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

by Henri Le Caron

I have already touched at several points on the Dynamite Campaign, and I will now pause in my narrative for the purpose of dealing in some detail with the incidents attending the development of the plot to “blow up England.” Although there had been several attempts made by O’Donovan Rossa’s adherents to damage public buildings, notably the Mansion House, London, the barracks at Chester, the police-station and the Town Hall at Liverpool in 1881 and 1882, the Dynamite Campaign as organised by the Clan-na-Gael did not really commence till the latter end of 1882, or rather the beginning of 1883. Indeed the attempts on the part of Rossa’s people were simply gunpowder explosions, and had no connection with dynamite at all. They were of a very miserable character, and quite in keeping with O’Donovan Rossa’s reputation in the States. With him experience proved that it was always, as the homely phrase has it, a case of “great cry and little wool.”

To Dr. Gallaher, our friend of the professional appearance and gold-headed cane, was intrusted the task of inaugurating the work undertaken by the Revolutionary Directory of the Clan-na-Gael. At the time he set out all was enthusiasm in the ranks of the Clan, and great things were promised. In one secret circular the F.C. (or governing body) had informed the members “that it had no delicacy or sentimentality about how it would strike the enemy, or when or where.... They meant war, they meant that war to be unsparing and unceasing. They meant it to be effective. Their policy would be to make assaults in all directions, so that the suffering, bitterness, and desolation which followed active measures should be felt in every place.”

Under the pretence of taking a voyage to Europe for his health’s sake, Gallaher set out in the steamship Alaska on the 15th October 1882, reaching Liverpool in good time, and from thence travelling to Glasgow, in order, as he explained, to see some relatives. Glasgow, by the way, has always had a prominent representative of the British branch of the Fenians in residence there. From Glasgow he came on to the London Wall Hotel, and here he remained for a month spying out the land and making the preliminary arrangements for the work which was to follow. His work finished, he took a trip to Dublin, where at the Gresham Hotel he lived as befitted a man of his position. From thence he proceeded to Donegal to visit more “relatives.” From Donegal he eventually made his way to Queenstown, where in the Bosnia he took passage for home on the 10th December, having, as he subsequently reported, made all necessary arrangements for commencing his branch of the “active work.”

He was with Sullivan in Chicago in the following month, and here he and I met and had many chats together. We were fellow-doctors, and we “chummed” together in a fashion very agreeable to me. He soon wearied me, however, for I found he could talk of nothing but dynamite, its production, its effectiveness, and the great weapon it was soon to prove against the British Government. He spent the next couple of months in communication with the powers that were, and placed them in full possession of all he had done and all he hoped to do. They took an equally sanguine view of the possibilities of success, and no time was lost in enlisting the first dynamite band which visited Europe. By the middle of March there were eight men embarked on the dangerous enterprise, Gallaher being the leader and paymaster; and at this date the first of them set out for England in the Cunarder Parthia. Every precaution was taken to avert suspicion, and so much care was exercised that some travelled as steerage passengers, while the rest, like Gallaher, journeyed in gentlemanly fashion. The band was made up of Gallaher and his brother Bernard, Dowd, Wilson, O’Connor, Curtin, Whitehead, and Norman, all being Clan-na-Gael men, though none save the doctor held any important position in the organisation.

The first arrivals of this precious assembly of dynamitards reached Liverpool on the 27th of March, and, of course, separated at once. Gallaher went to the Charing Cross Hotel, which he made his head-quarters. His men were quickly put to work, and in a very short time a nitro-glycerine factory was established in Birmingham, under the superintendence of Whitehead. From here large quantities of liquid were conveyed to some few points in London in rubber bags and rubber shooting-stockings. All the elaborate arrangements, however, were destined to come to naught, for before any “active” work could be done, thanks to the vigilance of the police in London and Birmingham, Gallaher and his associates were arrested, and the whole of the nitro-glycerine seized. The month of May 1883 saw the trial and conviction of the leader and three of his associates, Whitehead, Curtin, and Wilson, the case for the Crown being completed by the testimony of Norman, alias Lynch, who played the rôle which never lacks an exponent in the case of an Irish conspiracy—that of informer. All of the unfortunate prisoners were sentenced to penal servitude for life. An interesting feature in connection with Gallaher’s arrest was the discovery on his person of no less a sum than £1400.

What the actual designs of this dynamite band were, are not, and probably never will be known. Quite sufficient for the public must be the fact that so enormous was the quantity of nitro-glycerine discovered that according to experts, it was quite equal to the blowing up of every house and street in London, from one end to the other. Pleasant discovery this for the ordinary British citizen who laughs at dynamite and pooh-poohs the existence of any condition of things calling for a more elaborate Secret Service. The arrest and discomfiture of the Gallaher band had one very useful result. It effectively put an end to all idea of manufacturing dynamite on English soil. Unfortunately, however, it did not put an end to the Dynamite Campaign. It simply affected the weapon, not those who were prepared to employ it.

The next group of dynamitards who visited England included Cunningham, Burton, Mackay Lomasney, Luke Dillon, and a man known as Ryan of Philadelphia. These men did not all come at the same time, but they worked together in harmony so far as it was possible. During their visit to London explosions occurred in October 1883 on the Underground Railway; in February 1884, at Victoria Station; in May 1884, at Scotland Yard; in December 1884, at London Bridge; and in January 1885, at the House of Commons and the Tower. The dynamite employed in these cases was all brought from America, secreted about the persons of the conspirators, and of women who were sent over with it, as well as by an employé of one of the steamers of the National Steamship Line, who belonged to the organisation. The explosive was generally made up in slabs of Atlas powder, obtained from, amongst other sources, the Atlas Company and the Repauno Chemical Company of Philadelphia.

Of the second group, only two men were brought to trial, Cunningham and Burton; and these men, for the attempts on the House of Commons and the Tower, were sentenced to penal servitude for life. The remainder, with the exception of Lomasney, escaped to America. Lomasney, in company with a man supposed to be named Fleming, met his fate under London Bridge in his attempt to blow up that structure. Luckily for the Londoners, the bridge escaped without any injury, but Mackay and his companion apparently came to their end by the discharge of the explosive, for they were never seen more.

There were two other men whose part in the Dynamite Campaign of this period deserves mention. These were “Jack” Daly, as he was called, and his confederate, J. F. Egan, who were tried and sentenced at Warwick in 1884, the former to imprisonment for life, and the latter to penal servitude for twenty years. Daly was perhaps the most daring and desperate criminal of all, and his intended crime merits special reference. This was the blowing up of the House of Commons while in session, by the throwing of bombs on to the table in front of the Speaker. So ardent was Daly in planning this foul enterprise that he twice gained admission to the Strangers’ Gallery of the House. When arrested, some of these bombs were found upon him, and examination showed that one of them, if used, would have been quite sufficient to send every stick and stone, to say nothing of the members of the House of Commons themselves, heavenwards or thereabouts. Luckily, this desperate man was arrested in time, for assuredly his character was quite sufficient to warrant the belief that he would have carried out his intention.[3]