our rambles along the country roads we afterwards met a red-haired woman, we used to wonder was she a descendant of the female who stopped the growth of the Curragh of Kildare.

Father MacMahon could also tell us of the gallant fight made by the men of Kildare, and the massacre of the unarmed people on the Curragh in 1798. Many of the men from the Curragh used to come to Mass on Sundays at Suncroft, and often in his sermons—which were none the less edifying because they were given in the same free and easy style as his gossips with us on the road—he would tell his people of the talks he had had with the men from the Camp, and what good Irishmen he found among them. They, in their turn, were very fond of the good father, and most of them took a practical way of showing their feeling when it came to the offertory.

Dear old Father MacMahon! I took up an Irish Church Directory the other day and looked for the little village of Suncroft, in the dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, to see if your name was still there, foolishly forgetting that it is over fifty years since we met—you an old man and I a young one. I am an old man now, and you—you dear good old soul—must have gone to your reward long ago, where you in your turn will be hearing from St. Brigid herself, and from the fine old Irish king who gave the Curragh, the true story of the miraculous mantle; and how the king did not make such a bad bargain after all, for, in exchange for his gift, he now, doubtless, has what St. Brigid promised, a kingdom far greater than even her mantle would cover—the Kingdom of Heaven.

On Sundays we used to have long walks. We did not often go near Newbridge—it was too much like an ordinary English military station. We preferred going to Kildare, where stands the first Irish Round Tower I ever saw, and where the fine old ruined church of St. Brigid put us in mind of the patron saint of Ireland; or to Kilcullen, where the brave Kildare pikemen routed General Dundas in 1798; and to others of the neighbouring places. We reviewed, too, every part of the famous Curragh itself, so full of memories—glorious and sad—of Irish history.

As fast as we finished them, the huts we were building were occupied by the military, and, whether regulars or militia, I found among them, driven to wear the uniform by stress of circumstances, as good Irishmen as I ever met. Coming home from work one evening, I met on the road to the Curragh a party of them, carrying, for want of a better banner, a big green bush, and singing "The Green Flag." Then, as they came in sight of the famous plain itself, a man struck up:—

Where will they have their camp? Says the Shan Van Voct

When, as if moved by one impulse, all joined in:—

On the Curragh of Kildare, And the boys will all be there, With their pikes in good repair— Says the Shan Van Voct!

"Igoe's porter!" a cynic might say. True, there may have been a glass or two and a little harmless rejoicing, but this was too spontaneous to be anything but the outpouring of the good, honest warm hearts of the poor fellows, burning with love for the land that bore them.

Peter Maughan, who, like myself, was a house joiner, working at the Curragh, had similar experiences. Indeed, you might say that he was then qualifying himself for the part he very efficiently filled some years later in the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, as recruiting officer among the soldiery of Britain. Of course, he found scoundrels amongst them too, for, as the history of the Fenian movement shows, he was himself betrayed and sent to penal servitude.

Before I returned to England I had a most interesting tour through the South of Ireland, that being, I may say, the most I have ever actually seen of my own country. Having a taste for drawing, I took sketches of the various noted places I visited, which I preserved for many years—the most cherished remembrances of my visit to the "old sod."

After returning from the Curragh to Liverpool, I married there and carried on business on my own account for several years as a joiner and builder, before taking service with Father Nugent, first as secretary of his Boy's Refuge, and then as conductor for some three years of his newspaper, the "Northern Press and Catholic Times."



CHAPTER VI.

THE IRISH REVOLUTIONARY BROTHERHOOD—ESCAPE OF JAMES STEPHENS—PROJECTED RAID ON CHESTER CASTLE—CORYDON THE INFORMER.

The trials in 1859, following the arrests in connection with the Phoenix movement, with which the name of Jeremiah O'Donovan (called also "Rossa," after his native place) was identified, were the first public manifestations of what developed into the great organisation known in America as the Fenian Brotherhood, and, on this side of the Atlantic as the I.R.B., or Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood.

Many years afterwards "Rossa" called at the office of the Irish National League in London, to see his old fellow-conspirator, James Francis Xavier O'Brien, then General Secretary of the constitutional organisation for the attainment of "Home Rule." As I was chief organiser for the League in Great Britain, and was in the, office at the time, I was introduced to his old comrade (who had, he said, often heard of me) by "J.F.X.," as we used to call him, and it was to me a delightful experience to hear the two old warriors, who had done and suffered so much for Ireland, fighting their battles over again.

I was sitting in my office in Father Nugent's Refuge one day, about the beginning of 1866, when my old friend, John Ryan, was shown in to me.

As we had not seen each other for several years, our greeting was a most cordial one. Though we had not met, I had heard of him from mutual friends from time to time as being actively connected with the physical force movement for the freedom of Ireland.

During this time I had often wished to see him, and I found that exactly the same idea had been in his mind regarding me; our object being the same—my initiation into the ranks of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, of which he was an organiser.

A word perhaps is due here—for I wish to pay respect to the opinion of every man—to those Irishmen who call themselves loyalists. On close analysis their language and arguments appear to me to be meaningless. A study of the history of the world and of the origins of civil power show that there is only one thing that is recognisable as giving a good and stable title to any government, and that is the consent of the governed.

A man who is a member of a community owes a duty to the community in return for the benefit arising out of his membership, but his duty—which he may call loyalty if he pleases—is proportionate to the share which he possesses in the imposition of responsibilities upon himself. The application of this to Ireland is obvious, and it explains why in so many cases a man who has been a rebel in Ireland has afterwards risen to the highest place in the self-governing communities which are called British colonies. To put it in another way, a community of intelligent men must be self-governing, or else it will be a forcing-house for rebels. I don't see any third way.

As I have before suggested, the two questions that have always presented themselves to me in connection with work for Ireland have been—first, is it right? Second, is it practicable? In joining the I.R.B. I had no doubt on either ground. As to the first, the misgovernment of Ireland, of which I had seen the hideous fruits in the Famine years and emigration, was ample justification. As to the second, there was every likelihood of the success of the movement. It will be remembered that during these years the great Civil War in America was going on, in which many thousands of our fellow-countrymen, were engaged on both sides, mostly, however, for the North. A great number of these had entered into this service chiefly with the object of acquiring the military training intended to be used in fighting on Irish soil for their country's freedom. Such an opportunity seemed likely to arise, for during this time the "Alabama Claims" and other matters brought America and England to the verge of war. Had such a conflict arisen, one result of it, as Mr. Gladstone and other British statesmen could not but have foreseen, would probably be the severance of the connexion, once for all, between Ireland and Great Britain.

John Ryan, knowing me so well, felt tolerably assured that no argument from him would be required to induce me to join the I.R.B.; consequently, one of the first things he did was, at my request, to administer to me the oath of allegiance to the Irish Republic, as the saying went, "now virtually established."

After this we had a long seanchus, I telling him of all that had happened among our friends during his frequent absences from Liverpool, and he describing to me many of the adventures of himself and other prominent men in the movement, which were to me both interesting and exciting. Among these were his assistance in the escape of James Stephens, of which I will speak later.

Before we parted, he arranged with me for my acting in Liverpool as a medium of communication in the organisation. In this way I was, for several years, brought into constant contact with the leaders, nearly all of whom I met from time to time.

I think the most capable Irishmen I ever met were the various members of the Breslin family, with several of whom I was intimately acquainted. Bravest among the brave, as they proved themselves at many a critical moment, there were none more prudent. John Breslin was hospital steward in Richmond Prison when James Stephens, the Fenian chief, was imprisoned there awaiting his trial.

John Devoy was the man who successfully carried through, under the direction of Colonel Kelly, the outside arrangements in connection with the escape of the C.O.I.R. (Chief Organiser of the Irish Republic), as he was called, in the early morning of the 24th of November, 1865.

