Twenty-five years in the Secret Service: The recollections of a spy

by Henri Le Caron

“When Leinster and Munster shall have been thoroughly reorganised, which will take some time, I hope to see 50,000 good members in Ireland alone, and I should not care to see many more. In Ulster, Connaught, Tipperary, and Clare the great bulk of the men are small farmers or farmers’ sons, and, on the whole, there is a much better representation than in ’65. I am glad to be able to report also the presence in the organisation, and in positions of trust, of a few of the smaller landed gentry, a few professional men, and a large sprinkling of comfortable business men.”

Nothing calls for further attention in connection with this visit of Devoy and Millen to Ireland, beyond the fact that the expenses of it were defrayed out of a sum of 10,000 dollars taken from the Skirmishing Fund for the purpose. Nor need I speak in any detail of the proceedings of the Wilkesbarre Convention to which the delegates reported. There was no incident connected therewith which calls for any special mention, as particularly affecting events at this period.

XXX.

Though lacking official recognition and support, the scheme of the “New Departure” was creating a good deal of enthusiasm throughout the ranks of the Gaels; and the reports which continued to come from Ireland as to the condition of the Land Question kept the matter fully alive. The arrival, too, of Mr. Parnell in New York in the month of January 1880 gave a fresh impetus to the whole thing. And whatever doubt had heretofore existed as to the possibility of working the new move, and making it subservient to the requirements of the Revolutionary organisation, took immediate flight after a week’s experience of Mr. Parnell in America. In the view of the conspirators scattered throughout the States, Mr. Parnell had given himself over, body and soul, to the chiefs of the Clan-na-Gael. At every point, under every circumstance, without a single exception, well-known and trusted men of the secret councils were by his side and at his elbow, pushing him forward into prominence here, bespeaking a welcome for him there, and answering for his thorough fealty to the grand old cause at all manner of times. Nor did his own utterances leave any room for question. Brimful of references of deep meaning, and constantly lit up with the flashing of bayonets and rattling of musketry, his speeches breathed the sounds of war and the policy of the hill-side in every note, till men listening to his accents thought that at last the hour and the man had come. Poor fools! They knew not that his enthusiasm was the enthusiasm of the dollar, or its equivalent in English coin when totted up to £40,000, and his only weapon the House of Commons lie!

Mr. Parnell’s efforts in America to collect funds for the famine-stricken Irish—this was the ostensible object of his visit—were cut short by the general election which took place in Ireland in the spring of 1880, and he left hurriedly, but not before he had laid the foundations of the Land League, and played into the hands of the secret conspirators by giving them a very leading share in its control. Exit therefore Mr. Parnell to give way to Michael Davitt, and enter Mr. Davitt once more on the American stage in quite a new rôle. Flushed with the triumphs of his recent proceedings in Ireland in the establishment of the Land League organisation, and the position he had suddenly sprung into, he now came out as a Constitutionalist pure and simple. There were no more visits to Clan-na-Gael camps, for the time at least. All was open and above board. He had his fad; that fad was the Land League; and his fad was to win in the political race, hands down. No matter where he went, it was the same story. Travelling Braidwood-way in order to lecture in my district, he spent three days in my company, part of which time he was my guest, and fell ill on my hands, when I honestly and successfully ministered to his needs. In our intercourse at this period we had many talks over the situation, and with me as with everybody else, he could only speak of the new movement. At his request, I told him the whole story of the second Canadian raid; and so great was his enthusiasm in his new rôle, that he seized upon the fiasco I related as yet another proof for me of the utter impossibility of doing anything in the way of active operations. Amused and interested, I watched the dark determined face glowing with light and enthusiasm, and wondered within me how long this born conspirator would be content to walk in the trammels of a truly constitutional path. The opportunity, however, was too good to be neglected, and I improved it by getting some very useful information unawares from my patient and guest.

I was quite au courant with Land League matters, for as an official of the Clan-na-Gael I had been instructed to develop the movement in my district, which I accordingly did, following the usual practice of enrolling my colleagues of the Clan-na-Gael as members of the League Branch, and thus keeping the control in our own hands. At public meetings held in favour of the open movement—it will be noted I speak of the Land League as the “open,” and the Clan-na-Gael as the “secret” movement—I frequently presided, and when the occasion arose, introduced Davitt and Devoy.

XXXI.

So matters progressed and developed, the only important incident of the interval being the discovery that James J. O’Kelly, late M.P. for Roscommon, after being despatched by the Revolutionary Directory of the Clan-na-Gael to England with moneys to attend to the shipping of arms to Ireland, had thrown in his lot with the advocates of the New Departure in Ireland, and been returned to Parliament with the funds placed at his disposal by the Revolutionary chiefs in New York. This, of course, was not the only occasion on which the moneys subscribed for blowing up England went to subsidise the New Departure. Davitt and Devoy had both drawn upon them to a large extent, though Davitt conscientiously paid every farthing of his share back in 1882.