| ‘God
Save Ireland!’
’Twas down by the glenside, I met an old woman,
A plucking young nettles, she ne’er saw me comin’
I listened a while to the song she was humin’
Glory O, Glory O, to the bold Fenian men…
On the evening of 5th March 1867 a proclamation was delivered to
The Times newspaper in London:
The Irish People to the World.
History bears testimony to the intensity of our sufferings…our
war is against the aristocratic locusts, whether English or Irish,
who have eaten the verdure of our fields – against the aristocratic
leeches who drain alike our blood and theirs. Republicans of the
entire world, our cause is your cause…avenge yourselves…
Herewith we proclaim the Irish Republic.
That night the Fenian Rising began. It was doomed from the outset.
The government had been kept extremely well informed by John Corydon,
a man who had infiltrated the highest ranks of the Brotherhood.
The movement was crippled by the arrest of key leaders, which left
local bands of insurgents confused and without direction. Every
attempt over previous weeks to seize arms had been frustrated. In
Co Cork rebels took the coastguard station of Knockadown and captured
the police barracks in Ballyknockane, where they derailed the Dublin
express. Otherwise, all was failure.
The constabulary dispersed groups of rebels in Drogheda’s
Potato Market, at Drumcliffe churchyard in Co Sligo, at Ballyhurst
in Co Tipperary and repelled attacks on barracks at Ardagh and Kilmallock
in Co Limerick.
Dublin produced the largest Fenian turnout. Marching out of the
city, several hundred men found themselves confronted at Tallaght
by 14 Constables under the command of Sub-Inspector Burke. The Fenians
fired around 50 shots but not one of them found their mark. The
police returned the fire, wounding one man, and the insurgents scattered.
The Irish Constabulary had been able to suppress the Fenian rising
without seeking the assistance of the military. Queen Victoria was
so pleased that she renamed the force, the ‘Royal Irish Constabulary’.
When Erin’s Hope, a 200-ton ship from New York, sailed into
Sligo Bay in May 1867, the 38 Irish American officers on board quickly
learned that there was not the slightest hope of support in the
locality. Sailing on round the Irish coast the ship was finally
arrested by the authorities at Dungarvan in Co Waterford. In the
hold the police found 5,000 modern breech-loading and repeating
rifles, three artillery pieces and a million and a half rounds of
ammunition.
With the help of informers the government rounded up and convicted
great numbers of Fenians. Just as they had done in 1848, those in
power showed restraint. Sentences of death were commuted to terms
of imprisonment with hard labour. There were, therefore, no martyrs
for the cause in Ireland. It was a different matter in England.
On 11th September 1867 police in Manchester arrested two men who
were acting suspiciously in a doorway. One of them was none other
than the head of the Fenian Brotherhood, Colonel Thomas Kelly. A
week later around 30 Fenians ambushed an unescorted prison van taking
Kelly and other convicts to Belle Vue Gaol. Inside, Police Sergeant
Brett refused to open the van. A Fenian, Peter Rice, fired his revolver
through the grille, mortally wounding the sergeant. A prisoner took
the keys from the dying policeman and Kelly escaped.
Arrests followed and five faced trial for their lives. Four were
found guilty of murder: William Allen, Philip Larkin, Michael O’Brien
and Edward Condon. None had fired the fatal shot but all openly
confessed they were part of the rescue mission. All made speeches
from the dock.
Michael O’Brien said: 'Look to Ireland; see the hundreds
of thousands of its people in misery and want. See the virtuous,
beautiful and industrious women who only a few years ago –
aye and yet – are obliged to look at their children dying
for want of food.'
Edward Condon cried out: 'I have nothing to regret, to retract
or take back. I can only say: God Save Ireland!'
As The Times reported, the other prisoners all called out ‘in
chorus and with great power: “God Save Ireland!”’
Condon was given a last-minute reprieve because he was an American
citizen. On the morning of 24th November 1867 Allen, Larkin and
O’Brien were hanged before an immense crowd in Manchester.
It was the very last public hanging in England. A few days later,
T D O’Sullivan, opposed though he was to militant republicanism,
composed a song echoing Condon’s words, a song which became
a kind of national anthem over the next 50 years:
God save Ireland, said the heroes,
God save Ireland said they all.
Whether on the scaffold high,
Or the battle field we die,
O, what matter when for Ireland dear we fall.
The Fenians had their martyrs after all.
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