But John Breslin it was who, with the assistance of Daniel Byrne, night watchman, actually set Stephens free. Byrne was arrested and put upon his trial for aiding the escape of Stephens, but nothing could be brought home to him, and, after two successive juries had disagreed on his case, he was released. Breslin, the chief instrument in the rescue, was not suspected. He simply bided his time until he took his annual holiday, from which he never returned, leaving the country before there was any suspicion of him. Michael Breslin, his brother, held a responsible position in the Dublin police, and was the means of frustrating many a well-laid scheme of the Castle, so that if the Government had its creatures in the revolutionary camp, the I.R.B. had agents in theirs.

Another, as I have already mentioned, who took part in the Stephens rescue was my friend John Ryan, better known in the Brotherhood as Captain O'Doherty. At our interview in Liverpool on the occasion of my initiation, he gave me a full account of this among other incidents. He was, like Peter Maughan, an old schoolfellow of mine with the Christian Brothers in Liverpool. He was one of the men picked out by Colonel Kelly to be on guard when the "old man"—one of Stephens' pet nick-names—came over the prison wall. Ryan was a fine type of an Irishman, morally, intellectually and physically. As Stephens slipped down from the wall, holding on to the rope, he came with such force on my friend's shoulders as almost to bear him to the ground. In my "Irish in Britain" I have described in detail how Breslin got a key made for Stephens' cell, and how he and Byrne helped the C.O.I.R. over the prison wall to where his friends awaited him, and also the adventures of the Fenian leader after his escape from Richmond.

The man who made the key for Stephens' cell, from a mould taken by John Breslin, was Michael Lambert, a trusted member of the I.R.B. Though his name was well known to the initiated at the time, it never was mentioned until later years, he being always referred to previously as "the optician."

After remaining in concealment several months Stephens got away from Ireland. The craft in which he escaped was one of a fleet of fishing hookers which sailed from Howth and Kinsale when engaged in their regular work. The owner, who was delighted to have a hand in such an enterprise, was a warm-hearted and patriotic Irishman, Patrick De Lacy Garton, for whom I acted as conducting agent, when he was returned by the votes of his fellow-countrymen to the Liverpool Town Council, where he sat as a Home Ruler.

I met several times, during 1866 and later, one of the most remarkable men connected with the organisation. He was known as "Beecher," and was a man of singular astuteness, as he required to be, particularly at the time when, unknown to his colleagues, Corydon was giving information to the police. If at any time Beecher had fallen into their hands, they might have made a splendid haul, which would have paralysed the movement on this side of the Atlantic, for he was the "Paymaster." Captain Michael O'Rorke—otherwise "Beecher"—was a well-balanced combination of sagacity, cautiousness and daring, as you could not fail to see, if brought into contact with him a few times. Stephens had the most abounding confidence in him, and it was well deserved. A native of Roscommon, he emigrated to America when a boy of thirteen. When the Civil War broke out he joined the Federal Army, and served with much distinction. He was a member of the Fenian Brotherhood, and was greatly pleased to be called upon for active service in Ireland, and, sailing from New York, he reached Dublin on the 27th of July, 1865, when he reported himself to the C.O.I.R. He was entrusted with the payment of the American officers then in Ireland and Great Britain, which duty, I need scarcely say, involved his keeping in constant touch with them. In this way I, from time to time, came in contact with him in Liverpool, and was much impressed with the perfect way in which he carried out his arduous duties. Before Stephens left for America, in March, 1866, he directed Captain O'Rorke to send all the officers not arrested, and then in Ireland, over to England. This was a proper measure of prudence, as the Irish Americans would be less objects of suspicion, and less liable to arrest here than in Ireland. He had fifty officers, and sometimes more, to provide for as Paymaster, or, as the informers and detectives had it, the "Fenian Paymaster." He had to visit in this way at various times all parts of the British organisation, sometimes paying his men personally, and at other times by letter, forwarded through trusted Irishmen in various places who had not laid themselves open to suspicion. But he had to run his head into the lion's mouth occasionally, too, for it was part of his duty to visit Dublin at least once a month. As a matter of precaution, there were but few who knew of any address where he might be found. At a time when Corydon had started to give information, but before "Beecher" actually knew of it, the informer gave an address of his where he thought the "Paymaster" was to be found to the Liverpool police. Major Greig, the chief constable, and a strong body of his men, surrounded the house, but the bird had flown. After that, he was more cautious than ever, only letting his whereabouts be known when it was absolutely necessary.

A noted man among the Fenians was "Pagan O'Leary." Jack Ryan told me of how he rather surprised the prison officials when they came to classify him under the head "Religion." Being asked what he was, he said he was a Pagan. No, they said, they could not accept that—they had headings in their books, "Roman Catholic," "Protestant," and "Presbyterian," but not "Pagans." "Well," he said, "You have two kinds, the 'Robbers' (meaning Protestants) and the 'Beggars' (Catholics), and if I must choose, put me down a 'Beggar.'"

A startling incident in connection with the Fenian movement, the daring plan to seize Chester Castle, will enable me to introduce two exceedingly interesting characters with whom I came in contact at this time. The idea was to bring sufficient men from various parts of England, armed with concealed revolvers, to overpower the garrison, which at the time was a very weak one, and to seize the large store of arms then in the Castle. In connection with this, arrangements had been made for the cutting of wires, the taking up of rails, and the seizure of sufficient engines and waggons to convey the captured arms to Holyhead, whence, a steamer having been seized there for the purpose, the arms were to be taken to Ireland, and the standard of insurrection raised. Of John Ryan, one of the leaders of this raid, I have already spoken. Another of them, Captain John McCafferty, was one of the Irish-American officers who had crossed the Atlantic to take part in the projected rising in Ireland. I met him several times in Liverpool in company with John Ryan, and, from his own lips, got an account of his adventurous career up to that time.

Most of the American officers I came in contact with during these years had served in the Federal Army, but McCafferty fought on the side of the South in the American Civil War. He was a thorough type of a guerilla leader. With his well-proportioned and strongly-knit frame, and handsome resolute-looking bronzed face, you could imagine him just the man for any dashing and daring enterprise.

I frequently met John Flood, too, whose name, with that of McCafferty, is associated with the Chester raid. He was then about thirty years of age, a fine, handsome man, tall and strong, wearing a full and flowing tawny-coloured beard. He had a genial-looking face, and, in your intercourse with him, you found him just as genial as he looked. He was a man of distinguished bearing, who you could imagine would fill with grace and dignity the post of Irish Ambassador to some friendly power. He was a Wexford man, full of the glorious traditions of '98. He took an active part in aiding the escape of James Stephens from Ireland. With Colonel Kelly he was aboard the hooker in which the C.O.I.R. escaped, and to his skill and courage and rare presence of mind was largely due the fact that Stephens did not again fall into the hands of his enemies.

From then up to the time immediately preceding the Chester raid, he frequently called on me in Liverpool in company with John Ryan.

Father McCormick, of Wigan, a patriotic Irish priest, used to tell me, too, of the men coming to confession to him on their way to Chester, and afterwards to Ireland, for the rising on Shrove Tuesday. And yet these were the kind of men for whom, according to a certain Irish bishop, "Hell was not hot enough nor Eternity long enough."

When John Ryan informed me of the plans that were being matured for the seizure of the arms and ammunition in Chester Castle, I volunteered for any duty that might be allotted to me. It was settled that I should hold myself in readiness to carry out when called upon certain mechanical arrangements in connection with the raid with a view to prevent reinforcements from reaching Chester.

These arrangements were to consist of the taking up of the rails on certain railway lines and the cutting of the telegraphic wires leading into Chester. I, therefore, surveyed the ground, and besides the required personal assistance, had in readiness crowbars, sledges, and, among other implements, the wrenches for unscrewing the nuts of the bolts fastening the fishplates which bound together the rails, end to end. I now held myself prepared for the moment when the call to action would reach me.

This, however, never came, for I found afterwards that the leaders had learned in time of Corydon's betrayal of the project, and made their arrangements accordingly.

