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Captain
Michael O’Brien (1837 - 1867)
Patriot of two nations, American Civil War veteran,
Fenian, A Manchester martyr
 Michael
O’Brien, one of eight children, was born at Ballymacoda, County Cork
where his father had rented a large farm but in 1856 the family was
evicted. He was described physically as being “a tall squared-shouldered
man whose bearing bespoke the American soldier.” In his youth he was
apprenticed to a draper in Youghal and later worked as an assistant in
one of the large stores in Cork City. O’Brien would eventually emigrate
to the United States.
O’Donovan Rossa
wrote in his book 'Irish Rebels in English Prisons' he had met
O’Brien in 1859 and had also known him during his time in America and
had found him to be “one of the truest and one of the noblest; as
devoted as a lover and as courageous as a lion.”
During the American Civil War O’Brien served as an officer with the 13th
New Jersey. When the War ended he returned to Ireland and stayed with
his sister Mary in Glenagare, Ladysbridge. He worked for a time in a
store in Cork City where he remained until the 1867 Rising. In his
speech to the court he pronounced he was a citizen of the United States
of America and that the American Ambassador, Charles Francis Adams, had
not done his duty in protecting him from the English Court. In fact,
O’Brien’s lawyers had attempted to have Ambassador Adams intervene but
O’Brien had been involved with
Colonel
Richard O’Sullivan Burke in securing weapons in Liverpool for
the 1867 Rising.
O’Brien and several other Fenians were arrested and charged with being
in possessing a number of rifles belonging to the British government. At
that trial O’Brien claimed American protection and although all of the
men were acquitted the Secretary to the American Legation wrote to his
attorneys in Manchester…”from information received from a reliable
source, he (the Ambassador) finds you are the same Michael O’Brien who
was tried and claimed American protection in Liverpool in 1867. You
received sufficient warning from the American consul at that place not
to put yourself again in any danger and Mr. Adams regrets to learn that
you have failed to follow that prudent advice.”
Following the rescue, over twenty innocent local Irishmen were arrested
for questioning. Ultimately five Fenians were tried and convicted of the
alleged murder of Sgt. Charles Brett and sentenced to death by hanging:
William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, Michael O’Brien, Thomas Maguire
and Edward O’Meagher Condon. Maguire, actually a Royal Marine home on
leave, had nothing to do with the rescue, except the fact he was “Irish”
was enough to cause his arrest (English “justice” where the Irish are
concerned has changed very little since 1867. Just ask Gerry Conlon of
the Guilford Four, or the Birmingham Five, or so many other recent
examples of Irishmen and Irishwomen being put into English jails and
prisons, many having never even seen a judge as was the case with
“Internment Without Trial” and the “Diplock Courts”.
A number of reporters covering the trial in Manchester believed Maguire
to be innocent and petitioned the Home Secretary and a few days before
the sentence was to be carried out Maguire received a Queen’s Pardon and
was released. Through the intervention of the American Ambassador and an
appeal for clemency by the Hon. William H. Seward, the American
Secretary of State, two days before the hanging Condon received a
reprieve. He was to serve penal servitude for life. Condon was released
from prison after serving 11 years and was “banished” for an additional
20 years.
At day break, 23 November 1867, a cold, damp, foggy morning, on a
platform attached to the outer walls of New Bailey Prison, on Bridge
Street, Salford, Allen, Larkin & O’Brien were publically hanged before a
crowd estimated to be between 8,000 to 10,000 and their bodies buried in
unmarked graves of quicklime in unconsecrated ground within the prison.
While the sentence had called for “death by hanging”, only the young
William Philip Allen died via the hangman’s (Calcraft) rope. Michael
Larkin was strangled (murdered) by Calcraft in the scaffold’s pit while
Michael O’Brien suffered an agonizing 45 minutes choking to death on his
tongue.
New Bailey Prison closed in 1868 and the remains of Allen, Larkin &
O’Brien were exhumed and re-buried in Strangeways Prison, which opened
in 1868. In 1991 the remains were exhumed once again and subsequently
re-interred in grave # 2711 in Blackley Cemetery, Manchester, along with
57 other hanged prisoners also exhumed from Strangeways.
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The following is taken from the last letter of William Philip Allen,
written on the day before his execution and preserved at the National
Museum in Dublin:
Salford New Bailey Prison
November 22, 1867
TO YOU, MY LOVING AND SINCERE DEAR UNCLE AND AUNT,
I suppose this is my last letter to you at this side of the grave.
Oh, dear Uncle and Aunt, if you reflect on it, it is nothing. I am dying
an honorable death; I am dying for Ireland-dying for the land that gave
me birth-dying for the Island of Saints-and dying for liberty. Every
generation of our countrymen has suffered; and where is the Irish heart
could stand by unmoved? I should like to know what trouble, what
passion, what mischief could separate the true Irish heart from its own
native isle. Dear Uncle and Aunt, it is sad parting with you all, at my
early age; but we must all die some day or another. A few hours more, I
will breathe my last, and on English soil. Oh, that I could be buried in
Ireland! What happiness it would be to all my friends, and to
myself-Where my countrymen could kneel on my grave.” I am dying, thank
God! an Irishman and a Christian. Give my love to all friends; same from
your ever affectionate nephew.
Pray for us. Good-bye and remember me. Good-bye and may heaven
protect you all, is the last wish of your dying nephew.
W.P. Allen
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23 November 2017, four years from now, will mark the 150th anniversary
of the execution of Allen, Larkin and O’Brien. As the great-grandnephew
of Captain Timothy Deasy, I am leading the effort in the United States,
to do whatever is necessary to have the remains of “THE MANCHESTER
MARTYRS” repatriated to Ireland, before the sesquicentennial of their
1867 execution and to fulfill William Philip Allen’s dying request “Oh,
that I could be buried in Ireland”. Anyone interested in helping to
support this effort please contact me at the following-mail address:
rjpbateman@gmail.com or: COL (Ret.) Robert J. Bateman, 16 Rockledge
Avenue 3L2, Ossining, New York 10562.
“GOD SAVE IRELAND!
Contributor: COL (Ret.) Robert J. Bateman
cemetery AND grave location
Name:
Woodlands -- Blackley Cemetery
ADDRESS: Victoria
Avenue, Blackley, Manchester,
England
GRAVE:
No. 2711
WOODLANDS --BLACKNEY CEMETERY
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