So, that while James Stephens, for his side of the house, saw the good and the necessity of bringing his chief men together at the McManus funeral, the other side of the house, with all the experience of government they have on record, were pretty well able to give a good guess at what it all meant.
Not that England doesn’t know that the mass of the Irish people are always discontented, disaffected and rebellious—and have reasons to be so—but that they would be organized into a body actively preparing for fight is what strikes terror to her heart. The Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood were so preparing, secretly preparing, but circumstances connected with the necessity of receiving a promised or expected assistance from America—that was not received—which circumstances I will show further on—developed things so, that the organization soon became as much a public one as a private one. We were assailed publicly in many ways and by many parties, and we had to defend ourselves publicly, and thus show ourselves to our enemies as well as to our friends. Twenty-five years ago I wrote a book called “O’Donovan Rossa’s Prison Life.” I see in it some passages in relation to those times of 1861, 1862 and 1863, and I cannot do better than reproduce them here. After that, I will introduce some letters, I have, written by John O’Mahony, James Stephens, and others, that give a very fair idea of the difficulties that beset the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood in Ireland, and Fenianism in America, at the starting of the movement.
Rossa’s book says:
“I found the people under the impression that if any kind of military weapon was found with them they would be sent to jail. Is was hard to disabuse them of this, and I took a practical method of doing it.
“I was in possession of an Enfield rifle and bayonet, a sword, and an old Croppy pike, with a hook and hatchet on it, formidable enough to frighten any coward, and these I hung up in a conspicuous part of my store; and yet this would not even satisfy some that they could keep these articles with impunity, and I had many a wise head giving me advice. But when I have satisfied myself that a thing is right, and I make up my mind to do it, I can listen very attentively to those who, in kindness, would advise me, for the purpose of dissuading me from a course inimical, perhaps, to my own interests, while at the same time I can be firm in my resolve to have my own way as soon as my adviser is gone. The arms remained in their place, and on fair days and market days it was amusing to see young peasants bringing in their companions to see the sight. “Feuch! feuch! Look! look!” would be the first exclamation on entering the shop; and never did artist survey a work of art more composedly than would some of those boys leaning on their elbows on the counter, admire the treasured weapons they longed to use one day in defence of the cause of their fatherland.
“At the end of a few years the people were fully persuaded that they could keep arms in defiance of the police. It would answer the ends of government very well, if the authorities by keeping the people scared could keep them unarmed without the passing of arms acts and other repressive measures, that look so very ugly to the world. If England could keep her face clean—if she could carry the phylacteries—if she could have the Bible on her lips and the devil in her deeds, without any of the devil’s work being seen, she would be in her glory.
“My pikes were doing great mischief in the community it seems, and rumors were going around that others were getting pikes, too. Tim Duggan, whom I spoke of as being in Cork Jail was employed in my shop. Tim should always be employed at some mischief, and taking down the pikes one day to take some of the rust off them, no place would satisfy him to sit burnishing them but outside the door. This he did to annoy a very officious sergeant-of-the-police, named Brosnahan, who was on duty outside the store. Next day I was sent for by my friend McCarthy Downing, who was Chairman of the Town Commissioners, and magistrate of the town. He told me that the magistrates were after having a meeting, and had a long talk about what occurred the day before. Brosnahan represented that not alone was Tim Duggan cleaning the pikes, but showing the people how they could be used with effect—what beautiful things they were for frightening exterminating landlords and all other tools of tyranny. Mr. Downing asked me if I would deliver up the arms, and I said, certainly not. He said the magistrates were about to make a report to the Castle of the matter. I said I did wot care what reports they made; the law allowed me to hold such things, and hold them I would while the district was not ‘proclaimed.’
“Now,” added he, “for peace sake, I ask you, as a personal favor, to give them up to me; I will keep them for you in my own house, and I pledge you my word that when you want them, I will give them to you.”
“Well,” replied I, “as you make so serious a matter of it, you can have them.”