History is a strange creature, made stranger by the acts of daring and self-sacrifice, which immediately transforms ordinary men and women into heroes and patriots. It is also a strange irony of fate that in all the drama of Fenian politics, bristling as it was with great names, the major, if not the most tragic, was played out on a dreary Manchester gallows by three obscure and unpretentious young men.
So it is that the names of William Allen, Michael Larkin and Michael O’Brien, will always be remembered in Ireland and around the world, when many of the elite of the Fenian Brotherhood rest in oblivion.
Who were these Manchester Martyrs and what was their alleged dastardly deed that led them to an English gallows?
Our story ends on the gallows on November 23, 1867, however, the beginning of this tragic tale began on September 11, 1867.
Two prominent leading members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Colonel Thomas Kelly and Captain Tim Deasy, were arrested in Manchester. This action sparked a chain of events, which led to the deaths of many Fenians and the transportation of others to Australia. The arrested men were summarily charged before a Manchester magistrate. The case was adjourned to September 18. In the meantime both men were remanded in custody in the old Manchester city jail. Following a second adjournment on September 18, the men were placed in the prison van en route to their prison quarters.
Meanwhile a party of Manchester Fenians under the leadership of Colonel Rickard O’Sullivan Burke had made plans for the rescue of Kelly and Deasy.
On that fateful afternoon, while the van was returning to the prison, a party of approximately twenty men was waiting at strategic locations over which the van was scheduled to travel. One of the guards assigned to the prisoner escort, a Sergeant Charles Brett, occupied an enclosed compartment from where he could observe the prisoners’ movements.
The vehicle proceeding along Hyde Road, reached a railway arch subsequently remembered as the "Fenian Arch" where Burke and his men lay waiting. The stop of the police van was successful. There were no fatalities and very little resistance. However, rescuing Deasy and Kelly was not as easy. Sergeant Brett was still in control of the prisoner compartment and looking through the keyhole on the van was to prove to disastrous for Sergeant Brett and eventually for Allen, Larkin and O’Brien.
When repeated efforts to batter in the locked door failed, one of the rescuers, Peter Rice of Dublin, fired a shot through the keyhole in an attempt to shatter the lock. Unfortunately that was the same keyhole Sergeant Brett had placed his eye in an effort to see what was happening on the outside. Needless to say, the shot fired by Rice killed the Sergeant. Following the shooting, a women prisoner, also in custody, passed the keys of the van to the rescue party and Kelly and Deasy were quickly removed from the vehicle. They made well their escape, as did many of the rescue party, nevertheless, following an intensive round up; several Irishmen were arrested-most of them merely because of their accents-and interrogated. Four of the rescue party, Allen, Larkin, O’Brien and an Edward O’Meagher Condon, had the misfortune to fall into police custody. Edward Condon was an American citizen.
Based on suggested readings, the trial of 23 prisoners conducted by the British courts was a sham. Some one had to pay for the Sergeants demise. Five of the 23 were charged with the capital crime of murder. They included Allen, Larkin, O’Brien and Condon and a member of the British Navy named Thomas Maguire who had no affiliation with the Fenian movement what so ever.
Their trial as in the past and into the future when it came to Irishmen on trial was notorious. Witness after witness swore that they saw Allen fire the fatal shot, while others swore they had seen Maguire attempt to break the van door with large stones. The verdict of the court was a foregone conclusion long before the trial ended. Following the conclusion on the fourth day of the hearing, all five accused were sentenced to death for the killing of Sergeant Brett.
Then, the most bizarre course of action occurred which had no precedent in the history of English criminal procedure. Journalists who had been covering the trial, convinced by their observations that Maguire was innocent signed a petition and sent it to London requesting his acquittal. This petition caused no little embarrassment in official circles, in as much as Maguire had been convicted on evidence, which in the main was no less flimsy than that which convicted Allen, Larkin, O’Brien and Condon. Regardless, Maguire was quickly reprieved, and the officials decreed that the other four must pay the penalty.
But alas another new twist in this case was to arise. On November 21, two days before the scheduled execution, O’Meagher Condon, by virtue of his American citizenship, had his sentence commuted to transportation for life.
For William Allen from Tipperary, Michael Larkin from Offaly and Michael O’Brien from Rebel Cork, there was to be no reprieve. On November 23, 1867, at Salford Prison, Manchester, England, they died on the gallows with the unforgettable words "God Save Ireland" on their lips.
The fate of the Manchester Martyrs moved Ireland as few events in history had done in the past. This injustice perpetrated by the English courts on these three brave Irishmen only assured them an honored place among their country’s heroes.