ALLEN ,
LARKIN,
O’BRIEN ,
BARRET
DIED FOR IRELAND
NOV 23RD 1867.
FAR DEARER THE GRAVE OR THE PRISON ,
ILLUMED BY ONE PATRIOT’S NAME ,
THAN THE TROPHIES OF ALL WHO HAVE RISEN,
ON LIBERTY’S RUIN TO FAME.
GOD SAVE IRELAND.
One of many memorials erected in Ireland to the Manchester Martyrs .
William Philip Allen (1848-1867), Michael Larkin (1838-1867) and Michael O’Brien (1836-1867), were executed on the 23-11-1867 at New Bailey prison in Salford, Manchester by head hangman William Calcraft and they were buried in quicklime in the prison cemetery.
They were members of the I.R.B and were falsely accused of the murder of a policeman who was shot when two Fenian prisoners under armed guard in a prison van were freed by I.R.B . supporters in Manchester.
In 1868 their bodies were transferred to the new Strangeways Prison and when this gaol was being renovated in 1991, the remains of all those buried there were cremated and reinterred at Blackley cemetery in Manchester, but as the bodies of the Manchester Martyrs hadn’t been segregated, their ashes couldn’t be identified, and so efforts by the Irish government in 2006 to have them brought home to Ireland came to nothing.
Michael Barret , whose surname is on the inscription, was also convicted of the same offence and of the Clerkenwell prison explosion in London and he was executed in front of Newgate prison in London on May 26th 1868.
William Philip Allen was born near Tipperary Town in Apr 1848 to a Protestant father & a Catholic mother. When he was three yers old, the family moved to Bandon, Co. Cork.
Michael Larkin was born in Aug 1838 in the parish of Lusmagh, near Parsonstown, Co. Offaly.
Michael O'Brien was born circa 1836 in Ballymacoda in the parish of Kilmacdonagh, Co. Cork. His father was a substantial farmer but in 1856 the family were evicted from their home..
Michael Barrett was born circa 1841 in Drumnagreshial in the Ederney area of Co. Fermanagh.