Hanged... but he took 45 minutes to expire: Gruesome death of an innocent Cork Fenian

AS he stood on the scaffold before a crowd of 10,000 baying people, Corkman Michael O’Brien must have been thankful his ordeal was nearly at an end.

Although a passionate Fenian, he was about to be executed for a murder he had not committed.

He had faced up to his death with stoicism and bravery, writing in his final letter: “I cannot regret dying in the cause of Liberty and Ireland.”

Now, a few months short of a 30th birthday he would never see, O’Brien stood on a gallows erected outside New Bailey Prison in Salford alongside two other men, who would be known to history as the ‘Manchester Martyrs’.

But he was not to know his ordeal was not almost over. In a sickening botched execution, he would spend a horrifying 45 minutes choking on the noose before finally leaving this world.

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The executions on November 23, 1867, caused widespread anger and revulsion in Britain and Ireland. They turned out to be the last public executions carried out in Manchester.

The men facing death were O’Brien, of Ballymacoda, William Allen, 19, a native of Tipperary who grew up near Bandon, and Michael Larkin, 32, of Offaly.

Their hangman, William Calcraft, had been almost 40 years in the job - during which he killed an estimated 450 people. But his technique of a ‘short-drop’ had been criticised as it often failed to break the victim’s neck, prolonging their agony. Calcraft was also said to be jittery when executing Fenians owing to threats he had received from then.

At his hands, Allen died instantly, but Larkin didn’t and the hangman pulled on his legs to put him out of his misery.

A Catholic priest, Fr Gadd, who had ministered to the condemned men, was horrified, and when O’Brien similarly failed to die instantly he stepped in and refused to allow Calcraft to pull on the Corkman’s legs.

For an agonising 45 minutes, Fr Gadd knealt before O’Brien, holding his hands, and reciting the prayers for the dying, until he finally, mercifully, expired.

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Michael O’Brien was born in Ballymacoda on January 17, 1838, the son of John & Johanna O’Brien (née O’Neill). His family rented a large farm, but were evicted in 1856.

After school, Michael was apprenticed to a draper in Youghal, where he worked for Arnott, Grant & Co., and later moved to the Queen’s drapery in Cork city.

Here, he became involved in the Fenian movement through contacts with Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, and for three years he served as deputy to Brian Dillon, leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Cork city.

In 1861, Michael lost his job and decided to enlist in a Union Army regiment from New Jersey and fight in the U.S Civil War, where he spent four years.

He then returned to work as a shop assistant in Cork city, and lived for a time with his sister Mary in Glenagare, Ladysbridge.

He resumed his Fenian efforts, procuring arms and travelling regularly in Ireland and England.

On March 5, 1867, after a failed Fenian Rising in Ireland, O’Brien fled to England, to stay with Edward O’Meagher Condon in Manchester. A chain of events then began that led to his death.

Two Fenians who had also fled to England, Thomas J. Kelly and Timothy Deasy - who was born near Ring, in Clonakilty - were arrested in Manchester.

On September 18, they were transferred from the courthouse to Belle Vue Gaol in Manchester, alongside four other prisoners, in a police van under heavy guard by mounted police. Inside the van was an unarmed guard, police sergeant Charles Brett.

As it travelled on Hyde Road and passed under a railway arch, a man ran up and forced the driver to stop at gunpoint. A large group of Fenians, including O’Brien and O’Meagher Condon, tried to surround the van and the mounted officers, with the goal of liberating Kelly and Deasy.

They urged Sergeant Brett to open the locked door. His reply, “I dare not. I must do my duty,” was inscribed on his gravestone.

One of the Fenians, later said to be a Dublin man, Peter Rice, in an attempt to blow the lock, took aim and fired at it just as Sergeant Brett was looking through the keyhole from the other side. He was hit in the head and killed.

One of the prisoners took the keys from Brett’s corpse and passed them to the group outside through a ventilation hole. Most of the Fenians then escaped with Kelly and Deasy.

Sergeant Brett was the first police officer killed on duty in Manchester, causing outrage and a backlash from the public and policing authorities.

In the weeks after, many innocent Irishmen were targeted for arrest. A £300 reward was offered for information leading to the capture of Kelly and Deasy, but both had escaped to the U.S via Liverpool.

A total of 26 arrests were made, with five principal defendants - O’Brien, Allen, and Larkin, along with O’Meagher Condon and Thomas Maguire, an Irishman who had been on leave with the Royal Marines. In October, proceedings began against them, via a Special Commission overseen by two judges.

After five days, the jury retired and took just over an hour to come back with a guilty verdict for all five defendants.

Invited to address the court, O’Brien said:“No man in this court regrets the death of Sergeant Brett more than I do, and I positively say, in the presence of the Almighty and ever-living God, that I am innocent; aye, as innocent as any man in this court.”

O’Meagher Condon’s address ended “God save Ireland!”, which later inspired the popular Republican song of that name, by Timothy Daniel Sullivan.

The only sentence permitted at the time for murder was hanging, although Maguire was pardoned due to the uncertainty of the evidence against him, and O’Meagher Condon’s sentence was commuted to life in jail due to his U.S citizenship. This left Allen, Larkin and O’Brien to face the gallows - the latter’s U.S citizenship clearly not saving him.

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When news of the executions of the ‘Manchester Martyrs’ reached Ireland, solemn funeral processions were held, and three coffinless hearses proceeded to Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, followed by 60,000 mourners.

However, even after their violent deaths, Allen, Larkin and O’Brien couldn’t rest in peace.

They were buried in the New Bailey prison graveyard, but when the jail closed a year later, their remains were moved to the cemetery at Strangeways prison.

In 1991, their remains were again disturbed when they were exhumed, cremated, and reinterred at Blackley Cemetery in Manchester, with the remains of 63 other executed prisoners.

Today, numerous monuments remember the Manchester Martyrs, in England and Ireland, including a Celtic cross in Ladysbridge, East Cork.

In his last letter, nine days before he died, O’Brien said: “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.”

Several ballads have been dedicated to the Martyrs, including The Bold Manchester Three, God Save Ireland and The Smashing Of The Van.

Star of The Crown had Irish ancestor who escaped the noose in Manchester

SHE is best known for playing Queen Elizabeth II in TV hit The Crown - but British actress Claire Foy last year discovered her ancestor narrowly escaped being executed alongside the Manchester Martyrs.

Her great-great-great-grandfather, John Henry Martin, and his brother William were among dozens of Irish people arrested in wake of the killing of the policeman in 1867.

However, Foy found out in the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are? that the brothers were cleared of involvement after friends and family vouched for them in court.

Dozens of men in Manchester with Irish connections were arrested in the days after the death of policeman Charles Brett, whose killing sparked outrage. William was arrested near to the scene within an hour, while John was seized five days later.

Even though neither was accused of firing the fatal shot, both were charged with ‘joint enterprise murder’ - namely that they were amongst the crowd that carried out the killing.

However, John’s wife Eliza gave William an alibi, saying he had been at her home, while witnesses testified John had been at work. The brothers were discharged.

Foy visited the scene of the killing in Hyde Road, Manchester, for the TV show, and said: “It must have been terrifying for my great-great-great-grandfather, who was saved by his community and his wife, who ultimately stopped him from being sentenced to death.”