plea to guilty, Dan O’Sullivan would be released from jail on a similar bond of assurance of good behaviour.
The Phoenix prisoners remained stubbornly opposed to pleading guilty at the Summer Assizes; McCarthy Dowling stressed to them that if they failed to change their plea they would not get bail and would remain lodged at Cork Jail. O’Donovan Rossa, Dowling and William O’Shea were allowed to discuss the terms proposed by the state. They remained opposed to pleading guilty, yet they had other interests outside. O’Donovan Rossa in particular was hit hard by his imprisonment and his family were unable to pay debts to creditors. There was also a dispute between his landlord and another man as to who actually owned the home O’Donovan Rossa’s family lived in, forcing his wife and their four children to move into another house. Leaving the decision to O’Donovan Rossa as to how the prisoners were to respond to the state’s offer, Dowling and O’Shea deferred to him. O’Donovan Rossa reluctantly recommended they change their plea. It had been hard for him to come to this decision and he recalled that the Phoenix men outside of the prison had suggested that the IRB was dead, and James Stephens had fled to France in the wake of the Phoenix arrests. Arriving at the Cork Summer Assizes in July 1859, as recommended by O’Donovan Rossa, the Phoenix prisoners agreed to the state’s terms and were released without charge with an understanding that if they continued in conspiracy they would be arrested and imprisoned. To their vexation, despite the state’s offer, Dan O’Sullivan remained imprisoned. O’Donovan Rossa furiously wrote to McCarthy Dowling, accusing the state of reneging on their agreement and threatened to go to the newspapers unless something was immediately done for his imprisoned comrade. It was not until October 1859 that Daniel O’Sullivan was released.
Freed from Cork Jail, O’Donovan Rossa returned home to Skibbereen to a lost family home and a temporary residence. Considering how his name had been heavily publicised in the local newspapers in relation to the Phoenix arrests, and his plea of guilty to charges of conspiracy, the O’Donovan Rossa’s were increasingly ostracised within the local community from all but a loyal gathering of friends and those of similar nationalist opinions. Equally, the landlords, the clergy and the local magistrates used all of their influence to undermine his business within the community and discourage trade. Many of his more wealthy customers who formerly patronised his shop now abandoned his business; he became increasingly reliant on poorer and less well-to-do customers, which affected his income. To carry on his business, in terms of practicalities, his customers would often have to visit his family home when making orders or addressing commercial matters. Following his arrest, however, many of his customers were unwilling to come to his home considering police interest in his activities and a fear of being drawn to the attention of the police. There was also a further practical concern for O’Donovan Rossa: his business traded alcohol, and on each occasion when he sought a licence to trade, the police obstructed it. True to character, O’Donovan Rossa always challenged the police opposition to a renewal of his licence, and putting him to much expense and trouble, he would appeal the decision to not renew his licence to a superior court. On each occasion he won, considering that ‘no charge of keeping an irregular house could be sustained’.54 This continued opposition to the renewal of his alcohol licence represented for O’Donovan Rossa part of what he perceived to be an official ‘system of terrorism,’ designed to subvert his business arising from his political beliefs.55 Symbolically, within his shop, O’Donovan Rossa also chose to display a gun and a pike ostensibly this was to warn off potential thieves or burglars, but in reality was to prove to those interested in advanced nationalism that there was no problem with the owning of a weapon. Considering whom he was, however, and that he had pleaded guilty of conspiracy, he was approached on several occasions by Charles O’Connell, the new Resident Magistrate appointed to replace George Fitzmaurice. O’Connell, despite his position, was representative of the constitutional nationalist persuasion and was married to Kathleen O’Connell, Daniel O’Connell’s daughter. O’Connell had warned O’Donovan Rossa that the gun and pike had to be removed from his shop at once as he was ‘disturbing the community’.56 O’Donovan Rossa protested that their display was not illegal and he would be keeping them above his counter. Pressing O’Connell as to who in the community was protesting against his display, O’Connell explained it caused great alarm to the respectable people in Skibbereen, and that if they were not removed, he would have O’Donovan Rossa brought up for sentence in Court on his plea of guilty the previous year. Displaying his rebellious streak, before ejecting O’Connell from his shop, O’Donovan Rossa angrily exclaimed that: ‘Respectable people are honest people and are in no way afraid of having a rifle or pike in my shop; that it was robbers, and thieves who were afraid of such things and I would not give up my rights for such things.’57