I heard nothing further of the projected Chester expedition until Monday, February 11th, 1867.

My employment was at this time in Liverpool, but I lived on the opposite bank of the Mersey, at New Ferry. Anybody who has to travel in and out of town, as I did by the ferry boat, to his employment gets so accustomed to his fellow-passengers that he knows most of them by sight. But this morning it was different. In a sense some of those I saw were strangers to me, but I had a kind of instinct that they were my own people. They were fine, athletic-looking young men, and had a travel-stained appearance, as if they had been walking some distance over dusty roads.

When I reached the landing stage and saw the morning's papers I got the explanation—the police had heard of the projected raid.

These were our men returning from Chester, having been stopped on the road by friends posted there for the purpose, and turned back—and were now on their way through Liverpool to their homes in various parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire. It seemed that the information of the project being abandoned had not reached them in time to prevent many of the men leaving their homes for Chester.

I heard from John Ryan, whom I saw a few days afterwards, that the word had been sent round to a certain number of circles in the North of England and the Midlands to move a number of picked men, some on the Sunday night and some early on the Monday morning, and that the promptness and cheerfulness with which the order was obeyed was astonishing; so that, probably, not less than two thousand men were, by different routes, quietly converging on Chester. Among these was Michael Davitt and others, from Haslingden as well as from several other Lancashire towns.

But it was promptly discovered that information had been given to the police authorities almost at the last moment. Those, therefore, who had already reached Chester were sent back, and men were placed at the railway stations and on the roads leading to Chester to stop those who were coming. In this way the whole of the men forming the expedition dispersed as silently as they had come.

Corydon had given the information to Major Greig, the Liverpool Head Constable, who at once communicated with Chester, where prompt measures were taken to meet the threatened invasion.

According to his own evidence in the subsequent trial, Corydon had been giving information to the police since the previous September. There had been some suspicious circumstances in connection with him. A man resembling him in appearance, and evidently disguised, had been seen in company with individuals supposed to be police agents. But as there was a man belonging to the organisation named Arthur Anderson, who strongly resembled Corydon, the real informer, suspicion fell upon Anderson.

After Corydon had thrown off the mask and openly appeared as an informer, I had an opportunity of seeing him, and, so far as my memory serves me, this is what he was like: At first sight you might set him down as a third-rate actor or circus performer. He wore a frock coat, buttoned tightly, to set off a by no means contemptible figure, and carried himself with a jaunty, swaggering air, after the conventional style of a theatrical "professional." He was about the middle height, of wiry, active build, with features clearly cut, thin face, large round forehead, a high aquiline nose, thick and curly hair, decidedly "sandy" in colour, and heavy moustache of the same tinge. His cheeks and chin were denuded of beard.

It was in the Liverpool Police Court I saw John Joseph Corydon, as the newspapers spelled his name—if it were his name, which is very doubtful, for it was said in Liverpool that he was the son of an abandoned woman of that town.

There was at that time a reporter named Sylvester Redmond, whom I knew very well, a very decent Irishman, who made a special feature of giving humorous descriptions of the cases in the police court. I was told by someone in Court that the man whose hand Sylvester was so cordially shaking was the noted informer, Corydon. I was very much disgusted with the old gentleman, until I heard afterwards that some wag among the police had introduced the informer to him as a distinguished fellow-countryman.

After the collapse of the Chester scheme, McCafferty and Flood made their way to Ireland to be ready for the Rising, but were arrested in Dublin, charged with being concerned in the raid on Chester. They were both in due course put upon their trials, and sent into penal servitude.

I find, from a graphic sketch written for my "Irish Library" by William James Ryan, that in the convict ship that took John Flood into penal servitude was another distinguished Irishman, John Boyle O'Reilly, whose offence against British rule was his successful recruiting for the I.R.B. among the soldiery. Another lieutenant of John Devoy, who had charge of the organisation of the British army, was an old schoolfellow of mine with the Liverpool Christian Brothers, Peter Maughan, of whom I have already spoken as a fellow-workman at the Curragh.

Before joining the I.R.B. Peter had been a member of the "Brotherhood of St. Patrick," an organisation which furnished many members to the "Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood."

Most of the Fenian prisoners were amnestied before the completion of their full terms. I have a letter in my possession from John McCafferty to our mutual friend, William Hogan, written from Millbank Prison, 6th June, 1871. In this he regrets that the terms of his release will not allow of his paying Hogan a visit. He says:—

I know there are many who would like to shake my hand and bid me a kind farewell. God bless you before my departure. My route will afford me no opportunity of seeing the iron-bound coast of the home of my forefathers. Still God may allow me to see that isle again—Yes, and then perhaps I may meet somebody on the hills.

He concludes with love to William Hogan's family and "Kind regard to each and every friend."

McCafferty did, I know, see the "iron-bound" coast of Ireland again, for a few years after this an extremely mild and inoffensive-looking, dark-complexioned person, with black side whiskers, came into my place—I was carrying on a printing and newsagency business—in Byron Street, Liverpool, and, though I did not recognise him at first, I was pleased to find that this Mr. Patterson, as he called himself, was no other than my old friend John McCafferty.

The mission he was engaged on was one that can only be described by the word amazing. So daring was it, so hedged around with apparent impossibilities, that to the ordinary man its very conception would be incredible. But McCafferty was perfectly serious and determined about it, and to him it seemed practicable enough, provided only he could get a few more men like himself: and indeed if the collection of just such a company of conspirators were practicable, no doubt the impossible might become possible enough. But the hypothesis is fatal, for the McCafferty strain is a rare one indeed, so that his project never got further than an idea. I think, however, that I cannot be accused of exaggeration in saying that if he had been successful in carrying out his idea, his achievement would have formed the most extraordinary chapter in English history—for it was no less than the abduction of the then Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII., and the holding of him as a hostage for a purpose of the Fenian organisation.

The plan was to take him to sea in a sailing vessel, and to keep him there, until the Fenian prisoners still at that time unreleased were set at liberty. He was to be treated with the utmost consideration and—the recollection is not without its humorous side—McCafferty had a memorandum to spare no pains in finding what were the favourite amusements of the Prince, so that he might have a "real good time" on board.



CHAPTER VII.

THE RISING OF 1867—ARREST AND RESCUE OF KELLY AND DEASY—THE MANCHESTER MARTYRDOM.

Although the Rising of 1867 had somewhat the character of "a flash in the pan," there were some heroic incidents in connexion with it. With one of the Fenian leaders, James Francis Xavier O'Brien, I was brought into intimate connection many years after the Rising, when we were both officials, he as General Secretary and I as Chief Organiser, of the Home Rule organisation in Great Britain. When put upon his trial there was evidence against him in connection with the taking of a police barrack, he being in command of the insurgents. It was proved that he not only acted with courage, but with a humanity that was commended by the judge, in seeing that the women and children were got out safely before the place was set on fire.

This, however, did not save him from being condemned to death—he was the last man sentenced in the old barbarous fashion to be hanged, drawn and quartered—this sentence being afterwards commuted to penal servitude. Certainly, whether on the field or facing the scaffold for Ireland there was no more gallant figure among the Fenian leaders than James Francis Xavier O'Brien.

Few knew of his sterling worth as I did. For several years after his return to liberty I was in close daily contact with this white-haired mild-looking old gentleman—still tolerably active and supple, though—who could blaze up and fight to the death over what he considered a matter of principle. The most admirable feature in his character was that, in all things you found him straight.

One of the Fenian chiefs I met in Liverpool was General Halpin, who, on the night of the Rising, was in command of the district around Dublin. The first of the insurgents who reached Tallaght, the place of rendezvous on the night of the 5th of March, 1867, were received by a volley from the police and dispersed. One party had captured the police barracks at Glencullen and Stepaside, and disarmed the police, but on approaching Tallaght, and hearing that all was over, they too dispersed.

