confession from a priest who did not know him. The priest, however, had a suspicion about his politics and asked him if he belonged to a secret society, where Rossa accordingly told him he belonged to a movement ‘sworn to fight for Ireland’s freedom’. His confessor refused to give O’Donovan Rossa absolution on account of his membership, and before leaving the confession box he angrily told the priest: ‘I do not want absolution for it…. Tis for my sins I seek absolution, not for my virtues.’13 Unable to receive confession and a formal licence he made for Clonakilty, where he found that Mary Jane’s father had relented in his opposition to the marriage. As at Skibbereen and Cork, however, there were more difficulties with the Church, as the priest, Fr Leader, would not marry the couple, stressing that O’Donovan Rossa needed to see the Bishop before the priest could relent. As he needed to leave for England on Fenian business the following day, he could not consent to a meeting with the Bishop and threatened to marry Mary Jane in Cork City, which Fr Leader felt would set a bad example for local girls, as she was leaving the parish with an unmarried man. Eventually forcing an order for the marriage from the Curate of the parish, the couple were married in the Parish Hall on 22 October 1864 and set off for England on what O’Donovan Rossa termed ‘a honeymoon conspiracy tour’.14
Spending a month in Britain, O’Donovan Rossa and his new wife travelled through Liverpool, Blackburn, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Recalling his travels as ‘the honeymoon life of an Irish traveling conspirator’,15 he met with Irish centres throughout Irish hamlets and districts. Returning to Ireland from Scotland, O’Donovan Rossa made a tour of Belfast and then returned to Dublin with Mary Jane. Mary Jane was an active poet and contributed regularly to The Irish People, using the pseudonym, Cliodhna. Mary Jane was a soul mate for the twice-widowed O’Donovan Rossa and mirrored his love of songs, poetry and politics. Within their family life they had endearing nicknames for each other, with O’Donovan Rossa calling his wife ‘Mollis’, an Irish language term of endearment, and Mary referring to him by the sobriquets of Dear, Cariss or Rossa.16 Writing a poem about her husband, Mary Jane recalled how:
When first he called me ‘Mollis,’ he sighed,
And told me he loved one –
One other who was already his bride,
And I should love her for him – I cried;
Then he told me that other was Erin,
Oh! But my love is fair to see!
And, Erin, his fairness is all to thee –
Strong with a lion’s strength is he,
And gentle with doveling’s gentleness he,
My loved and Thine, Oh! Erin.
She was also a republican and staunchly supported her husband’s involvement in the IRB; she soon became a regular acquaintance of the secret central committee and of James Stephens. On account of her gender, Mary Jane was not entitled to membership, but she was active within the movement and regularly delivered and hid messages. Like many of the women associated with the IRB in the late nineteenth century, her involvement within republican politics was brushed aside within historiography and lost in the passage of time. According to John Devoy, women like Mary Jane were instrumental to the success of the evolution of the movement in Ireland, asserting:
They took no pledge, but were trusted by the men without one, were the keepers of important secrets, travelled from point to point bearing important messages… Not one woman betrayed a secret, proved false to the trust reposed in her, or by carelessness or indiscretion was responsible for any injury to the cause. It was a fine record for Irish womanhood.17
In March 1864, Pierce Nagle had been appointed to The Irish People as a part-time paper folder, making parcels for agents and suppliers. He had been vouched for by Denis Dowling Mulcahy and had worked at St Lawrence’s Chapel, Dublin, and was a teacher of English at the Mechanics Institute. Nagle, however, was working for Dublin Castle as an informer, handled by Sub-Inspector Hughes and Daniel Ryan of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and their intelligence unit, G-Division. Nagle was a walk-in informant and had approached Ryan as to the potential of working within Fenianism to recover good and reliable intelligence. He had warned Ryan, he later claimed, ‘about the danger of Fenianism and that the government ought to prevent it’.18 Despite having a man within The Irish