to undermine its value. Expressing his fears to Mary Jane before he left Green Street Courthouse, he had the opportunity to write her a brief note in which he claimed to endure ‘as much suffering as a man can endure bravely’.2 As he finished his letter to Mary Jane, a combined force of soldiers, police and prison staff arrived and ushered him into a black van. Fearful of an escape, the state had surrounded the black van with mounted soldiers, while police sat on the outside. Leaving the Courthouse at speed, the van made for Mountjoy Prison on the nearby North Circular Road.
Arriving in the imposing institution, O’Donovan Rossa was led inside the prison and was taken to an administrative room. He was stripped naked and thoroughly searched. Examined by a surgeon, he was then washed and given a prison uniform consisting of flannel underpants, shirt, waistcoat, shoes, grey vest, jacket and trousers, a pair of stockings, and cap. He was then registered as a prisoner where he learned the prison rules and was informed that the right to write letters, which most prisoners had, was rescinded, as he was a political prisoner. O’Donovan Rossa began to vocally complain about the conduct of Judge Keogh at his trial but was silenced and was taken away to another room to be shaved. Here he was greeted by a number of prison staff who sat him in a chair and began gruffly shaving him. Starting with his beard, a jailer began to trim it with a scissors, and then moved to his hair. Soon after, the jailer was joined by a colleague with a razor who shaved off O’Donovan Rossa’s beard and hair. Feeling despondent, O’Donovan Rossa sat in silence and obeyed the commands of his jailers. Having been shaved, O’Donovan Rossa was then taken to be photographed. He was placed sitting in a small chair and given a slight blackboard with his name and prison number written on it in chalk. O’Donovan Rossa submitted to these tasks silently – he and his fellow Fenian prisoners had resolved to bear their treatment patiently and with dignity, believing that their behaviour would stand to the merit of their membership of the IRB.
Following his reception, he was then taken to his prison cell and shown into a small whitewashed room with a table, stool, hammock-bed and toilet bucket. His first day as a prisoner in Mountjoy was consumed by a rather mundane chore of oakum picking, which consisted of uncoiling old and tarred lengths of rope. Having to untwist the rope was painful and dreary work,
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