While most of the Irish-American officers bore the marks of their profession rather too prominently for safety against the observance of a trained detective, General Halpin was the last man in the world anyone would, from his appearance, take to be a soldier. He looked far more like a comfortable Irish parish priest. And yet he was, perhaps, the most thoroughly scientific soldier of all those that crossed the Atlantic at this time.

Reading the evidence of Corydon in one of the trials, I find he described Edmond O'Donovan as helping Halpin to make maps for use when the Rising would take place. Knowing both men so well, I can say that none better could be found for planning out a campaign. They were thoroughly scientific men, and always anxious to impart their knowledge to other Irishmen for the good of the Cause.

I remember Halpin one night, at what was a kind of select social gathering, giving a number of us enthusiastic young men a lecture on the construction of fortifications and earthworks.

We bade him farewell when he was leaving Liverpool after the Rising, and thought he had got safely away to America, but, unfortunately, he was identified at Queenstown in the outgoing steamer. He was arrested, put upon his trial, and met the same fate as so many of his comrades.

Among the men I knew long ago, who afterwards became connected with Fenianism, was Stephen Joseph Meany. He was for many years a journalist in Liverpool, having been sub-editor of the "Daily Post" under Michael James Whitty. He was an earnest and active Repealer and Young Irelander. When I first came in contact with him he was starting the "Lancashire Free Press," which, after passing through several hands and several changes, of name, ultimately became the "Catholic Times," which was for three years, when Father Nugent became the proprietor, under my direction. Meany was a man of fine presence and handsome countenance, a brilliant writer and an eloquent speaker. He went to America in 1860, where he followed his original profession of journalism for several years. He returned to this country again, and was arrested in 1867 on a charge of Fenianism, and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment.

Liverpool was flooded with refugees after the Rising, and it took us all our time to find employment for them, or to get them away to America. We had then in Liverpool a corps of volunteers known as "The Irish Brigade." Whatever Nationalist organisation might exist in the town always strongly condemned young Irishmen for joining the corps. All we could urge against it, however, could not prevent our young men who were coming over from Ireland at this time from joining the "Brigade" for the purpose, they said, of learning and perfecting themselves in the use of arms. Colonel Bidwell and the officers must have had a shrewd suspicion of the truth, and there was a common remark in the town upon the improved physical appearance of the "Brigade." This was, of course, owing to the number of fine soldier-like young Irishmen who at this time filled its ranks.

During the two years that followed the escape of Stephens, I met Colonel Kelly several times in Liverpool. When I first saw him he would be about thirty years of age. This is my remembrance of his personal appearance: His forehead was broad and square, with the thick dark hair carefully disposed about it. He had somewhat high cheek bones, and wore a pointed moustache over a tolerably full beard. The general impression of his face seemed to me slightly cynical, and he had a constant smile that betokened self-possession and confidence. He sometimes wore a frock coat, a light waistcoat buttoned high up, a black fashionable necktie, and light well-made trousers. After surveying him in detail, you would come to the conclusion that he was a man of daring enough to involve himself in danger of life, and with sufficient address to extricate himself from the peril. He was undoubtedly a man capable of winning the confidence and even devotion of others, as was shown when, falling into the hands of the Government, he was snatched from their grasp in the open day on the streets of Manchester.

I met him some weeks after the Rising. The place of meeting reminded me of the incident in one of Samuel Lover's stories—"Rory O'More"—to which I have already alluded, for, in our later revolutionary movements, as in 1798, projects of great importance had sometimes to be discussed in public houses.

A few of the Liverpool men came to meet the leaders in a very humble beer shop, kept by a decent County Down man, Owen McGrady, in one of the poorer streets off Scotland Road. Here were met on this particular night a notable company, which included, if I remember rightly, Colonel Kelly, Colonel Rickard Burke, Captains Condon, Murphy, Deasy and O'Brien, all American officers who had crossed the Atlantic for the Rising, and still remained, hoping for another opportunity. There were about half a dozen of the Liverpool men there. Of these I can remember a tall, fine-looking young man, a schoolmaster from the North of Ireland, whom I then met for the first time, my old school-fellow, John Ryan, and John Meagher, a tailor, possessing the amount of eloquence you generally find in Irish members of the craft. There was also present, if I remember rightly, Tom Gates, of Newcastle.

Although the Rising had collapsed almost as soon as it commenced, the determination to fight on Irish soil had by no means been given up by the leaders in America. That was why the American officers on this side remained at their posts, ready for active service at a moment's notice. At the meeting we learned that there was at that moment an "Expedition," as it was termed, on the sea to co-operate with and bring arms for another Rising in Ireland, should such be found practicable. It was notorious that, notwithstanding all the efforts of active agents, comparatively few arms had been got into Ireland. Indeed, my friend John Ryan, who was in a position to know, estimated that there were not more than a couple of thousands of rifles in Ireland at the time of the Rising.

Let us see what became of the Expedition. This was, of course, what has since become a matter of history—the secret despatch from New York of the brigantine "Erin's Hope," having on board several Irish-American officers, 5,000 stand of arms, three pieces of field artillery, and 200,000 cartridges. About the middle of May the vessel arrived in Irish waters, agents going aboard at various points off the coast, including Sligo Bay, which she reached on the 20th of May, 1867. By that time it was found that the chances of another Rising were but slender, and the "Erin's Hope" returned to America with her cargo, entirely unmolested by the British cruisers, which were plentiful enough around the Irish coast.

The expedition certainly proved that sufficient weapons to commence an insurrection with could be thrown into Ireland, providing there was the necessary co-operation at the time and places required.

I have often thought since of what became of those present in Owen McGrady's beer house the night we met there to prepare for the reception of the "Erin's Hope."

The arrest and rescue of Kelly and Deasy, two of these, in the following September, and the fate of their gallant rescuers, formed the most striking and startling chapter of Irish history during the nineteenth century.

That such a scheme as the rescue of the two Fenian chiefs should be successfully carried out, not in Ireland amid sympathisers, but in the heart of a great English city, surrounded by a hostile population, showed unexpected capacity and daring on the part of the revolutionary organisation, and produced consternation in the British Government.

At this time the organisation of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood in Great Britain had been placed in the hands of three of the Irish-American officers, Captain Murphy, who had charge in Scotland, Colonel Rickard Burke in the southern part of England, and Captain Edward O'Meagher Condon in the northern counties.

Previous to the arrest of the two leaders on the morning of September 11th they, with Captain Michael O'Brien, had been staying with Condon, upon whom now devolved the command, the capture of Kelly and Deasy having taken place in his district.

He at once arranged for their food while in prison, for their defence in the law courts, and for their rescue, in which latter enterprise he was enthusiastically supported by the chief men of the Manchester circles.

But, whatever their good will and courage, they were deficient both in money and arms for such a daring undertaking. Condon had, therefore, a difficult task to accomplish. Money was soon raised, for our people are ever generous and equal to the occasion when it arises. Daniel Darragh—about whom I shall have more to say later—was sent to Birmingham, where by the aid of William Hogan he purchased and brought back with him sufficient revolvers to arm the volunteers for the rescue. These last were picked men, the cream of the Manchester circles, and there was some jealousy afterwards among many who had not been selected. I need scarcely say that the utmost secrecy was required in connection with such a perilous enterprise.

To Edward O'Meagher Condon belongs the credit of having organised, managed, and carried out the Manchester Rescue, at the cost to himself, as it turned out, of years of penal servitude, and almost of his life. Though with the aid of Michael O'Brien and his Manchester friends he had made all the arrangements, selecting the spot where the prison van was to be stopped, assigning to every man his post, and providing for every contingency, including the possibility of the rescuing party being taken in the rear from Belle Vue prison, he wired for the assistance of Captain Murphy and Colonel Burke, the message being that "his uncle was dying."

Murphy was from home, but Burke came on to Manchester, and with Michael O'Brien accompanied Condon on September 17th, the night before the rescue, to meet the men chosen for the daring enterprise, when the arms were distributed, each man's post on the following day allotted to him, and the final arrangements made.

