for the benefit of an American newspaper, how:
The usual English tactics were resorted to for the purpose of weakening some of us and getting us to become informers on others to save ourselves. A warder would see me, pretend to be a secret sympathiser with me, tell me something very confidential, caution me for my life not to breathe a word of it to anyone unless I wanted to effect his ruin; thou he’d come next day and repeat confidence again, and by and by he’d whisper something very suspicious of the prisoner in the next corridor: ‘Did I know him well?’ ‘Was I sure of him?’ ‘Could there be anything wrong about him?’ or ‘Was he in a position to do much harm if it could turn out that he was bad?’ Then it would very confidentially transpire that that prisoner in the next corridor was day after day being taken to the Governor’s private room and having interviews with detective[s] and other agents of the English Government.46
A search was also made for impeccable witnesses, including policemen, to testify that the Phoenix men were engaged in active conspiracy and military drilling. The state had great difficulty in securing witnesses amongst the ordinary people of Skibbereen as the community remained remarkably tight-lipped as to the activities of the Phoenix men. This meant that the prosecution of the Phoenix men was more reliant on the evidence of informers supported by police statements. One of these policemen testified in the Magistrates Court that he had seen one of the men, Denis Dowling, out marching in military formation in Skibbereen. Pressed by McCarthy Dowling as to who was seen marching with Denis Dowling, the policeman was forced to admit that Dowling was in fact on his own, and therefore could not have been marching in military formation. The Phoenix men arrested and examined in Cork Jail were released on bail following their inquisition. Only O’Donovan Rossa, William O’Shea and Morty Moynahan were to remain in prison on remand. While the trials were taking place, George Fitzmaurice was actively working behind the scenes to secure a conviction of the Phoenix prisoners. He had grounded this in a perception that the government needed to act firmly with the society, considering they had the potential to work up further conspiracy in Skibbereen.47 Explaining to Dublin Castle the reality of the situation on the ground, he anxiously wrote:
There is, however, the greatest possible feeling of sympathy evidenced here for the parties in custody which daily impresses upon my mind more fully the great necessity there was for the measures resorted to by the government for the suppression of the society… If such had not been so timely done this county as well as many others in Ireland would be by this time in a bad state.48
The first of the Phoenix men to be tried was Daniel O’Sullivan, one of the arrested Kerry men. Tried at the Kerry Assizes on Thursday 10 March 1859 for conspiracy, he was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment and moved to Mountjoy Jail, Dublin. Florence O’Sullivan, who had been arrested with him, had earlier confessed to the police that he had been recruited into the society by Daniel O’Sullivan and was aware of ‘an organisation in course of formation throughout the length and breadth of our island, having for its object the restoration of Ireland to freedom under the form of a Republican government or a repeal of the Union by force of arms’.49 Within a week, on 17 March 1859, O’Donovan Rossa, Morty Moynahan, Daniel McCarthy, William O’Shea, Denis O’Sullivan and Patrick Dowling were due to attend the Cork Assizes. In preparation for the case against the Phoenix men, the state had made an offer to McCarthy Dowling suggesting that if the prisoners pleaded guilty to conspiracy at the Assizes they would be released on assurances of good behaviour with no further charges pressed against them. The Phoenix men refused on account of the imprisonment of Dan Sullivan in Tralee and remained insistent that the informer, O’Sullivan Goula, was lying; any guilty plea would only consolidate O’Sullivan Goula’s series of events and be detrimental for Dan Sullivan and the men whom he had been arrested with in Kerry. O’Donovan Rossa recounted the events:
Goula had sworn against a number of men in Kerry, too, and several of them were indicted for trial at the Kerry Assizes in Tralee. The Tralee Assizes were to come on before the Cork Assizes, and the Kerry men were to be tried before our trial would come on. Propositions were made to us that if we formally pleaded ‘guilty,’ we would be released on our own recognizances, but this we refused to do. Our prosecutors know that all Goula swore against us was false; they knew we could break down his evidence in public court; our pleading guilty would be admitting a guilt we did not feel, would be putting a kind of brand of truth on the informer’s lies and would be periling the safety of the Kerry men. Our attorney approved of our action; he submitted the proposal as made to him, without any advice of his own, and now that we had decided, he was glad we viewed the matter correctly and came to the decision he desired. On his way to the Kerry Assizes he visited us in jail and told us to be in good cheer, that he had evidence secured, which would be produced at Tralee, showing that Goula was swearing falsely in matters connected with the Kerry men, too; that Father John O’Sullivan, of Kenmare, was to come on the witness table in Tralee and swear Goula was a perjurer. Goula swore that before he became informer he had been at confession with Father O’Sullivan, and Father O’Sullivan was coming forward to swear he had never been at confession with him.50
Despite the assurances of Timothy McCarthy Dowling, their solicitor, Fr John O’Sullivan, who had earlier been instrumental in the arrest of the Phoenix men, would stand as a witness against O’Sullivan Goula, Fr O’Sullivan did not act as a witness. On learning that Daniel O’Sullivan was sentenced to ten years in Mountjoy Jail, O’Donovan Rossa was infuriated with McCarthy Dowling. He demanded to know why Fr John O’Sullivan had not been called forward as a witness to denounce O’Sullivan Goula. While initially coy as to why he did not bring Fr Sullivan forward, McCarthy Dowling later revealed Fr Sullivan’s part in the arrests and his correspondence with Dublin Castle. McCarthy Dowling then told O’Donovan Rossa that Sir Matthew Barrington and George Fitzmaurice had threatened Sullivan with fears of exposure of his correspondence should he take the witness stand against O’Sullivan Goula. Furious, O’Donovan Rossa castigated of Fr. Sullivan, and the Catholic Church:
A pleasant thing it would be for peoples if they could get their rights from those who lord a mastery over them by the force of prayer and petition; if I could enjoy that pleasure of believing Ireland could gain her rights by each force, I would keep praying till doomsday before I would hurt the hair of a head of English man or woman. Yes, let the expression stand, ‘till doomsday,’ because till doomsday the praying should last before Ireland could be free.51
At the Assizes trial on 17 March 1859, O’Donovan Rossa was greeted by the face of Judge William Keogh, the former nationalist who crossed the floor to support the British government.
The 17th of March St. Patrick’s day, 1859, came on and Cork Assizes opened. We were ready for trial. William O’Shea, Mortimer Moynahan and I were brought from the prison to the Court House and escorted to the underground waiting room, convenient to the dock. Here we were visited by our attorney and counsel and counsel for the Crown, and propositions were made to us that if we pleaded guilty we would be let free, a mere formal recognizance of our own personal security for twenty pounds to appear when called would be taken, and that would be the last heard of the prosecution. We would not plead guilty and by and by we were led into the dock. On the bench before us sat the famous, or the infamous, Judge Keogh. Into the dock also came Patrick J. Downing, Morty Downing and Denis O’Sullivan, who had been out on bail. They brought some shamrocks into the dock with them and gave us some sprigs of the national emblem and we put them in the buttonholes of our coats. We were ready for trial, ready for fight, but no fight came. England’s Attorney General stood up and asked for a postponement of those cases till the next assizes, as the Crown was not fully prepared at the present. Our counsel opposed the motion of postponement, but Judge Keogh did not seem to care much for the opposition; he granted the motion of the Attorney General and ordered the prisoners to be put back till the next assizes in August. Our counsel applied that we be let out on bail. No, Judge Keogh decided that we be kept in without bail; and off, back to prison, we were taken. It was vexatious, but what were we to do? The stone walls were there around us, but it was no use to us knocking our heads against them. There was no case on which to prosecute us, no informers to swear against us – even the unfortunate fallen women of the streets would
