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The news of the Manchester executions on the morning of Saturday, 23rd
November, 1867, fell upon Ireland with sudden and dismal disillusion.
In time to come, when the generation now living shall have passed away,
men will probably find it difficult to fully realize or understand the
state of stupor and amazement which ensued in this country on the first
tidings of that event; seeing, as it may be said, that the victims had
lain for weeks under sentence of death, to be executed on this date. Yet
surprise indubitably was the first and most overpowering emotion; for,
in truth, no one up to that hour had really credited that England would
take the lives of those three men on a verdict already publicly admitted
and proclaimed to have been a blunder. Now, however, came the news that
all was over--that the deed was done--and soon there was seen such an
upheaving of national emotion as had not been witnessed in Ireland for a
century. The public conscience, utterly shocked, revolted against the
dreadful act perpetrated in the outraged name of justice. A great billow
of grief rose and surged from end to end of the land. Political
distinctions disappeared or were forgotten. The Manchester Victims--the
Manchester Martyrs, they were already called--belonged to the Fenian
organization; a conspiracy which the wisest and truest patriots of
Ireland had condemned and resisted; yet men who had been prominent in
withstanding, on national grounds, that hopeless and disastrous
scheme--priests and laymen--were now amongst the foremost and the
boldest in denouncing at every peril the savage act of vengeance
perpetrated at Manchester. The Catholic clergy were the first to give
articulate expression to the national emotion. The executions took place
on Saturday; before night the telegraph had spread the news through the
island; and on the next morning, being Sunday, from a thousand altars
the sad event was announced to the assembled worshippers, and prayers
were publicly offered for the souls of the victims. When the news was
announced, a moan of sorrowful surprise burst from the congregation,
followed by the wailing and sobbing of women; and when the priest, his
own voice broken with emotion, asked all to join with him in praying the
Merciful God to grant those young victims a place beside His throne, the
assemblage with one voice responded, praying and weeping aloud!
The manner in which the national feeling was demonstrated on this
occasion was one peculiarly characteristic of a nation in which the
sentiments of religion and patriotism are so closely blended. No stormy
"indignation meetings" were held; no tumult, no violence, no cries for
vengeance arose. In all probability--nay, to a certainty--all this would
have happened, and these ebullitions of popular passion would have been
heard, had the victims not passed into eternity. But now, they were gone
where prayer alone could follow; and in the presence of this solemn fact
the religious sentiment overbore all others with the Irish people. Cries
of anger, imprecations, and threats of vengeance, could not avail the
dead; but happily religion gave a vent to the pent-up feelings of the
living. By prayer and mourning they could at once, most fitly and most
successfully, demonstrate their horror of the guilty deed, and their
sympathy with the innocent victims.
Requiem Masses forthwith were announced and celebrated in several
churches; and were attended by crowds everywhere too vast for the sacred
edifices to contain. The churches in several instances were draped with
black, and the ceremonies conducted with more than ordinary solemnity.
In every case, however, the authorities of the Catholic church were
careful to ensure that the sacred functions were sought and attended for
spiritual considerations, not used merely for illegitimate political
purposes; and wherever it was apprehended that the holy rites were in
danger of such use, the masses were said privately.
And soon public feeling found yet another vent; a mode of manifesting
itself scarcely less edifying than the Requiem Masses; namely, funeral
processions. The brutal vengeance of the law consigned the bodies of
Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien to dishonoured graves; and forbade the
presence of sympathising friend or sorrowing relative who might drop a
tear above their mutilated remains. Their countrymen now, however,
determined that ample atonement should be made to the memory of the dead
for this denial of the decencies of sepulture. On Sunday, 1st December,
in Cork. Manchester, Mitchelstown, Middleton, Limerick, and Skibbereen,
funeral processions, at which thousands of persons attended, were held;
that in Cork being admittedly the most imposing, not only in point of
numbers, but in the character of the demonstration and the demeanour of
the people.
For more than twenty years Cork city has held an advanced position in
the Irish national struggle. In truth, it has been one of the great
strongholds of the national cause since 1848. Nowhere else did the
national spirit keep its hold so tenaciously and so extensively amidst
the people. In 1848 Cork city contained probably the most formidable
organization in the country; formidable, not merely in numbers, but in
the superior intelligence, earnestness, and determination of the men;
and even in the Fenian conspiracy, it is unquestionable that the
southern capital contributed to that movement men--chiefly belonging to
the mercantile and commercial classes--who, in personal worth and
standing, as well as in courage, intelligence, and patriotism, were the
flower of the organization. Finally, it must be said, that it was Cork
city by its funeral demonstration of the 1st December, that struck the
first great blow at the Manchester verdict, and set all Ireland in
motion. [Footnote: It may be truly said set the Irish race all over the
world in motion. There is probably no parallel in history for the
singular circumstance of these funeral processions being held by the
dispersed Irish in lands remote, apart, as pole from pole--in the old
hemisphere and in the new--in Europe, in America, in Australia;
prosecutions being set on foot by the English government to punish them
at both ends of the world--in Ireland and in New Zealand! In Hokatika
the Irish settlers--most patriotic of Ireland's exiles--organized a
highly impressive funeral demonstration. The government seized and
prosecuted its leaders, the Rev. Father Larkin, a Catholic clergyman,
and Mr. Wm. Manning, editor of the _Hokatika Celt_. A jury, terrified by
Fenian panic, brought them in "guilty," and the patriot priest and
journalist were consigned to a dungeon for the crime of mourning for the
dead and protesting against judicial murder.]
Meanwhile the Irish capital had moved, and was organizing a
demonstration destined to surpass all that had yet been witnessed. Early
in the second week of December, a committee was formed for the purpose
of organizing a funeral procession in Dublin, worthy of the national
metropolis. Dublin would have come forward sooner, but the question of
the _legality_ of the processions that were announced to come off the
previous week in Cork and other places, had been the subject of fierce
discussion in the government press; and the national leaders were
determined to avoid the slightest infringement of the law or the least
inroad on the public peace. It was only when, on the 3rd of December,
Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, replying in the House of Lords to Lord
Dufferin, declared the opinion of the crown that the projected
processions were not illegal, that the national party in Dublin decided
to form a committee and organize a procession. The following were Lord
Derby's words:--
"He could assure the noble lord that the government would continue to
carry out the law with firmness and impartiality. The Party
Processions Act, however, did not meet the case of the funeral
processions, the parties engaged in them having, by not displaying
banners or other emblems, kept within the law as far as his
information went."
Still more strong assurance was contained in the reply of the Irish
Chief Secretary, Lord Mayo, to a question put by Sir P. O'Brien in the
House of Commons. Lord Mayo publicly announced and promised that if any
new opinion as to the legality of the processions should be arrived
at--that is, should the crown see in them anything of illegality--_due
and timely notice would be given_ by proclamation, so that no one might
offend through ignorance. Here are his words:--
"It is the wish of the government to act strictly in accordance with
the law; _and of course ample notice will be given either by
proclamation or otherwise_."
The Dublin funeral committee thereupon at once issued the following
announcement, by placard and advertisement:--
GOD SAVE IRELAND!
A PUBLIC FUNERAL PROCESSION
In honour of the Irish Patriots
Executed at Manchester, 23rd November,
Will take place in Dublin
On Sunday next, the 8th inst.
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The procession will assemble in Beresford-place, near the Custom
House, and will start from thence at the hour of twelve o'clock noon.
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No flags, banners, or party emblems will be allowed.
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