The two Fenian chiefs stayed with Condon that night, fighting their old campaigns over again, e'er they retired to rest, not to meet again till eleven years after the Manchester Rescue, when Condon and Burke came across each other in New York, each having suffered in the interval a long term of imprisonment, and it was the last night that Burke and Condon passed on earth with Michael O'Brien, whose memory Irishmen, the world over, honour as one of the "noble-hearted three"—the Manchester Martyrs—who died for Ireland on the scaffold.

The secret of the intended rescue was closely guarded, and though the Mayor of Manchester did get a warning wire from Dublin Castle, it reached too late, and the birds had flown. When Kelly and Deasy were brought before the city magistrates they were remanded. "They were," said the "Daily News," "placed in a cell with a view to removal to the city jail at Belle Vue. At this time the police noticed outside the court house two men hanging about whom they suspected to be Fenians, and a policeman made a rush at one of them to arrest him, in which he succeeded, but not until the man had drawn a dagger and attempted to stab him, the blow being warded off. The other made his escape."

As to the incident just related, it seems that a patriotic but imprudent man belonging to one of the Manchester circles had got to hear of the intended rescue, and was indignant at being left out. His suspicious conduct outside the court house drew the attention of the police—as we have seen—with the result, as the paper said, that the authorities became alarmed. Kelly and Deasy were put in irons on their removal, and a strong body of police were sent with the van intended to take them to Belle Vue Prison.

It was the custom for a policeman to ride outside the van, on the step behind, but, on this occasion, owing to the incident just described, Brett, the officer in charge, went inside the van. The door was then locked, and the keys handed to him through the ventilator.

It is certain that, up to this point, the Manchester police had no suspicion of the intended rescue, and it was only the imprudent behaviour of the man whom the police had arrested that caused additional precautions to be taken. Certain it is that if the Manchester authorities had had any information of the probability of an attempted rescue there would have been a formidable escort of the police and military.

With so much false swearing at the trials with regard to the facts of the Manchester Rescue, it is important that the information given in books for the benefit of the present and future generations of Irishmen should be correct. It is serious that in some of our best books so important a matter as the actual scene of the rescue is incorrectly given. One book says: "The van drove off for the County jail at Salford." In another description it is stated: "Just as the van passed under the arch that spans Hyde Road at Belle Vue, a point midway between the city police office and the Salford Jail, etc." Following this, one of our ablest writers, apparently quoting from the previous descriptions, falls into the same error. I can readily understand how these errors have arisen—the writers concerned have confounded the place of the execution of the Manchester Martyrs, Salford Jail, with the prison, Belle Vue, to which the prisoners were being taken on being remanded.

The point chosen by Condon as the most suitable for the attack was certainly where the railway bridge crosses Hyde Road, but if the van had been going to Salford Jail it would have been in a totally different direction.

Since writing the above, I find it still more necessary I should correct the mis-statement as to the scene of the rescue, for the error seems to be getting perpetuated. I find in one of the leading Irish-American newspapers, in a description of the death of Colonel Kelly on February 5, 1909, the scene of the rescue is given as "midway between the police office and Salford Jail." This is evidently taken from the erroneous statement in the books I have referred to.

After this slight digression, may I resume my narrative.

At the police court a man appointed for the purpose took a cab in advance of the van. When sufficiently close to them he waved a white handkerchief as a signal to the men in ambush. Just as the van passed under the railway arch two men with revolvers barred the way.

"Stop the van!" one cried. But the driver took no heed. A bullet fired over his head and another into one of the horses effectually stopped the van. At the sound of the shots the rest of the rescuers came from their ambush behind the walls that lined the road, and from the shadow of the abutments of the railway arch.

The police fled panic-stricken at the first volley fired over their heads by the Fenians, for these wanted to release their chiefs without bloodshed if possible. One portion of the assailants, carrying out a pre-arranged plan, formed an extended circle around the van, and kept the police and mob who had rallied to their assistance at bay, while a second party set themselves to effecting an entrance to the van. This was more difficult than had been expected, for had Brett ridden on the step behind as usual the keys could readily have been taken from him. The rescuing party were, however, equal to the occasion, and the military precision with which the work was carried out displayed the discipline of the men and the able direction of the leaders.

Indeed, the fullest testimony is borne to this by a great English newspaper, the "Daily News," which, while showing the most intense hostility to the men and their daring act, is thus compelled to recognise the courage and discipline of the devoted band of Fenians:—"The more astonishing, therefore, is it to read of the appearance of the public enemy in the heart of one of our greatest cities, organised and armed, overpowering, wounding and murdering the guardians of public order, and releasing prisoners of state. There is a distinctness of aim, a tenacity of purpose, a resolution in execution about the Fenian attack upon the police van which is very impressive. The blow was sudden and swift, and effected its object. In the presence of a small but compact body of Fenians, provided with repeating firearms, the police were powerless, and the release of Kelly and Deasy was quickly effected."

An unfortunate accident was the killing of Brett, the policeman, by a shot fired with the intention of breaking the lock of the van. A female prisoner then handed out the keys on the demand of the Fenians outside, and the door was quickly opened, and the two leaders brought out, their safe retreat being guarded by their rescuers.

As Captain Condon had anticipated and provided for, some of the warders from Belle Vue quickly came upon the scene, as it was but a short distance across what were then brickfields from the prison to the scene of action. But, when they saw the determined men who were guarding the leaders' retreat, they, too, like the police, kept at a safe distance from the Fenian revolvers, and devoted themselves to picking up any stragglers who had got separated from the main body of Irishmen.

In this way a number of arrests were made, and, later on, Condon himself was taken, but the main object had been accomplished, and Kelly and Deasy got safely away, and, ultimately, as we shall see, out of the country.

Following the rescue, there was a perfect reign of terror, the police authorities striking out wildly in all directions to gather into their net enough Irish victims to satisfy their baffled vengeance. There were numerous arrests and no lack of witnesses to swear anything to secure convictions. Every detail of the attack on the van while on the way from the courthouse to the prison, and of the release of the prisoners was sworn to with the utmost minuteness, as the witnesses professed to identify one after another of the men in the dock, some of whom had no connection or sympathy with the rescue at all.

In Liverpool, men whom I knew were arrested who were at work all that day at the docks, and yet were sworn to by numerous witnesses as having assisted in the attack on the van in Hyde Road, Manchester, the most minute details being given.

I have mentioned a case of the kind in my "Irish in Britain." William Murphy, of Manchester, a man whom I knew well, was convicted and sent into penal servitude as having taken part in the rescue. On his liberation I was surprised to learn from his own lips that, although he would gladly have borne his part if detailed for the duty, he was not present at the rescue of the Fenian leaders. With the authorities in such a panic, it can readily be understood that it behoved any of us in Lancashire who were in any way regarded as "suspects" to be ready with very solid testimony as to where we were on the day in question.

In a recent letter I have had from Captain Condon—from whom communications reach me from all parts of America, for he is constantly travelling, holding as he does the post of Inspector of Public Buildings in connection with the Treasury Department of the U.S.A.—he tells me something about William Murphy that I never heard before. He says: "When Allen, Larkin, O'Brien, myself, and the other men were sentenced, Digby Seymour (one of the counsel for the prisoners) went down to a large cell in the court house basement where all the others were kept together. He urged them all to plead 'guilty' and throw themselves upon the mercy of the court, declaring that, if they refused to do this all would be convicted and executed.

"There was an instant's hesitation among the prisoners, but William Murphy, who was later sentenced to seven years penal servitude, addressed his comrades, urging them to stand fast together, imitate our example, and die like men, rather than live like dogs, for as such they would be regarded by all true Irishmen if they pleaded 'guilty.'

"To a man the whole twenty-two shouted out—'We will never plead guilty!'

"And Seymour, baffled and irritated, went away without accomplishing his purpose."

