society, with Cusack recalling that:
About the middle of April Jeremiah O’Donovan (Rossa) and McCarty or Carte called in a covered car for Cusack and took him to Clonakilty, where they collected a number of tradesmen, had drink and swore them in. It was supposed this was the beginning of society in Clonakilty.24
These constabulary reports were forwarded to the government, and new Resident Magistrate, George Fitzmaurice, was purposely sent down from the North to monitor their activities, taking residence in Skibbereen in December. Having interviewed the local constabulary and magistrates, Fitzmaurice expressed his desire to put down secret societies in Cork. Upon arrival it had been recommended to him that he should enforce crime and outrage acts against the Phoenix Society or introduce a proclamation offering a large reward for information. Fitzmaurice was against both and insisted that if he could get someone within the movement to act as a spy, to give him regular information and break the movement from within, ‘he would take care of him’.25
One of these informers that Fitzmaurice began to ‘take care of’ was Dan O’Sullivan Goula, a process server originally from Kenmare, who had been sworn into the movement in August 1858. O’Sullivan Goula had moved from County Kerry to Skibbereen where he took rooms in Morty Dowling’s pub. Befriending Dowling, O’Sullivan Goula quickly joined the Skibbereen Phoenix men. He was placed within the movement at the behest of George Fitzmaurice to gather intelligence as to who the society consisted of, what it was doing and where they would meet. Parallel to the work of Fitzmaurice and O’Sullivan Goula, the new Resident Magistrate also moved in extra police to the locality in preparation for moving against the Phoenix Society.26 Rossa recollected how he regularly met with Goula and saw him playing with Dowling’s children, and in hindsight recalled how this endearing man entertaining his friends’ children was actually engaged in swearing Dowling and his comrades into jail. Parallel to official concern as to the activities of the Phoenix Society, there was growing recognition within the local Catholic clergy that something was afoot in the community. The Catholic Church had steadfastly opposed all secret societies and forms of oath taking, particularly in Skibbereen where the Eucharist had been politicised and men known to the clergy of being active in the Phoenix Society were in some cases refused the sacrament of Eucharist and absolution from confession unless they renounced their oath.
At Caheragh, County Cork, the parish priest, Fr David Dore, threatened his congregation with excommunication from the Catholic Church if they took an oath to the Phoenix Society. A police constable in attendance at the sermon noted how Dore was an energetic opponent of secret conspiracy, exclaiming how it was ‘folly to try and separate Ireland from England’.27 In nearby Kerry, at Listowel, the Rev. McCormick ‘told his flock to hand over to Police anyone who might ask them to be sworn’.28 At Kenmare, Fr John O’Sullivan was of a similar opinion and regularly denounced the Phoenix Society and any ambition to lead a rising against Britain. In one powerful sermon, O’Sullivan denounced the ambition of revolution and conspiracy, holding that ‘the laws of England are better than those of France’.29 So powerful were his sermons against secret conspiracy that a Phoenix man came to him to confess that he had taken an oath. Learning from the communicant in the confessional that the Phoenix Society was now being organised as a secret, oath-bound society, O’Sullivan informed Dublin Castle of what he understood to be an extensive conspiracy, telling them that he had the names of men involved and the oaths they had taken. These oaths were forwarded on to Dublin Castle, with the names of what he termed ‘misguided young men’.30 On 3 December 1858 Dublin Castle issued a proclamation acknowledging the danger posed by secret societies. Such was the extent of the government’s determination to undermine secret societies, that the state offered a reward of £100 for information leading to the conviction of individuals who had administered oaths. The substantial reward was consolidated by an offer of £50 for the arrest of anyone who was proven to be a member of a secret society.31
Aside from his political activity, O’Donovan Rossa had applied to become the Skibbereen postmaster in November 1858. His interest in the job had been spurred by the former postmaster, Owen Leonard, who, after an administrative error, was forced to resign his position. Writing an application to the British government, it was evident that he did not take the job seriously and wrote a poem to Lord Colchester, the Post Master General. In his application to Colchester, he stated in verse:
I trust I’ll meet with no disaster,
Till you address me as postmaster,
Excuse my Lord, the wish most fervent,
I have to be your lordships servant!32
O’Donovan Rossa received a curt response stating that the position was not yet open for recruitment. By 6 December 1858, George Fitzmaurice had made up his mind to move against the Phoenix Society and arrest all of those suspected of active membership in the organisation. Fitzmaurice and F.J. Davies, the Resident Magistrate at Bantry, agreed that the arrests of the Phoenix men were to take place simultaneously, and in a major blow to the morale of the organisation, were to take place in Kerry, Bantry and Skibbereen.33 The arrests were spurred by a police report from a Sub-Inspector Curling, stationed at Kenmare, who claimed that 300 pikes had been smuggled into Skibbereen and were passed to leading figures within the Phoenix Society. According to the Sub-Inspector, the pikes were to be followed by arms and were going to be distributed throughout neighbouring Bantry, Glengarrif and Kenmare. The following morning at 4 a.m., police stormed O’Donovan Rossa’s home, and from memory he wrote that:
I went to bed and was soon aroused from sleep by a thundering knocking at the hall door. When it was opened a dozen policemen rushed in and took charge of me and everyone in the house. Then every room was ransacked for papers, and for everything contraband of war – contraband of peace, I may say. I stood in the drawing room under arrest. The sergeant-in-command was smashing the drawers of the chiffonier in search of documents. My wife rushed toward him, crying out not to break the drawers, as she would get the keys. He rudely shoved her away.34
A family friend, Tom O’Shea, had been staying in the house that evening and with O’Donovan Rossa was arrested on suspicion of being involved with the Phoenix Society. O’Shea had no involvement with the Phoenix Society, but was incredibly superstitious and held a great fear of fairies; he had been too afraid to go home that evening, for fear of a fairy puck at nearby Steam Mill Cross and so O’Donovan Rossa had allowed him to stay at his house for the night. O’Shea and Rossa were taken to the local police barracks where they were greeted by several Phoenix men including, John Stack, P. J. Dowling, Timothy Duggan, Morty Dowling, William O’Shea and Dan McCartie. McCartie had been due to leave Skibbereen the following day to start a new job in a brewery in Galway.35 Held in Skibbereen Barracks until mid-morning, they were then escorted by individual policemen through Roscarbery and Clonakilty to Bandon, County Cork. The Freeman’s Journal reported that on leaving Skibbereen by three train coaches, and under heavy police escort, the prisoners were cheered and applauded by spectators, with the prisoners themselves joining in the cheering and calling upon the crowd to be louder.36 Arriving in Bandon at 7 p.m., O’Donovan Rossa met Jerrie and Pat Cullinane, William O’Shea and Denis O’Sullivan, who had all been arrested at Bantry as part of the investigations into the Phoenix Society.37 O’Donovan Rossa despondently recalled how the conditions at Bantry, prior to their removal to Cork, were horrendous, and ‘arriving at nine in the evening we were huddled into cells flooded with water. Having travelled all day under rain, and having received neither food nor drink, we now would get neither bread nor a bed. Next morning we found ourselves in Cork Jail, awaiting prosecution on charges of conspiracy’.38 Following on from the Cork arrests, police raided the homes of several advanced nationalists in Killarney, arresting Denis O’Shea, Patrick Hennessy, Jeremiah Sullivan, Patrick Sullivan, Valentine Browne, Thomas Neary, Timothy Leary, Thomas Leahy and Thomas Sullivan. Two additional men in Killarney, Daniel O’Sullivan, a schoolteacher in possession of an incriminating letter, and Florence O’Sullivan, later consolidated these arrests. In Belfast a great stir was occasioned as a final batch of arrests was made against several Ribbonmen, whom the media wrongly believed were implicated in the Phoenix society.
In Cork Jail each of the Phoenix men were separated and treated as ordinary prisoners by being given menial tasks common to Victorian prison life. This included oakum picking, the rather laborious chore of unravelling