People, Nagle was, initially, of little use. For all means and purposes he was a low-ranking Fenian activist who did not enjoy the confidence of the secret central committee at The Irish People and only worked two days a week at the newspaper. While Nagle could inform the Castle of who was behind the paper, and of conversations he had had with the newspaper’s management, his information was of little value. He had even been dismissed from the newspaper by James O’Connor, but upon the insistence of Thomas Clarke Luby, he was reinstated. Dublin Castle were eager to keep him on their payroll, however, and evidence exists that he was paid £41 by the State for a little over a year’s work. While Nagle’s information was insignificant, it did provide a means for the Castle to bring a low-intensity counter strategy against The Irish People, and learning of who was on its staff, they began a process of detailed surveillance of O’Donovan Rossa and his colleagues. From this they sought to build up an extensive profile of the Fenian movement. While The Irish People was operating and Nagle was keeping the Castle abreast of developments within the newspaper, the American Civil War was coming to a bloody conclusion. Irish-Americans, who were now demobilised, returned to their earlier activities within the Fenian Brotherhood and pressed for a rebellion in Ireland. To meet the demand of his members, on 10 August 1865 John O’Mahony had announced The Final Call of the Fenian Brotherhood, and this had dispatched hundreds of Irish-Americans to Ireland in what was increasingly looking like preparations for a rebellion. O’Donovan Rossa remembered that as a result of the Final Call, he met with hundreds of Irish-Americans including Colonel Michael Kirwin, and General Denis Burke. He was later introduced to Colonel Thomas Kelly, a native of Galway who had fought in the Union Army during the Civil War, and would become the future leader of the IRB, and General Frank Millen, a veteran of the Mexican Army, who became a key informant within the British counter-Fenian movement the following year.
In July 1865, Stephens had again sent O’Donovan Rossa to America where he was entrusted with dispatches for O’Mahony, James Stephens, Thomas Kelly and General Frank Millen. He sailed for America aboard the SS Cuba, and when he arrived in America he witnessed the continuous demobilisation of soldiers and remembered how he knew many of them through the Fenian Brotherhood. Listening to the accents of the soldiers as he waited for a train from Boston to New York City, he commented how someone unfamiliar with the American Civil War, on hearing the men speak, could be forgiven for thinking it to have been ‘an Irish war’.19 Finally meeting O’Mahony in New York, the Fenian leader questioned O’Donovan Rossa as to Irish politics and the current state of Ireland. Far removed from the realities of Irish life, O’Mahony asked him to stay in America and work as a representative of the Fenian Brotherhood. O’Mahony told O’Donovan Rossa that he was constantly asked about Ireland and the IRB but he could never adequately respond to his inquisitors. Resisting O’Mahony’s appeals, O’Donovan Rossa announced that his place was in Ireland, and despite the fact that his life would be significantly better in America, if a rebellion took place in Ireland he could not bear to miss it. Recalling his conversation with the Fenian leader, in 1885, he wrote: ‘If I stayed in America and the fight took place in Ireland. All the water between here and Ireland would not wash me from the stain of cowardice.’20 Before returning to Ireland, O’Mahony asked O’Donovan Rossa to accompany Fenian activists PJ Meehan, P. W. Dunne, and his sister, to Ireland.
Meehan had been given a letter by O’Mahony that requested the return of O’Donovan Rossa to America. Boarding the SS Cuba for a second time, O’Donovan Rossa, under the alias of Mr O’Donnell, recommended that Meehan passed O’Mahony’s letter to Dunne’s sister. Dunne would rather not include his sister in the conspiracy, however, and had argued that the dispatches would not be found as they were stitched into the sole of one of Meehan’s slippers. While Meehan had smuggled the dispatches into Ireland, he had lost them when he went to deliver them to James Stephens. Having lost the letters, there was, as a result, an internal tribunal on Meehan as many within the secret Executive Council believed he had lost the letters intentionally. O’Donovan Rossa provided the defence