Of the men convicted for taking part in the rescue, five—Allen, Larkin, O'Brien, Condon and Maguire—were sentenced to death. Condon was reprieved, really on account of his American citizenship, and Maguire, who was a marine, because the authorities discovered in time that the evidence against him was false. A number of others were sent to penal servitude for various terms.

The execution of Allen, Larkin and O'Brien, so far from striking terror, but gave new life to the cause of Irish Freedom, and to-day, over the world, no names in the long roll of those who have suffered and died for Ireland are more honoured than those of the "Manchester Martyrs," while the determination has become all the stronger that, in the words of our National Anthem—founded on Condon's defiant shout in the dock of "God Save Ireland!":—

On the cause must go Amidst joy or weal or woe, Till we've made our isle a Nation free and grand.

It is not generally known how Colonel Kelly got out of the country after the rescue. He lay concealed in the house of an Irish professional man for some weeks, and then, all the railway stations being closely and constantly watched night and day, he was driven in a conveyance by road all the way from Manchester to Liverpool.

It was a patriotic foreman ship-joiner, whom I knew well, who actually got him away to America. My friend Egan had charge of the fitting up of the berths aboard the steamer in which Colonel Kelly sailed. In emigrant steamers the usual practice was for temporary compartments to be made and taken down at the end of the voyage. I had fitted up such berths myself, and therefore perfectly understood what my friend had done to secure Colonel Kelly's escape when he described it to me afterwards at my place in Byrom Street. Egan actually built a small secret compartment, so constructed as to attract no notice, and when Kelly was smuggled aboard at the last moment—he might be supposed to be one of Egan's men—he was put into it and actually boarded up, sufficient provisions being left with him, until the steamer got clear of British waters, when he could come out with safety.

Deasy also made his way to America.

In speaking of the after-career of those assembled that night at McGrady's, I have sufficiently accounted for Michael O'Brien.

Rickard Burke, who also assisted at the same gathering, was a remarkable personality, and one of the most astute men I ever met. He was a graduate of Queen's College, Cork, and an accomplished linguist. He was a skilful engineer, and had served with distinction in the American Civil War. When I knew him he was about thirty-five years of age, tall and of fine presence. To him was deputed the work of purchasing arms for the intended Rising in Ireland.

After many adventures, he fell into the hands of the police, was convicted, and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. It was with the idea of effecting his rescue that the Clerkenwell Prison wall was blown up on December 13th, 1867, this insane plan causing the death and mutilation of a number of people. Burke himself would probably have been killed had he happened to be confined in that part of the jail that was blown up.

While in Chatham prison he was reported as having lost his reason, and was removed to Woking. The matter was brought before the House of Commons by Mr. McCarthy Downing, who suggested that Burke's insanity had been caused by his treatment in prison. He was released on Sunday, July 9th, 1871.

Captain Murphy, another of the company in our Scotland Road rendezvous, whom I had often met before, was a gentlemanly, genial man of portly presence, and an exceedingly pleasant companion. After some time he found his way back to America.

Edward O'Meagher Condon was one of the American officers I most frequently came in contact with in Liverpool, previous to and after the Rising. Since his return to America, after his release from penal servitude in 1878, we have frequently corresponded with each other. From a report of a Manchester Martyr's Commemoration in a newspaper which accompanied one of his letters, and conversations I had with him when I was delighted to have him as my guest during his recent visit to this country, I find he has just the same sanguine temperament as on that night at McGrady's, when the chances of another Rising were being discussed. In the report I refer to he says, "Had the Irish people been furnished with the necessary arms and munitions of war, which ought and could have been provided, they would have proved victors in the contest."

I have no doubt but that, in propounding this view, he had in his mind the probability there was at one point of England being embroiled in a quarrel with America. None knew better than he, at the time, of the enormous number of Irishmen in the American armies, on both sides, during the Civil War who, with their military training, longed for the task of sweeping English rule from the soil of Ireland. It will be remembered that it was Condon who, when sentenced to death, concluded his speech in the dock with the prayer, "God save Ireland!" the words which have since become the rallying cry of the whole Irish race, and have given us a National Anthem.

In his letters to me since his first return to America, I have been gratified to hear that he always took a warm interest in my publications. I am pleased, too, to find from the newspaper reports he has sent me that he is, as ever, an eminently practical man, and believes in using the means nearest to hand for the advancement of the Irish Cause.

While giving his experiences in connection with the revolutionary movement, he declares that no one can blame the Irish people for having recourse to any means which may enable them to remain on their native soil. They have, he says, to use whatever means have been left to save themselves from extermination and Ireland from becoming a desert. He, therefore, declares his sympathy with the later movements of the Irish people—the Land League, the National League, and the United Irish League, while never abandoning the principles of '98, '48 and '67.

I referred to two Liverpool men as being present at the meeting at McGrady's. One of these, John Ryan, my dear old schoolfellow, one of the rescuers of James Stephens, has been dead many years—God rest his soul! He was a noble character, and would have risen to the top in any walk of life, but though he had a good home—his father was a prosperous merchant of Liverpool—he gave his whole life to Ireland. I often heard from him of his adventures, for he always looked me up whenever he came to Liverpool, and how, sometimes, he and his friends had to fare very badly indeed.

It was most extraordinary that, while constantly Tunning risks, for he was a man of great daring, he never once was arrested, though he had some hair-breadth escapes. On one occasion, about the time of the Rising, a good, honest, Protestant member of the Brotherhood, Sam Clampitt, was taken out of the same bedroom in which he was sleeping with Ryan, who was left, the police little thinking of the bigger fish they had allowed to escape from their net, the noted Fenian leader, "Captain O'Doherty." I forget his precise name at this particular time, but it was a very Saxon one, for he was supposed to be an English artist sketching in Ireland. Questioned by the police, he was able to satisfy them of his bona fides. He had a friend in Liverpool, an old schoolfellow like myself, Richard Richards—"Double Dick" we used to call him—a patriotic Liverpool-born Irishman. He was an exceedingly able artist, making rapid progress in his profession, and, about this time, having some very fine pictures, for which he got good prices, on the walls of the Liverpool Academy Exhibition. Richards supplied all the trappings for the part that Ryan was playing, and also sent him letters of a somewhat humorous character, which he sometimes read to me before sending off. In these he was anticipating all sorts of adventures for his friend in the then disturbed state of Ireland. As John Ryan had much artistic taste, and was himself a fair draughtsman, and well up in all the necessary technicalities, and as Richards' letters, which he always carried for emergencies like this, were strong evidences in his favour, he had not much difficulty in convincing the Dublin police he was what he represented himself to be.

Some of Jack Ryan's reminiscences had their droll sides, for he had a keen sense of humour. One of his stories was in connection with the well-known old tradition of the Gaels—both Irish and Scottish—that wherever the "Lia Fail" or "Stone of Destiny" may be must be the seat of Government. There is some doubt, as is well known, as to where the real stone now is. At all events, the stone which is under the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey is that which was taken from Scone by King Edward, and that on which the Scottish monarchs were crowned, having been originally brought from Ireland, the cradle of the Gaelic race. The tradition is still, as it happens, borne out by the fact that Westminster is now the seat of Government.

Now two of John Ryan's Fenian friends, Irish-American officers, stranded in London—a not unusual circumstance—just when affairs looked very black indeed, conceived the brilliant idea of stealing the stone, bringing it over to Ireland, and, once for all, settling the Irish question. This, notwithstanding their oath to "The Irish Republic now virtually (virtuously some of our friends used to say) established," for it did not seem to strike them that they were proposing to bring to Ireland an emblem of royalty.

I never heard if they took any actual steps to accomplish their object. Perhaps they were impressed by the mechanical difficulties, as I was myself one day, when standing with David Barrett, an Irish National League organiser, in Edward the Confessor's Chapel, in front of the famous "Lia Fail." It is a rough-hewn stone, about two feet each way, and ten inches deep. I was telling my friend the story of the plot to carry off the "Stone of Destiny," and was making a calculation, based on the weight of a cubic foot of stone, of what might be its weight.

