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In Fermoy, Ireland |
Manchester Martyrs Tri-Commemoration "shamrock". Who were the Manchester Martyrs? Colonel Thomas J Kelly and his comrade Captain Timothy Deasey, leaders of the Fenian movement in England, arrived in Manchester in the autumn of 1867 on Fenian business. In the early hours of the 11th September, 1867, Colonel Thomas Kelly and Captain Timothy Deasy were arrested in the centre of Manchester on a vagrancy charge. They were recognised as Fenians and remanded to Bellevue Goal, awaiting trial. They were handcuffed and put into a prison van but unlike the non-political prisoners, they were locked into a separate compartment with a Sergeant Brett and guarded on the outside by twelve policemen. Colonel Kelly was an Irish-American who had fought with the 10th Ohio Regiment in the Civil War. While in America, he had worked with the American branch of the IRB to consolidate Fenian interests in the American North. Within a few days of Appomattox, Kelly arrived in Ireland to advise Fenian leader Stephens of Irish-American troop support. However, because of Stephens' indecisiveness which led to the failure of the planned rising, Kelly was chosen by the other leaders of the IRB to replace Stephens and act as the chief executive of the Irish republic. Because Colonel Kelly was the most prominent Fenian, having only recently been confirmed as Chief Executive of the Irish Republican Brotherhood he was considered quite a capture, therefore news of their arrest was immediately sent to Mr. Disraeli, the Prime Minister. When these two men were to be conveyed in a black maria from the Court House in Manchester to the County Jail on Hyde Road, West Gorton on the 18th September, there was a posse of twelve mounted policemen to escort them. The Fenians in that city resolved to rescue them. The journey to the jail was a short one and it went under a railway bridge. This is where they planned to stop the prison van upon the road between Manchester and Salford. As the van passed under the railway arch one of the Fenians darted into the middle of the road pointed a pistol at the driver and called on the driver to pull up and to open the door. Similtaneously, a party of about thirty men leapt over a wall at the side of the road and surrounded the van and seized the horses, one of which they shot. Since the police were unharmed they offered little resistance, and were soon put to flight. Police Sergeant Brett, who was inside the van with the prisoners, refused to open the door when he realised that the Fenians were attempting to rescue Kelly and Deasey. When all attempts to break open the door failed and after calling on those inside to stand back, shots were fired into the lock. Unfortunately Sgt Brett, who was looking through the keyhole at that minute, was shot in the head and fell to the floor. One of the women prisoners grabbed the keys and handed them out. The doors were opened and Kelly and Deasey were taken away by some of the Fenians and were never recaptured. Other casualties were a police officer shot in the thigh, and a civilian shot in the foot. Among those arrested in connection with the ‘Smashing of the Van’ were Michael O’Brien, who was born in Ballymacoda, Co Cork, was a draper by trade. Michael emigrated to America where at the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted in the American Army. After the War when his regiment was disbanded he returned to Cork. On the night before the Fenian Rising he disappeared and the next time he was heard of was when he was arrested for taking part in the attack on the prison van. Another was William Philip Allen who was born in Tipperary and raised in Bandon, Co Cork where his father was a Bridewell-keeper. William’s father was a Protestant and his mother a Catholic so William was educated in both Protestant and Catholic schools and was a carpenter by trade. His first visit to Manchester was to relatives and on returning home he stayed in Dublin were he became a builder’s clerk. In the summer of 1867 he went to Manchester again. Michael Larkin was born in 1835 in Co Offaly. His grandfather was James Quirke who was flogged and transported for his part in the 1798 Rising. Michael, who trained as a tradesman, went to London and worked there until the time of his arrest in 1867. He had, like his two companions that were murdered with him, a great love of Ireland was very conscious of the plight of the occupied Irish at home. All three of them mentioned the plight of the Irish in their last statements as they mentioned that they were innocent of the crime for which they were about to die. On 28th October 1867 Michael O’Brien, William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, along with Edward O’Meagher Condon who was an Irish American and Thomas Maguire (a private in the British army, an Irishman who was on leave and named by numerous witness’s as the ringleader) and others stood trial before a Special Commission charged with the ‘murder’ of Sgt Brett. The trial lasted three days and on 1st November the jury returned a guilty verdict. All five protested their innocence. (Thomas Maguire and Michael O’Brien proved they were not even there). Maguire was granted a Queen’s pardon and released. O’Meagher Condon, because he was an American citizen and through the intervention of the American Secretary of State, had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment and eleven years later he was released on condition that he not set foot in Britain for at least twenty years. Allen, Larkin and O'Brien were publicly hanged on the Twenty Third of November, 1867. Michael O’Brien in his last letter dated November 14, 1867 – which is preserved in St Patrick’s Church, Livesey Street, Manchester - says “..much though I would like to live ... I cannot regret dying in the cause of Liberty and Ireland. Let no man think a cause is lost because some suffer for it. It is only a proof that those who suffer are in earnest, and should be an incentive to others to be equally so – to do their duty with firmness, justice and disinterestedness”. William Allen in his last letter to his aunt and uncle, which is in the National Museum in Dublin, said “Oh that I could be buried in Ireland”. But the British authorities buried those three brave men in a prison grave in New Bailey Prison. When that prison was closed their remains were removed to Strangeways – not even then could the British show mercy and allow the men to be re-interred in Ireland. After escaping from Manchester, Colonel Thomas J. Kelly remained in New York, but fearing extradition, maintained a low profile while working as a customs official in New York harbor until his death in 1908. Captain Timothy Deasy settled in Massachusetts and went into politics. He was elected to the Lawrence City counsel in 1870 and became a state representative in 1876. He died in 1880 at the age of 39. High up on the gallows tree swung the noble hearted three By the vengeful tyrants stricken in the gloom. But they met them face to face with the courage of their race And they went with soul undaunted to their doom. Chorus: "God Save Ireland" say the heroes. "God Save Ireland" say they all. Whether on the scaffolds high or the battlefields we die Oh no matter when, for Ireland here we fall. Climb they up the rugged stair, ring their voices round them clear. 'Til with England's fain of heart 'round them cast. Close beside the gallows tree, just like brothers, lovingly True to home and faith and freedom to the land. (chorus) Never 'till the latest day shall the memory pass away Of their gallant lives that's given for our land. But on the cause must go, with a joy that we'll evoke 'Till we make our Ireland nation free at last. |
