G-Division. Nagle was a walk-in informant and had approached Ryan as to the potential of working within Fenianism to recover good and reliable intelligence. He had warned Ryan, he later claimed, ‘about the danger of Fenianism and that the government ought to prevent it’.18 Despite having a man within The Irish People, Nagle was, initially, of little use. For all means and purposes he was a low-ranking Fenian activist who did not enjoy the confidence of the secret central committee at The Irish People and only worked two days a week at the newspaper. While Nagle could inform the Castle of who was behind the paper, and of conversations he had had with the newspaper’s management, his information was of little value. He had even been dismissed from the newspaper by James O’Connor, but upon the insistence of Thomas Clarke Luby, he was reinstated. Dublin Castle were eager to keep him on their payroll, however, and evidence exists that he was paid £41 by the State for a little over a year’s work. While Nagle’s information was insignificant, it did provide a means for the Castle to bring a low-intensity counter strategy against The Irish People, and learning of who was on its staff, they began a process of detailed surveillance of O’Donovan Rossa and his colleagues. From this they sought to build up an extensive profile of the Fenian movement. While The Irish People was operating and Nagle was keeping the Castle abreast of developments within the newspaper, the American Civil War was coming to a bloody conclusion. Irish-Americans, who were now demobilised, returned to their earlier activities within the Fenian Brotherhood and pressed for a rebellion in Ireland. To meet the demand of his members, on 10 August 1865 John O’Mahony had announced The Final Call of the Fenian Brotherhood, and this had dispatched hundreds of Irish-Americans to Ireland in what was increasingly looking like preparations for a rebellion. O’Donovan Rossa remembered that as a result of the Final Call, he met with hundreds of Irish-Americans including Colonel Michael Kirwin, and General Denis Burke. He was later introduced to Colonel Thomas Kelly, a native of Galway who had fought in the Union Army during the Civil War, and would become the future leader of the IRB, and General Frank Millen, a veteran of the Mexican Army, who became a key informant within the British counter-Fenian movement the following year.
In July 1865, Stephens had again sent O’Donovan Rossa to America where he was entrusted with dispatches for O’Mahony, James Stephens, Thomas Kelly and General Frank Millen. He sailed for America aboard the SS Cuba, and when he arrived in America he witnessed the continuous demobilisation of soldiers and remembered how he knew many of them through the Fenian Brotherhood. Listening to the accents of the soldiers as he waited for a train from Boston to New York City, he commented how someone unfamiliar with the American Civil War, on hearing the men speak, could be forgiven for thinking it to have been ‘an Irish war’.19 Finally meeting O’Mahony in New York, the Fenian leader questioned O’Donovan Rossa as to Irish politics and the current state of Ireland. Far removed from the realities of Irish life, O’Mahony asked him to stay in America and work as a representative of the Fenian Brotherhood. O’Mahony told O’Donovan Rossa that he was constantly asked about Ireland and the IRB but he could never adequately respond to his inquisitors. Resisting O’Mahony’s appeals, O’Donovan Rossa announced that his place was in Ireland, and despite the fact that his life would be significantly better in America, if a rebellion took place in Ireland he could not bear to miss it. Recalling his conversation with the Fenian leader, in 1885, he wrote: ‘If I stayed in America and the fight took place in Ireland. All the water between here and Ireland would not wash me from the stain of cowardice.’20 Before returning to Ireland, O’Mahony asked O’Donovan Rossa to accompany Fenian activists PJ Meehan, P. W. Dunne, and his sister, to Ireland.
Meehan had been given a letter by O’Mahony that requested the return of O’Donovan Rossa to America. Boarding the SS Cuba for a second time, O’Donovan Rossa, under the alias of Mr O’Donnell, recommended that Meehan passed O’Mahony’s letter to Dunne’s sister. Dunne would rather not include his sister in the conspiracy, however, and had argued that the dispatches would not be found as they were stitched into the sole of one of Meehan’s slippers. While Meehan had smuggled the dispatches into Ireland, he had lost them when he went to deliver them to James Stephens. Having lost the letters, there was, as a result, an internal tribunal on Meehan as many within the secret Executive Council believed he had lost the letters intentionally. O’Donovan Rossa provided the defence for Meehan and argued it was an unintentional mistake; Meehan was found innocent of the charges, but unbeknownst to the committee, and to Meehan, the letters had fallen into the hands of the British State.
