who were nationally minded and disaffected with the nature of British rule in Ireland. The organisation was not secretive and regular meetings were held in Morty Dowling’s pub. Dowling was a prominent member of the society, and the pub was only three doors down from the Constabulary barracks. Dowling had even written to the local Constabulary asking them whether he was ‘acting illegally in renting a room to the literary society who sit after hours’.5 Marking the anniversary of the foundation of the Phoenix Society in 1858 O’Donovan Rossa even made a public speech, which was printed by the Dundalk Democrat newspaper. In it he commended the concept of Irish independence and the threat of force, and announced in a provocative manner that:
We Irishmen are slaves and outcasts in the land of our birth. What a shame! What a disgrace! Yes; disgraceful alike to peer and peasant – Protestant, Catholic and Presbyterian. Thus may foreign nations believe this country is not ours, and I am sure you will not be surprised that England is particularly positive on this point. She has made all possible efforts to convince us of it. She has broken the heads of many Irishmen trying to hammer this opinion into them. For seven long and dreary centuries has she been trying to force it on us; and against her during all this time the majority of Irishmen protested. Yet has she disregarded every protestation, every claim, and every petition, and instead of treating us as human beings or subjects, she has made every effort that pen, fire and sword could make to extirpate our race.6
At the same time that the Phoenix Society was developing in the south, a new constitutional initiative was beginning to emerge in London. This new initiative sought to address the Irish Question within Parliament and seize the potential of establishing an independent Irish party at Westminster to use the power of moral persuasion to force British politicians to consider Irish political issues. Known as the Tenants’ Rights League, and founded by Charles Gavin Duffy, this organisation had actively fought a campaign both within and outside the British Parliament to achieve better rights on the land for tenant farmers and oppose the introduction of an Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, making it a criminal offence for Roman Catholics to use episcopal titles within the United Kingdom outside of the Anglican Church. Two of the strongest opponents of this bill were William Keogh and John Sadlier, who had pledged never to take any office in the British government until the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill was revoked and the British government made laws favourable to Ireland. Both Keogh and Sadlier reneged on these pledges and soon took office within the government as Solicitor General and Lord of the Treasury respectively. With their defection, the Tenants’ Rights League was greatly weakened and as others followed, the potential to establish an independent Irish party in the British Parliament floundered. Many advanced nationalists, including O’Donovan Rossa, looked at the failure of the Tenants’ Rights League and were convinced that no political concessions for Ireland could be won from the British Parliament. They also shared a common perception, as represented by Keogh and Sadlier that the election of Irishmen to Westminster would only serve to corrupt Irish interests and political representatives rather than advance the cause of Irish nationalism. There arose from this perception a belief that nothing but force or the threat of force could make the British government consider Irish political grievances. This perception was widely shared within the ranks of the Phoenix Society and became a foundation stone in their growing commitment to advanced Irish nationalism, and their desire to co-operate with others of a similar opinion.7
Parallel to the rise of the Phoenix Society in West Cork, in 1858 several former Young Irelanders had met in Lombard Street, Dublin, including James Stephens, Thomas Clarke Luby, Joseph Denieffe and Peter Langan. Here they founded a secret, oath-bound revolutionary movement called the Brotherhood. James Stephens became the autocratic leader of the Brotherhood, earning the official title of Chief Organiser of the Irish Republic. James Stephens was the sole director of Fenian policy and strategy; the entire direction of the movement was left to his sole arbitration. In this regard, Stephens jealously held the reins of power within the burgeoning movement and no one, not even those within his inner council, was allowed to share power and authority. In effect everyone, even those with whom he was closely associated, represented a perceived threat to his leadership and strategy. Later becoming known as the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, and then Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), this organisation was to function as a secret, clandestine, oath-bound society dedicated to the organisation of a rebellion in Ireland.
In this endeavour the IRB was to be supported by an American Auxiliary known as the Fenian Brotherhood. While both of these organisations were organised independently of each other, they would become popularly known as the Fenians. This new organisation was conceived in New York by a circle of 1848 Rebellion veterans organised in the Emmet Monument Association centred around John O’Mahony, Michael Doheny and Joseph Denieffe. It was Denieffe who had originally made contact in Ireland with existing veterans of the 1848 Rebellion and started a process of revolutionary reorganisation. As part of a process of organising the movement, Stephens, with Thomas Clarke Luby, made a tour of every principle town and village in Ireland to meet like-minded individuals and establish the revolutionary society on a secure footing. Visiting West Cork, Stephens was determined to make the acquaintance of the Phoenix National and Literary Society. He considered the body to be a well-established organisation and could be amiable to a merger with the IRB. Arriving in Skibbereen in May 1858, one of Stephens’ first recruits to the IRB was O’Donovan Rossa, who actively worked on recruiting for the organisation and establishing an oath-bound network in West Cork amongst men of trusted opinions. Explaining his routine, O’Donovan Rossa recalled how he would drive to a chapel every Sunday morning with other IRB men and attend Mass and afterwards ‘get into conversation with the trustworthy men of the place, and we generally planted the seed of our mission there’.8 In his recollections he noted how he loved the thrill of recruiting in West Cork and knowing many of the people in the district, he was well trusted by those who he swore into the conspiracy. According to a fellow Fenian, John Devoy, O’Donovan Rossa was one of the most gifted of the Fenian organisers and during this time ‘began to sacrifice himself, his family and his interests at the very inception of the movement, and he continued to do it to his last conscious hour’.9 Such was the growth of the IRB within West Cork that Rossa recollected: ‘We were not long working when a great change was noticeable in the temper of the people. In the cellars, in the woods, and on the hillsides, we had our men drilling in the night time, and wars and rumours of wars were on the wings of the wind.’10
As part of the merging of the Phoenix Society with the IRB it was understood that the American Auxiliary, the Fenian Brotherhood, would provide arms and military instructors to the men in West Cork. True to the agreement between the IRB and the Phoenix Society, by October 1858 an Irish-American officer, Colonel P. J. Dowling, had arrived in Skibbereen to train the Phoenix men in styles of warfare and combat. Each evening under the moonlight, and protected by sentries, O’Donovan Rossa and his colleagues would climb mountains or make for forests and woods to drill and practice military formation under Dowling’s tuition. Here they would drill with pikes, guns and other weapons in preparation for the IRB ambition of revolution. Each member was trained in the use of a rifle, and part of their drilling would involve rifle practice, while those who could not afford to pay arms would pay one shilling per week to eventually get an advance on arms from a senior officer.11 As the training progressed O’Donovan Rossa was more confident of the imminence of insurrection – he was increasingly self-assured by being a member of the IRB, a figure in a movement that would inevitably strike a blow for rebellion. The West Cork Fenians had also come to believe that the rebellion would be a clean fight between the entire country and the British Army; they had James Stephens’ personal assurances that within the Irish Republic, ‘landlordism would be abolished and every man would be his own landlord’.12
Despite the security precautions taken, the West Cork drillings had come to the notice of the Irish Constabulary, who increasingly began to monitor the individuals taking part. Internal police correspondence indicates that the local constabulary were growing anxious as to the activities of the Phoenix men. Sub-Inspector Mason of the local Skibbereen police, making internal investigations of their activities, believed the society to be ‘strongly disaffected’, and ‘a revival of the Young Ireland party of 1848’.13 One of Mason’s senior officials recommended that the best way of dealing with the Phoenix Society was ‘to
