At the head of one of the worst of these Irish organizations was an agitator who had been driven out of Ireland on account of his persistent attempts against the Government, named Patrick O’Halloran, but more commonly known as “Patsy.” It was by this assumed addition to his name that he was best known. The gang of which he was the acknowledged leader conceived the idea of using dynamite, either in its crude form or made up into “infernal machines,” for the destruction of property and life in England. It was the natural weapon of cowards, who fancied they saw in it a means to inflict serious injury on their enemy without his being able to strike back. It was eagerly adopted by numerous Irish “patriots,” and a school of murderers and destroyers arose, calling themselves “dynamiters.” These American societies collected the necessary funds and sent emissaries to England to purchase or carry with them dynamite for use in blowing up public buildings.
During 1884 two explosions, thus planned, took place in London railway-stations. They were so calculated as to render probable the greatest loss of life among the travelling public; but by lucky chances failed to do anything more than cause much destruction of property and a few slight wounds. In the winter of 1884–1885 explosions of a similar nature occurred in the Tower and the Parliament buildings. By these several innocent sight-seers, including a number of little children, were shockingly mutilated. Shortly afterwards the police discovered and frustrated a plot to blow up the entire auditorium of the Princess’s Theatre during an expected visit of the Prince of Wales to that place of amusement. The details were kept secret, however, in the hope of finding some clew to the perpetrators of the villany. Beyond the discovery that an unknown Irishman had brought the explosive with him from America in a crowded steamship, thus endangering the lives of several hundred passengers, nothing was definitely found out.
It was inevitable that these events should have the effect of hardening the English heart towards Ireland and increasing the unwillingness of the English Government to grant anything like home rule to a people which showed itself capable of such crimes, and which almost unanimously applauded them. Nor, considering the Irish character and the utter inability of the Irish mind to reason where its prejudices are involved, could it be thought strange that the English severity which these outrages compelled was accepted by the entire Irish populace as a sufficient excuse to throw aside every figment of humanity to which they had thus far laid claim, and to join themselves, heart and soul, to the most barbarous schemes of the vilest wretches who professed affection for “Poor Ireland.”
In the early winter of 1886–1887 a state dinner had been prepared at Windsor Castle. A large number of titled and prominent guests had been bidden, and it was announced that the Queen would honor the banquet by her presence. Owing to a detention of a few minutes in the arrival of the train from London, bringing several members of the Cabinet, the hour originally set for the dinner was, at the last moment, changed, and a short postponement of the dinner ordered. In this interval, and not ten minutes after the time at which, had the original arrangements been carried out, the guests would have entered the dining-hall, there occurred under it a terrible explosion, by which it was utterly wrecked. As it happened, no one was in the room except a servant, who was engaged in arranging the flowers upon the table. His death was instantaneous; and it was hours before the mangled remains of his body were exhumed from the smoking ruins.
The news of this direct attempt on the Queen’s life filled England with a perfect fury of revenge. Popular sentiment demanded the adoption of stringent measures for the suppression of “dynamitism” and the punishment of criminals engaged in it. A flood of bills was let loose upon Parliament, the enactment of the mildest of which would have resulted in the depopulation of Ireland and its transformation into an English colony. Meetings were held in every part of England and Scotland to express detestation of this attempt to murder the Queen. The newspapers were filled with the most sensational appeals and the most scorching invective aimed at Irishmen.
In the midst of this turmoil the police arrested Timothy Gallivan, an American, born in Massachusetts and educated in its common schools, but the son of an Irish immigrant, full of half-crazy ideas about his “duty” to Ireland, and fevered with anxiety in some way to “revenge” her upon her “oppressors.” Secreted in one of the hiding-places to which Gallivan was tracked were found papers constituting an extensive correspondence. They proved that Gallivan was an American; that he was a member of an Irish society in New York; that he held office in that society; that he had been sent to London as its accredited agent and representative and at its expense; that his instructions had been to cause the death, by dynamite explosion, of some member or members of the royal family, “the nearer the top the better;” and that he had associated with him, either before or after his arrival in London from New York, some twenty kindred spirits. The names of his fellow-conspirators were obtained, either from Gallivan’s papers or from the confessions of those whose identity had been therein disclosed. When once any Irish conspiracy began to be unravelled, there never failed to appear at least half as many “informers” as conspirators, eager to betray their associates for reward or safety. This was no exception. In less than two weeks from the date of the explosion in Windsor Castle, every detail of the plot was in the possession of the public, and twenty of the “dynamiters,” including their leader and chief, were in custody, with amply sufficient evidence in the way of documents, confessions, and corroborating circumstance to send them all to the gallows. By far the most important and significant feature, however, in the whole murderous affair was the amount of proof it put into the hands of the police that the crime was exclusively Irish-American in its inception, its details, its payment, and even the personnel of the criminals.
Armed with this proof, the British Government peremptorily demanded of the United States that the Irish societies within its jurisdiction which were engaged in this crime be put down, and that action be taken to prevent further attacks on England by their associate organizations. The Secretary of State unquestionably appreciated the justice of the British demand. Unfortunately, however, for both parties, the British note was couched in a dictatorial and offensive style. Even this a man of the Secretary of State’s common sense would doubtless have excused as the natural outcome of a justifiable indignation, had not an incautious employé in his department allowed a copy of the note to fall into the possession of a New York daily newspaper. In twenty-four hours it had been read by every dynamiter in the country capable of spelling out words. Congress and the executive departments were promptly made to feel that upon the tone of the answer to England’s demand depended the political support of more than a million voters, whose withdrawal would insure the crushing defeat of the party then in power.
It was the same position in which the men who ruled in Congress and in the administration had been placed many a time before, confronting the question whether to do that which was clearly right and trust to a future public sentiment to justify them, or to throw conscience and judgment overboard, trim sails to the political squall of the moment, and hope for the chance at some indefinite future of using the power thus retained to undo the wrong committed in holding it. Popular sentiment had often enough shown that the man who did right to his own detriment was regarded as an impractical fellow, a theorist, a “doctrinaire.” It was the man who succeeded, who attained power the soonest and retained it the longest, no matter by what tricks or sacrifices of conscience, who was looked upon as “smart” and admired for his “ability.” So, when this time again the question came home to the men in place and station whether they could afford to do right and lose the support of the only element which gave their party hope of success in the North and West, or bow to the blast and continue in possession of the Government for four or eight years more, they yielded as they had become accustomed to yield in all similar dilemmas.
A curt and sarcastic reply was despatched from Washington to the English note, and care was taken that it should be published as widely in the United States as that document had been. It was received with a roar of Irish triumph. A few journals criticised it; but they soon found that there was so much resentment at the offensive tone of the British letter even among men who sympathized least with the Irish plot that the Secretary’s snub caused fully as much quiet enjoyment as annoyance. Other correspondence followed between the two foreign offices in constantly angrier spirit, and the spring of 1887 found both nations standing on the very verge of war, waiting only for some overt casus belli to draw the sword against each other.