The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1907-07-27
The Fact That There Were Thousands of
Irish Brought to Virginia is Abso-
=" lutely Indisputable.
An Object Lesson in How Many Of the
Family Names in the South Were
Twisted Out of Recognition.

| the stone floor of the corridors could
distinctly hear the boys making the
responses to the prayers from behind
the heavy, cunabrous, nail-studded
doors of their cells, just as they could
hear me offering up the prayers. This
we did daily. I never had more de-
votional penitents in m life than the
condemned Irishmen of Stafford Jail.
"One morning I missed one of them.
He had been taken before l arrived by
the Governor to the prison gate, a free
pardon put into his hand and told to
go. This was Mcguire. Two days be-
fore the date appointed for the execu-
ton Edward O'Meagher Condor was
similarly treated. Then we began to
think that after all the dread penalty
of the law would not be carried out to
its fullest extreme. There was hope,
and strong one, that the remaining
prisoners. if not pardoned, at any rate
would receive o. seprieve.r = *4.ls
ALLEN, you know. thess1nonsignor
went on. was charged with having
fired the shot that blew off the lock
and killed Sergeant, Brett. The lad
he was only 10 years of age-pointed
out that the bullet that killed Sergeant
Brett was fired from an Old horse pis-
tol and would not fit the tiny revolver
that ha earried Thie 1,-oe ,,o;,+ +h,4
for some reason or another was never
adduced in Aliens favor. Larkin. too,
was charged with having brought the
van to standstill by shooting one of
the leading horses"
Sure, father, never handled a pis-
tol or fired shot in my life" the poor
fellow told Father Gadd.
The day before the execution" con-
tinued the monsignor, Il received a
threatening letter in which the writer
declared that if attended on the scaf-
fold 1 would be shot from the railway
bridge. You know, feeling ran very
high in those days. We can, happily,
scarcely realize now the depths to
which racial and party passions stirred
people in Manchester forty years ago.
Thank God, those days are gone by.
Under the circumstances, however, I
thought 1t just as we'll to take the need
full precaution to call in on my lawyer,
as was passing his Office, and ask him
to help to put my little affairs in or
der. But I was on the scaffold all the
same"
The morning of Saturday, November
%. came, but no reprieve. Seen from
the city, the battlements of the New
Bailey Prison assumed the proportions
of huge fortress. A great crowd of
inhuman ghouls from the purlieus of
Deansgate and the slums of the city
and the borough had been gathered for
hours in the streets abutting on the
Jail. and had made the night and the
early morning hideous with the raucus
bacchanalian strains of champagne
Charley" John Brown and Rule
Britannia" No Irish mingled with the
trong to gaze on the scene on the
scaffold. They had obeyed the in
structions Of their clergy. Throughout
Manchester and Stafford silent congre-
cations, with tear-stained faces and
hearts throbbing with thousand emo
tions. assembled in the various church,
es for the celebration of early Mass
for the eternal welfare of the young
Irishmen doomed to die dreadful
death that morning.
Father Gadd was in the prison the
whole night. At a quarter to the
condemned men were aroused from
tranquil and profound slumbers. Mass
was celebrated. at which they each re.
ceived last Holy Communion. "At
quarter to Calcraft and his assist
ant" the Manchester Guardian" re.
ports. were introduced into a cell in
which the prisoners were placed, and
the process of pinioning their arms