"We'll soon see," said David, and, in a moment, he had vaulted over the railing, and taken hold of a corner of the stone.

But, so closely is this national treasure watched, that instantaneously a couple of attendants appeared, and broke up peremptorily our proposed committee of enquiry. An archaeological friend of mine suggests that, one day, when Ireland is making her own laws and able to enter on equal terms into a contract with England, a reasonable stipulation would be the restoration of that stone—unless the Scottish Gaels can prove a stronger claim to it.

From John Ryan I heard of the mode of living of many of the Fenian organisers and of the Irish-American officers,—very different from the slanderous statements of their "living in luxury upon the wages of Irish servant girls in America." John was of a cheery disposition, never complaining, but always sanguine, and loving to look at the bright side of things. Yet I could see for myself, each time I saw him, how the life of hardship he was leading was telling upon his once splendid constitution, and, I felt sure, shortening his days. John Ryan, I have often said, is dead for Ireland, for though he did not perish on the battlefield or on the scaffold, as would have been his glory, I most certainly believe he would have been alive to-day but for the hardships suffered in doing his unostentatious work for Ireland.

There is one other friend I mentioned as having been present that night at Owen McGrady's—the school master. You will ask what became of him? Almost the last time I spoke to him—not very long before these lines were written—was in the inner lobby of the British House of Commons, for he has been for many years a member of Parliament. Now some of my most cherished friends are or have been members of Parliament, and I would be sorry to think any of them worse Irishmen than myself on that account. Their taking the oath of allegiance to the British sovereign was a matter for their own consciences, but I never could bring myself to do it. Mr. Parnell would, I know, have been pleased to see me in Parliament, but he knew that I never would take the oath, and respected my conscientious objections to swear allegiance to any but my own country.

With the exception of a few, whose names I forget, I have accounted for the whole of the company comprising the Council of War at McGrady's public house. Summed up as follows, nothing in the pages of romance could be more startling than the after fate of these men:—

CAPTAIN MICHAEL O'BRIEN.—Hanged at Manchester. R.I.P.

COLONEL RICKARD BURKE.—Sent to Penal Servitude—Returned to America.

COLONEL THOMAS KELLY, CAPTAIN TIMOTHY DEASY.—Rescued from Prison Van in Manchester.

CAPTAIN EDWARD O'MEAGHER-CONDON.—Sentenced to death for the Manchester Rescues, but reprieved and sent to Penal Servitude—Returned to America.

CAPTAIN MURPHY.—Returned to America. Died a few years since.

THE SCHOOLMASTER.—A Member of Parliament.

JOHN RYAN.—Dead—God rest his soul.



CHAPTER VIII.

A DIGRESSION—T.D. SULLIVAN—A NATIONAL ANTHEM—THE EMERALD MINSTRELS—"THE SPIRIT OF THE NATION."

If it were for nothing else, it will be sufficient fame for T.D. Sullivan for all time that he is the author of "God Save Ireland." He had no idea himself, as he used to tell me, that the anthem would have been taken up so instantaneously and enthusiastically as it was.

A National Anthem can never be made to order. It must grow spontaneously out of some stirring incident of the hour. Never in those days were our people so deeply moved as by the Manchester Martyrdom. There is no grander episode in all Irish history. The song of "God Save Ireland," embodying the cry raised by Edward O'Meagher Condon, and taken up by his doomed companions in the dock, so expressed the feelings of all hearts that it was at once accepted by Irishmen the world over as the National Anthem.

I sympathise with the ground taken up by our friends of the Gaelic League that a National Anthem should be in the national tongue. That objection has to some extent been met by the very fine translation of "God Save Ireland" into Gaelic by Daniel Lynch. This appeared in one of my publications, and is the version now frequently sung at Irish patriotic gatherings.

With regard to the objection that the air—"Tramp, tramp, the boys are marching"—to which T.D. wrote the song is of American origin, I was under the impression that Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, the famous Irish-American bandmaster, was the composer of it, and that, therefore, we could claim the air of "God Save Ireland" as being Irish as well as the words. To place the matter beyond doubt, Gilmore himself being dead, I wrote to his daughter, Mary Sarsfield Gilmore, a distinguished poetical contributor to the "Irish World," to ascertain the facts. I got from her a most interesting reply, in which she said, "I am more than sorry to disappoint you by my answer, but my father was not the composer of the air you mention."

I have heard it suggested that McCann's famous war song "O'Donnell Aboo!" should be adopted as our National Anthem instead of "God Save Ireland," and I have heard of it being given as a finale at Gaelic League concerts.

Without doubt it is a fine song, and the air to which it is generally sung is a noble one. A distinguished Irish poet tells me he is of opinion that "what will be universally taken up as the Irish National Anthem has never yet been written." My friend may be right, but let us see what claim "O'Donnell Aboo!'"—song or air—has upon us for adoption as our National Anthem.

To do this I must go back in my narrative to the time when I made the acquaintance of Mr. Michael Joseph McCann, its author. This was a few years before "God Save Ireland" was written, and over twenty years after "O'Donnell Aboo!" appeared in the "Nation."

A party of young Irishmen from Liverpool engaged the Rotunda, Dublin, for a week. They called themselves the "Emerald Minstrels," and gave an entertainment—"Terence's Fireside; or the Irish Peasant at Home." I was one of the minstrels. The entertainment consisted of Irish national songs and harmonized choruses, interspersed with stories such as might be told around an Irish fireside. There was a sketch at the finish, winding up with a jig.

At my suggestion, one of the pieces in our programme was "O'Donnell Aboo!" which first appeared in the "Nation" of January 28th, 1843, under the title of "The Clan-Connell War Song—A.D. 1597," the air to which it was to be sung being given as "Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu," This was the name of the boat song commencing "Hail to the Chief," from Sir Walter Scott's poem of "The Lady of the Lake." This was published in 1810, and set to music for three voices soon afterwards by Count Joseph Mazzinghi, a distinguished composer of Italian extraction, born in London.

As "Roderigh Vich Alpine" was the air given by Mr. McCann himself as that to which his song was to be sung, we, of course, used Mazzinghi's music in our entertainment.

One night—I think it was our first—at the close of our entertainment in Dublin, a gentleman came behind to see us. It was Mr. McCann. He was pleased, he said, we were singing his song, but would like us to use an air to which it was being sung in Ireland, and which he had put to it himself. He also told us he had made some alterations in the words of the song, and was good enough to write into my "Spirit of the Nation" the changes he had made. This copy is the original folio edition, with music, published in 1845. It was presented to me by the members of St. Nicholas's Boys' Guild, Liverpool. I have that book still, and value it all the more as containing the handwriting of the distinguished poet. (I should say, however, that most of my friends do not consider the alterations in the song to be improvements.)

The measure and style of "O'Donnell Aboo!" were evidently imitated from Sir Walter Scott's boat song. Besides this strong resemblance, there is the fact that Mr. McCann gave as the air to which his song was to be sung, "Roderigh Vich Alpine," part of the burden of Sir Walter's song.

But not only is there a resemblance in the words and general style, but in the music. Indeed, it seems to me that most of the fine air of "O'Donnell Aboo!" as it is now sung is based on Mazzinghi's music—either that for the first, second, or bass voice, or upon the concerted part for the three voices at the end of each verse.

Another fact is worthy of mention. Since meeting Mr. McCann I have often noticed in Irish papers that when the air, as adapted by him, was played at national gatherings, it was often given by the name of Scott's song and Mazzinghi's composition. And when Mr. Parnell was in the height of his popularity and attended demonstrations in Ireland, the air used to be played as being applicable to the Irish leader, and given in some papers as "Hail to the Chief," while others described the same air as "O'Donnell Aboo!"

But if we cannot claim as an original Irish air McCann's song as it is now sung, the same critical examination which brings out its resemblance to Mazzinghi's music, also shows that the Italian composer most probably got his inspiration from the music of the Irish or Scottish Gaels, as being most suitable for his theme. So that, perhaps, we may take the same pride in the present air as our island mother might in some of her children who had been on the shaughraun for a time, but had again come back to the "old sod."