Growing progressively anxious as to Fenian activity, it was by now inevitable that the British Government was going to move against Fenianism. Turning to Nagle, his handlers stressed upon him the necessity of finding clear and accurate information as to what the IRB planned. On this occasion, Nagle provided value for money: within one month of O’Mahony’s Final Call, Nagle produced a letter signed by James Stephens stating ‘there is no time to be lost. This year – and let there be no mistake about it – must be the year of action. I speak with a knowledge and authority to which no other man could pretend; and I repeat the flag of Ireland – of the Irish Republic – must this year be raised.’21 Nagle had received the letter from a Clonmel Fenian who was the worse for alcohol after he had called to the offices of the Irish People. The production of the letter delighted Ryan, considering that Nagle, as an informant, could not be used for evidence against the IRB. Taking the letter to Dublin Castle, Ryan demanded immediate action from his superiors lest they lost the opportunity to move against the Fenians. The letter unnerved the Castle so much that the Irish Privy Council was summoned and agreed to suppress The Irish People and arrest leading Fenian activists.
On the evening of Friday 18 September 1865, Dublin Castle authorised the suppression of The Irish People. The task was to be carried out by the B Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, assisted by Daniel Ryan, Nagle’s handler in G-Division. The police had placed a cordon around Parliament Street and quickly cleared the area of all civilians. Having done so, G-Division detectives approached the offices of The Irish People and there was a standoff of sorts when the occupiers of the office refused to allow them enter the premises. Eventually forcing in the door, the G-men stormed the building, where they found a number of Fenians, including Pierce Nagle. At the time of the suppression, O’Donovan Rossa had been drinking at No.82 Dame Street, and had learned of the suppression through a colleague, Patrick Kearney. Kearney and Rossa mulled over the possibility of fighting the police, but O’Donovan Rossa urged caution as they had few weapons with which to take on the G-men. O’Donovan Rossa left for the offices of The Irish People, and searching his pockets, he removed some letters and a pistol which could incriminate him when he would be eventually searched. Arriving in Parliament Street, he was immediately arrested and taken through Dublin Castle to Chancery Lane Police Station. G-Division detectives then smashed up the printing press, seized the typeset and forensically searched the building, including the pulling of floorboards and chimneys – nothing was to be left for granted. Newspapers, legers and bank books were also seized and taken to the headquarters of the B Division in the nearby lower Castle Yard, within the Dublin Castle complex. Finally, the state issued a freeze on the newspaper’s bank account, which was a stifling blow to the Fenian movement. The Irish People newspaper had come to an abrupt end.
O’Donovan Rossa had lived at No. 62 Camden Street, within a stone’s throw of The Irish People offices, and had previously given his wife, Mary Jane, instructions to destroy any materials that connected him to Fenianism if he were arrested. When her husband had been arrested she had been packing his bag, as O’Donovan Rossa was due to leave for America on a Fenian errand ordered by James Stephens. Mary Jane was heavily pregnant and she was due to leave with her husband the following day for Cork as he departed for America. She had learned of his arrest through James O’Callaghan, who had been sent to the O’Donovan Rossa home to clarify that she had no documents which could subvert the IRB and be used against her husband. O’Donovan Rossa had given her a letter from James Stephens for Fenian activists in Carlow. The activists had requested his presence at the Ballybar Races in the first week of September, but Stephens had forbidden Rossa from going and instructed him to go to America instead. On O’Callaghan’s suggestion, Mary Jane burned the letter; shortly afterwards her house was raided. Overall, ten individuals including Thomas Clarke Luby, John O’Leary, Pierce Nagle and O’Donovan Rossa were arrested during the suppression of The Irish