Within days, McCarthy Dowling, O’Donovan Rossa’s solicitor, followed up O’Connell’s visit to the Skibbereen shop. It was apparent to O’Donovan Rossa that O’Connell had been talking with McCarthy Dowling about the rifle and pike display. McCarthy Dowling pleaded with O’Donovan Rossa to take down the offending display and give it to him, where he would keep it in safe possession. O’Donovan Rossa still refused to oblige the request. In fact, in direct contravention to what O’Connell had demanded and what McCarthy Dowling had asked, O’Donovan Rossa and his friend, Tim Duggan, would publicly polish the rifle and pike every Sunday morning outside his shop in a marked display of resistance. O’Connell then dispatched the police to see O’Donovan Rossa and complained that Duggan was not polishing the weapons but showing people how to use them. Warned by the police that a report was being sent to Dublin Castle, and reminding O’Donovan Rossa that he was only released from jail on assurances of good behaviour, the police demanded the rifle and pike to be surrendered at once. Once again, O’Donovan Rossa protested that he was doing no wrong and was legally entitled to carry arms. McCarthy Dowling again pleaded with O’Donovan Rossa to allow him take the rifle and pike and hold it in trust. With increasing pressure from McCarthy Dowling and Resident Magistrate O’Connell, O’Donovan Rossa finally conceded that he would have to surrender his arms. True to form, however, in surrendering these arms, with a friend, William McCarthy, both men marched in military formation through the town to McCarthy Dowling’s home, carrying the weapons. McCarthy had the rifle tied across his shoulder, and O’Donovan Rossa carried the pike. What made the spectacle more surreal was that it was market day in Skibbereen, and the town was thronged with people. Making their appearance in the town centre, the pair was surrounded by bemused and astonished onlookers, O’Donovan Rossa remembered the occasion with pride:
It was market day, and both of us walked through the town, showing the people we could carry arms, making our act of surrender as prideful as possible to our cause, and as disagreeable as it could be to English stipendiaries.58
One of O’Donovan Rossa’s greatest critics was a Dr Michael O’Hea, the Catholic Bishop of Ross. Ironically, O’Hea, while a parish priest, had given O’Donovan Rossa a character reference in his youth, describing him as a ‘smart intelligent young lad’, who was ‘honest and trustworthy’.59 O’Hea became quite vocal in his denunciations of O’Donovan Rossa and the Phoenix Society to the extent that he encouraged his parishioners to boycott the businesses of those involved. According to O’Donovan Rossa, the Bishop of Ross also ‘challenged a man and his wife in the confessional for frequenting’ the O’Donovan Rossa family home.60 The Bishop firmly believed that the O’Donovan Rossas needed to be ostracised within the community less their radicalism spread. Recalling the Bishop of Ross as he tried to rebuild his business, O’Donovan Rossa ironically noted: ‘I am sure he never recognized in the “young lad” to whom he gave that character when he was parish priest the young man who troubled him so much when he was Bishop.’61 The Bishop of Ross need not have concerned himself with the politics of the O’Donovan Rossa family, however, as soon after this, Nora O’Donovan Rossa fell ill and died in 1859. She was not a supporter of her husband’s politics and had serious disagreement with his political activism; and it was speculated that her illness, which remains unknown, was brought on by the stress of her husband’s imprisonment. Her death left O’Donovan Rossa widowed, financially broken and in charge of four young children. Writing to his friend, John O’Donovan, to explain his loss, he received a sympathetic note in return:
You are young and vigorous; and time, the dulce molimen – the soft soother – will finally reduce your grief to a softer sadness. Your imprisonment must have weighed heavily on