Parallel to the rise of the Phoenix Society in West Cork, in 1858 several former Young Irelanders had met in Lombard Street, Dublin, including James Stephens, Thomas Clarke Luby, Joseph Denieffe and Peter Langan. Here they founded a secret, oath-bound revolutionary movement called the Brotherhood. James Stephens became the autocratic leader of the Brotherhood, earning the official title of Chief Organiser of the Irish Republic. James Stephens was the sole director of Fenian policy and strategy; the entire direction of the movement was left to his sole arbitration. In this regard, Stephens jealously held the reins of power within the burgeoning movement and no one, not even those within his inner council, was allowed to share power and authority. In effect everyone, even those with whom he was closely associated, represented a perceived threat to his leadership and strategy. Later becoming known as the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, and then Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), this organisation was to function as a secret, clandestine, oath-bound society dedicated to the organisation of a rebellion in Ireland.
In this endeavour the IRB was to be supported by an American Auxiliary known as the Fenian Brotherhood. While both of these organisations were organised independently of each other, they would become popularly known as the Fenians. This new organisation was conceived in New York by a circle of 1848 Rebellion veterans organised in the Emmet Monument Association centred around John O’Mahony, Michael Doheny and Joseph Denieffe. It was Denieffe who had originally made contact in Ireland with existing veterans of the 1848 Rebellion and started a process of revolutionary reorganisation. As part of a process of organising the movement, Stephens, with Thomas Clarke Luby, made a tour of every principle town and village in Ireland to meet like-minded individuals and establish the revolutionary society on a secure footing. Visiting West Cork, Stephens was determined to make the acquaintance of the Phoenix National and Literary Society. He considered the body to be a well-established organisation and could be amiable to a merger with the IRB. Arriving in Skibbereen in May 1858, one of Stephens’ first recruits to the IRB was O’Donovan Rossa, who actively worked on recruiting for the organisation and establishing an oath-bound network in West Cork amongst men of trusted opinions. Explaining his routine, O’Donovan Rossa recalled how he would drive to a chapel every Sunday morning with other IRB men and attend Mass and afterwards ‘get into conversation with the trustworthy men of the place, and we generally planted the seed of our mission there’.8 In his recollections he noted how he loved the thrill of recruiting in West Cork and knowing many of the people in the district, he was well trusted by those who he swore into the conspiracy. According to a fellow Fenian, John Devoy, O’Donovan Rossa was one of the most gifted of the Fenian organisers and during this time ‘began to sacrifice himself, his family and his interests at the very inception of the movement, and he continued to do it to his last conscious hour’.9 Such was the growth of the IRB within West Cork that Rossa recollected: ‘We were not long working when a great change was noticeable in the temper of the people. In the cellars, in the woods, and on the hillsides, we had our men drilling in the night time, and wars and rumours of wars were on the wings of the wind.’10
As part of the merging of the Phoenix Society with the IRB it was understood that the American Auxiliary, the Fenian Brotherhood, would provide arms and military instructors to the men in West Cork. True to the agreement between the IRB and the Phoenix Society, by October 1858 an Irish-American officer, Colonel P. J. Dowling, had arrived in Skibbereen to train the Phoenix men in styles of warfare and combat. Each evening under the moonlight, and protected by sentries, O’Donovan Rossa and his colleagues would climb mountains or make for forests and woods to drill and practice military formation under Dowling’s tuition. Here they would drill with pikes, guns and other weapons in preparation for the IRB ambition of revolution. Each member was trained in the use of a rifle, and part of their drilling would involve rifle practice, while those who could not afford to pay arms would pay one shilling per week to eventually get an advance on arms from a senior officer.11 As the training progressed O’Donovan Rossa was more confident of the imminence of insurrection – he was increasingly self-assured by being a member of the IRB, a figure in a movement that would inevitably strike a blow for rebellion. The West Cork Fenians had also come to believe that the rebellion would be a clean fight between the entire country and the British Army; they had James Stephens’ personal assurances that within the Irish Republic, ‘landlordism would be abolished and every man would be his own landlord’.12
Despite the security precautions taken, the West Cork drillings had come to the notice of the Irish Constabulary, who increasingly began to monitor the individuals taking part. Internal police correspondence indicates that the local constabulary were growing anxious as to the activities of the Phoenix men. Sub-Inspector Mason of the local Skibbereen police, making internal investigations of their activities, believed the society to be ‘strongly disaffected’, and ‘a revival of the Young Ireland party of 1848’.13 One of Mason’s senior officials recommended that the best way of dealing with the Phoenix Society was ‘to be vigilant in watching their movements and proceedings of the society and ascertain if possible the nature of the oath and find some person who will dispose to it and the individuals concerned in administering it’.14 They received confirmation from a former member, Robert Cusack, that the Phoenix Society was oath-bound. Police believed the oath to be:
I [NAME] to sincerely swear in the presence of God that I renounce all allegiance to the Queen of England and that I will yield implicit obedience to the commands of my superiors and that I will keep secret regarding this brotherhood. That I will take up arms and fight at a moment’s warning and finally that I take this oath without any mental reservation. So help me God.15
Examining the validity of this oath, police discovered that there was no set oath as such, but confirming that Cusack’s recollection of an oath was correct, police discovered the following verse, which Cusack had omitted: ‘That I will do my upmost at any risk to make Ireland an independent Democratic Republic.’16
Sub Inspector Mason, rather ominously, warned Dublin Castle that ‘the society is spreading. Not long ago they did not number over a dozen in the town and are now over 100, it is also spreading in the country.’17 F. J. Davies, a Royal Magistrate at Bantry, wrote to Dublin Castle of a system of intimidation with a base in Skibbereen ‘endeavouring to coerce persons to join the Phoenix Society’.18 Consolidating this report, at Bantry, Sub-Inspector Caulfield, on the basis of an informant’s information, warned of a conspiracy with access to widespread rifles and pikes. His information had warned that the Phoenix Society was committed to an uprising and when the time would come, ‘police barracks would be first attacked and if the men gave up their arms they would not be injured, but if not they would be severely dealt with’.19 The weapons he spoke of were supposedly purchased by ‘a considerable sum of money’ collected in America.20 In this regard the local police were convinced that:
The object of the Phoenix Society is to keep alive a spirit of hatred to the British Crown and government. [It] was formed under the direct of and is in close communication with a similar one in America which supplies funds. [They] are making every exertion to procure arms and are having pikes made.21
According to the police network, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa was the ringleader of the Phoenix Society and needed close observation.22 He was officially regarded as ‘one of the strictest members at Skibbereen’.23 Relying on