It may be that even before the era of Irish independence some inspired poet may write, to some old or new Irish melody, a song which, by its transcendent merits, may spring at once into the first place. But until that happens, or till "we've made our isle a nation free and grand" I think we may very well rest content with "God Save Ireland."

It has been suggested to me that it might form an interesting portion of these recollections if I were to give some account of how we came to start the "Emerald Minstrels," and what we did while that company was in existence. I may say without hesitation that we got our inspiration from the teaching of Young Ireland and the "Spirit of the Nation." We called our entertainment "Terence's Fireside; or The Irish Peasant at Home."

We had most of us been boys in the old Copperas Hill school, then in the Young Men's Guild connected with the church, and some of us members of the choir. At the Guild meetings on Sunday nights, the chaplain, Father Nugent, an Irishman, but, like most of ourselves, born out of his own country, used to delight in teaching us elocution, and encouraging us to write essays, besides putting other means of culture in our way.

After a time he founded an educational establishment, the Catholic Institute, where, when he left Copperas Hill, many of us followed him and joined the evening classes. About this good priest I shall have more to say in this narrative, and, though he was no politician, I don't think any man ever did so much to elevate the condition of the Irish people of his native town, and make them both respectable—in the best sense—and respected, as Father Nugent.

We started the "Emerald Minstrels" at a time when there was a lull in Irish politics; our objects being the cultivation of Irish music, poetry and the drama; Irish literature generally, Irish pastimes and customs; and, above all, Irish Nationality.

Father Nugent's training from the time we were young boys had been invaluable. We numbered ten, the most brilliant member of our body, and the one who did most in organising our entertainments, being John Francis McArdle. Besides our main objects, already stated, we considered we were doing good work by elevating the tastes of our people, who had, through sheer good nature, so long tolerated an objectionable class of so-called Irish songs, as well as the still more objectionable "Stage Irishman."

Some items from the programme will give an idea of our entertainment. We opened with a prologue, originally written by myself, but re-cast and very much improved by John McArdle. I may say that we two often did a considerable amount of journalistic work in that way in after years. I can just remember a little of the prologue. These were the opening lines:—

Sons of green Erin, we greet you this night! And you, too, her daughters—how welcome the sight! We come here before you, a minstrel band, To carol the lays of our native land.

There was one particularly daring couplet in it, the contribution of John McArdle:—

In your own Irish way give us one hearty cheer. Just to show us at once that you welcome us here.

Had mine been the task to speak these lines, I must inevitably have failed to get the required response, but in the mouth of the regular reciter they never once missed fire. This was Mr. Barry Aylmer. He afterwards adopted the stage as a profession, and became recognised as a very fine actor, chiefly in Irish parts, as might be expected. He also travelled with a very successful entertainment of his own, and it is but a short time since he informed me that he spoke our identical "Emerald Minstrel" prologue in New York and other cities in America, adapting it, of course, to the circumstances of the occasion. I found that during the many years which had elapsed since I had previously seen him until I met him again quite recently he had been a great traveller, not only in this country and America, but also in South Africa and Australia.

We had a number of harmonized choruses, including several of Moore's melodies, Banim's "Soggarth Aroon," "Native Music," by Lover; McCann's "O'Donnell Aboo!" and others. "Killarney," words by Falconer, music by Balfe, was sung by James McArdle, who had a fine tenor voice. Richard Campbell was our principal humorous singer. He used chiefly to give selections from Lover's songs, and one song written for him by John McArdle, "Pat Delany's Christenin'."

John had an instinctive grasp of stage effect. A hint of the possibilities of an idea was enough for him. On my return from the Curragh I told him of how I had heard the militia men and soldiers singing the "Shan Van Vocht" on the road. He decided that this should be our finale, the climax of the first part of our minstrel entertainment.

We had a drop scene representing the Lower Lake of Killarney. When it was raised it disclosed the interior of the living room of a comfortable Irish homestead, with the large projecting open chimney, the turf fire on the hearth, and the usual pious and patriotic pictures proper to such an interior—Terence's Fireside.

Ours was a very self-contained company. Each had some special line as singer, musician, elocutionist, story teller or dancer.

John Clarke was our chief actor. He excelled in "character parts," and, when well "made up" as an old man made a capital "Terence" in the first part of the entertainment, besides giving a fine rendering of Lefanu's "Shemus O'Brien" between the parts.

In the miscellaneous part there was a rattling Irish jig by Joseph Ward and Barry Aylmer. The latter, being of somewhat slight figure and a good-looking youth, made a bouncing Irish colleen. These two made a point of studying from nature, not only in their dancing, but in their acting and singing, so that their performances were always true to life, without an atom of exaggeration. They were always received with great enthusiasm, particularly by the old people, who seemed transported back, as by the touch of a magic wand, to the scenes of their youth.

We finished the evening with a sketch, written by John McArdle, called "Phil Foley's Frolics"—he was fond of alliteration. Noticing that Joseph Ward had made a special study of the comfortable old Irish vanithee, and had many of her quaint and humorous sayings, he added to the characters a special part for him—"Mrs. Casey,"—to which he did full justice. Indeed, so incessant was the laughter that followed each sally, that he and Barry Aylmer, who was the Phil Foley, sometimes found it difficult to get the words of the dialogue in between. We had another sketch, "Pat Houlahan's Ghost," which used to go very well.

The first part of the entertainment, showing old Terence in the chimney corner and the others singing songs and telling stories, almost necessitated our sitting around in a semi-circular formation. This gave us much the appearance of a nigger troupe. To depart from this somewhat, we occasionally introduced a trifling plot. We made it that one of the sons of the house entered while the family were engaged in their usual avocations, having unexpectedly returned from America. Then came the affectionate family greeting, and the bringing in of the friends and neighbours, who formed a group sitting around the turf fire, making a merry night of it.

The services of the "Emerald Minstrels" were in great demand, and were always cheerfully given for Catholic, National and charitable objects.

While our own people mostly furnished our audiences, our entertainment was appreciated by the general public. The best proof of this was that Mr. Calderwood, Secretary of the Concert Hall, Lord Nelson Street, gave us several engagements for the "Saturday Evening Concerts," in which, from time to time, Samuel Lover, Henry Russell, The English Glee and Madrigal Union, and other well-known popular entertainers, appeared. Mr. Calderwood told us he was well pleased to have in the town a company like ours, upon whom he could always rely for a successful entertainment.



CHAPTER IX.

A FENIAN CONFERENCE AT PARIS—THE REVOLVERS FOR THE MANCHESTER RESCUE—MICHAEL DAVITT SENT TO PENAL SERVITUDE.

I have referred to Michael Breslin in speaking of his brother John. Michael was not suspected of any complicity with the revolutionary movement until after the rising on the 5th of March, 1867, when he found it prudent to get out of the country.

He was, as the saying is, "on his keeping," and stayed with me at my father's house in Liverpool for a short time, until he found a favourable opportunity of getting away to America. This was by no means an easy task, as all the ports were closely watched, and as, like his brother John, he was a fine handsome man, of splendid physique, and well known, of course, to the Irish police, it required all his caution successfully to run the gauntlet; but this eventually he did.

The next I heard from him was that he was coming to Paris to a conference between the representatives of the two parties of American Fenians—what were known as the Stephens and Roberts wings. Michael Breslin was sent as a representative of the Stephens party. There were prominent members of the I.R.B. in this country, also friends of Breslin, who were anxious that the two parties should join. I wrote to him on their behalf, asking him to work towards that end. For greater safety the letters for Breslin were sent under cover through my cousin, Father Bernard O'Loughlin, Superior of the Passionist Fathers in Paris. He, of course, knew nothing of the nature of the communications he was handing to Breslin, who did his best to bring about the desired unity; but his action was repudiated by his principals in America.